Published, because hiding it wastes your time.
Three engagement models. No setup fees, no long lock-in contracts, no referral commissions from any vendor I recommend. If these numbers are outside your range, you will know in ten seconds.
Growth Audit & Roadmap
Companies that need clarity before committing to a retainer, or a second opinion on an existing plan.
- Full audit across every channel, vendor, and system
- Funnel, channel, and attribution analysis
- Competitive and positioning assessment
- MarTech stack and tracking integrity review
- Agency contract and performance evaluation
- 90-day execution playbook with prioritized actions
- Two-hour findings presentation with your leadership team
Advisory
Roughly 10 hours a month. You have capable marketing leadership and want a senior second opinion.
- ~10 committed hours per month
- Monthly leadership working session
- Independent read on performance and spend
- Async access for decisions between sessions
- Quarterly board-ready assessment
- Hiring input on senior marketing roles
- 3, 6, or 12-month term
Core Fractional CMO
Roughly 8–10 hours a week. The standard engagement for a marketing function that has plateaued.
- ~35–45 committed hours per month
- Growth Audit delivered in month one
- Full marketing strategy ownership
- Agency selection, direction, and accountability
- Acquisition funnel and attribution architecture
- Bi-weekly strategy syncs with leadership
- Quarterly sprint planning against KPI targets
- Executive reporting the board can read
- 3, 6, or 12-month term
Scale-Up
Two days a week or more. Multiple channels, larger budgets, several agencies, or aggressive targets.
- ~60+ committed hours per month
- Everything in Core Fractional CMO
- Full budget allocation authority
- Weekly leadership presence and CEO access
- Creative direction and campaign approval
- Marketing org design and hiring support
- Board and investor reporting
- Multi-market and expansion strategy
- 6 or 12-month term
Media spend, software, agency fees, and production costs are billed separately and paid directly by you.
How engagements are actually structured.
Retainers are priced on committed hours, not deliverables. You are buying a defined amount of senior attention every month, and you decide how the term is set.
Hours per month
The default. A committed block — typically 10, 20, 40, or 60+ hours — used flexibly across strategy sessions, team direction, agency management, and analysis. Suits companies where the work varies week to week.
Hours per week
A fixed weekly commitment — one, two, or three days — with set days. Suits companies that want predictable presence: standing leadership meetings, a reliable cadence for the team, and a known point of escalation.
Term length
Three, six, or twelve months. Three is the honest floor for judging whether strategy is working. Six is the most common. Twelve carries the best rate and suits companies rebuilding the function rather than tuning it.
| Term | Best for | Rate | Notice |
|---|---|---|---|
| 3 months | Testing the working relationship, or a defined short-horizon problem | Standard | Runs month to month after term, 30 days’ notice |
| 6 months | Most engagements. Enough time for strategy to show in the numbers | Approximately 5–10% below standard | Reviewed at month five |
| 12 months | Rebuilding a marketing function, entering new markets, or scaling a team | Approximately 10–15% below standard | Reviewed quarterly |
Unused hours do not roll over indefinitely — a small carry is fine, but banking three months of unused time and expecting it in month four does not work for either of us. If your needs consistently run above or below the committed block, we resize it at the quarterly review rather than pretending the original number still fits.
What the alternatives actually cost.
The relevant comparison is not whether a retainer is expensive. It is what equivalent marketing leadership costs through every other available route.
- No recruiting fees, which typically run 20–25% of first-year salary
- No equity dilution
- No benefits, payroll tax, or severance exposure
- No 90-day ramp before the first meaningful decision
| Route | Typical Annual Cost | Trade-off |
|---|---|---|
| Full-time CMO | $300K–$450K + equity | Highest cost, full commitment, real severance and hiring risk |
| VP of Marketing | $180K–$240K | Strong execution leadership, generally below CMO strategic altitude |
| Marketing Director | $110K–$150K | Manages execution well; rarely positioned to reset strategy |
| Full-service agency | $120K–$300K | Executes campaigns; will not challenge the strategy that briefed them |
| Fractional CMO | $84K–$144K | Executive strategy part-time; requires an execution layer beneath it |
Ranges reflect typical US market compensation for context. Not quotes.
Frequently Asked Questions
Retainers are priced on committed hours per month, or a fixed number of days per week if you prefer predictable presence. Advisory is around ten hours monthly; Core Fractional CMO is roughly 35 to 45; Scale-Up is 60 or more. Hours cover strategy sessions, team and agency direction, analysis, and reporting — not media spend or execution labour.
We resize it at the quarterly review. A small month-to-month carry is fine, but consistently running 30 percent over or under means the block is wrong and we should change it rather than both pretending otherwise.
Because hiding it wastes everyone’s time. If these numbers are outside your range, you should know that in ten seconds rather than after two discovery calls. Marketing budgets are finite and I would rather you spend the conversation deciding whether this is right than discovering what it costs.
Retainers run on a three, six, or twelve-month term. Three months is the honest floor for judging whether strategic changes are working — anything shorter measures noise rather than results. Six-month and twelve-month terms carry a lower monthly rate because they let the work compound. The Growth Audit is a one-time project with no ongoing obligation.
Media spend, software and platform costs, agency and freelancer fees, and production costs for creative assets. I direct how those budgets are spent; they are paid directly by you to the vendors, which keeps the arrangement transparent and keeps me free of any incentive to inflate them.
Occasionally, as a component alongside a reduced cash retainer, and only where attribution is clean enough that performance can be measured honestly. Pure performance deals usually create bad incentives — they push toward short-term extraction rather than the brand and retention work that compounds.
Then you may be ready for a full-time CMO, and I will say so. A useful outcome of a fractional engagement is often defining the role precisely enough that your eventual full-time hire succeeds instead of becoming an expensive eighteen-month mistake.
Still deciding which tier fits?
Most companies start with the Growth Audit and move into a retainer once the priorities are clear. One call is usually enough to tell which of the three is right.
Free 30-minute call · No pitch deck · Direct answer either way