What a fractional CTO costs

Fractional CTO pricing is all over the place, and most of what is published is written to sell you one. Here are the market ranges, what moves the number, and how I price my own work.

The market, in real numbers

Monthly retainers run from roughly $3,000 to $15,000, depending on cadence and how hands-on the person is. Senior people who bill by the hour typically charge $250 to $500.

How I price

Fixed price, agreed before we start. Every engagement begins with a scoped piece of work, usually the engineering assessment, so you know the number before you commit.

Month to month after that. If you want me to stay on, we agree a monthly fee once we both know what the work is. No long-term lock-in.

I do not sell hours. Hourly billing rewards the slow version of the job.

What moves the number

Cadence. One day a week is a different product from a standing advisory call, and both are sold as “fractional CTO.” Ask any candidate how many days a month they are actually committing, and what happens when you need them outside that.

Whether they build. A large part of this market advises only. That is a real service and it is cheaper per month. It is also useless on its own if you have nobody to execute what gets advised, and paying for advice you cannot act on is the most expensive thing on this page. I build, review, and take responsibility for the result, which is why one person can cover a function that used to need a small team.

Production responsibility. Someone who owns your uptime is carrying pager risk, and that is priced in. Someone who reviews your architecture on Thursdays is not.

Agency or individual. An agency’s number carries salespeople, account managers, and utilisation targets. Sometimes that overhead buys you real continuity — an individual can get sick. Often it buys you a junior doing the work with a senior name on the invoice. Ask who is actually doing it.

What it compares against

A full-time CTO. $180k–$250k plus equity, benefits, payroll overhead, and a recruiting process that runs three to six months before anyone starts. At the stage where you would be underusing that person, it is a poor trade. At the stage where you genuinely need them five days a week, it is the right one, and you should hire.

A senior engineer. $150k plus benefits and recruiting, and you still do not have anyone making architectural or vendor decisions — you have someone excellent at executing decisions that nobody is making.

An agency. Higher monthly, real capacity, and a structural problem at handover: their incentive is the next statement of work, not your ability to operate without them. Good ones manage this honestly. It is worth asking directly what happens when the engagement ends.

Doing nothing. Genuinely the right answer sometimes, and it has a price too. It is the cost of the decisions you defer because nobody can evaluate them, the infrastructure bill nobody has audited, and the pace you do not move at. It is just harder to see, because it never arrives as an invoice.

What you get for it

For a retainer, the honest description is: I own the technical side. Architecture and vendor decisions. Delivery. Infrastructure, hosting, monitoring, backups, security. The hard calls, made and explained in plain English. And I am still there in month nine, which is the part that actually matters and the part nobody can demonstrate in a sales conversation.

One person, one invoice, accountable from vision to production.

When it is not worth it

Your software is stable and nothing is changing. Pay someone for occasional maintenance and spend the money elsewhere. A retainer for a system that needs nothing is waste.

You need hands, not judgment. If the decisions are made and you need throughput, hire contractors or an agency. That is a different purchase.

You are pre-revenue with no runway. Fixed-price on the smallest thing that proves the idea, not a retainer. Anyone selling a pre-revenue company a long-term monthly commitment is optimising for themselves.

You need someone five days a week. Hire. If it is genuinely a full-time job, fractional is a worse version of the answer for more money per hour.

Common questions

How much does a fractional CTO cost per month?

Across the market, monthly retainers run roughly $3,000 to $15,000 depending on cadence and how hands-on the person is. I price by fixed fee instead: a scoped assessment first, then a month-to-month arrangement agreed once we both know what the work is. The wide range is mostly about days per month and whether the person writes code or only advises — advisory-only is cheaper per month and considerably more expensive per outcome if you have nobody to execute.

Why do fractional CTO rates vary so much?

Four things move the number: how many days a month you need, whether the person builds or only advises, whether they carry production responsibility at unsociable hours, and whether you are buying an individual or an agency with overhead to cover. An advisory call once a fortnight and someone who owns your uptime are genuinely different products, and both get sold under the same title.

Is a fractional CTO cheaper than hiring a full-time CTO?

Substantially, at the stage where you would be underusing a full-time one. A full-time technical executive in North America runs $180k to $250k plus equity, benefits, and a recruiting cycle measured in months. A retainer is a fraction of that with no severance risk. The economics invert once you genuinely need someone five days a week — at that point you should hire, and a good fractional CTO will tell you when you have crossed the line.

What is the cheapest way to start?

A scoped fixed-price project, such as an engineering assessment. It lets you find out whether the working relationship is any good before committing to a monthly number. Most of my ongoing work starts as a fixed-price project; almost none start as a retainer on day one, and I would be a little suspicious of anyone pushing you straight into a twelve-month agreement.

Find out what yours would be

Thirty minutes, no charge, and no proposal theatre afterwards. If the answer is that you should not hire me, I will say so on the call.

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