A fractional CFO typically costs $3,000 to $12,000 per month on retainer, or $150 to $450 per hour for defined work. That compares with $200,000 to $500,000+ per year for a full-time CFO once salary, bonus, equity and employment costs are counted. Most founders start smaller: a free strategy call, or a $129 pitch deck review, before committing to a retainer.
I have been a CFO for 25 years, raised $300M+ for the companies I have worked with, and now work fractionally with founders across the UK, Europe, Africa and the Middle East. These are the ranges I see in the market and use in my own practice.
| Model | Typical price | Best for |
|---|---|---|
| Monthly retainer | $3,000 to $12,000/mo | Ongoing finance leadership: reporting, forecasting, board packs, fundraising support. The most common model. |
| Hourly | $150 to $450/hr | Ad hoc advice and short defined tasks. Specialised fundraising work sits at the top of the range. |
| Project fee | $5,000 to $25,000 | Defined deliverables: a full fundraising pack, an investor-grade financial model, preparation for a raise. |
| Full-time CFO (for comparison) | $200K to $500K+/yr | Usually justified above roughly $50M revenue, heavy transaction volume, or IPO preparation. |
Where you land inside the retainer range comes down to four things: stage (a pre-seed founder needing a monthly forecast is not a Series A company with investor reporting), complexity (multiple entities, currencies and revenue lines cost more to manage than one product and one bank account), cadence (weekly involvement costs more than monthly), and fundraising, which is the biggest single driver. During an active raise, a fractional CFO’s involvement often doubles for two to three months, and specialised work such as building the model investors will stress-test commands the top of the hourly range.
Because “fractional CFO” is an unregulated label that covers two very different services. At one end is a part-time management accountant with a new title: they will produce your numbers, and $3,000 per month is paying for reporting. At the other end is someone who has sat in the CFO chair through raises, exits and scaling, and is bringing judgement: what the numbers mean, what investors will ask, which decision to make. When you compare quotes, you are rarely comparing like with like. The question that separates them is simple: has this person raised money and faced investors as a CFO, or only prepared accounts?
The full-time comparison founders make is usually salary only, and it understates the true cost by close to half. A $250,000 CFO salary becomes $350,000 to $500,000 once you add bonus, equity, employer taxes, benefits and recruitment fees, and you carry that fixed cost whether or not there is CFO-level work to do every week. A fractional engagement at $5,000 per month is $60,000 per year, roughly 80 to 90 percent less, and it scales up during a raise and down after it. For most companies between $1M and $50M revenue, the volume of genuinely strategic finance work does not fill a full-time executive’s week, which is why the fractional market has been growing at over 100 percent year on year.
A proper retainer, typically 2 to 8 days per month, should include a monthly close review and management accounts you can trust, a rolling cashflow forecast so runway is never a surprise, board-level reporting, and availability between sessions for the decisions that cannot wait. If you are raising, it should include the fundraising layer: an investor-grade financial model, a deck whose numbers reconcile with that model line for line, preparation for the questions investors will actually ask, and support through diligence. If a quote does not clearly include these, ask what it does include before comparing prices.
Honestly: not everyone should hire one. If your books are a mess, fix bookkeeping first; a CFO working on top of bad data is expensive triage. If you are pre-revenue and pre-raise, a course or a one-off review is better value than a retainer. And past roughly $50M revenue or serious transaction volume, the coordination load usually justifies a full-time hire, often paired with a strong controller. A good fractional CFO will tell you which of these you are rather than sell you a retainer.
Four entry points, in ascending commitment. A free 30 minute strategy call to diagnose where you are and whether you need a CFO at all. A $129 pitch deck review: I read your deck the way an investor will and send back a slide-by-slide write-up plus the twenty questions they are going to ask. A done-for-you fundraising pack from $5,000, where I build the deck, model and plan myself. And fractional retainers in the $3,000 to $12,000 per month range depending on scope, delivered remotely across the UK, Europe, Africa and the Middle East, with onsite work for certain projects. Founders who only need the documents, not the engagement, use InvestorReady.AI: a complete investor pack from $399 in 24 to 48 hours.
A free 30 minute strategy call. I will tell you honestly whether you need a fractional CFO, a one-off review, or just better documents. No retainer required — UK, Europe, Africa and the Middle East.
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