What sets the price
Three things move a fractional CMO’s rate: experience, sector and scope.
Experience is the big one. Someone who has run marketing at scale, built teams and managed real budgets charges more than a consultant who has relabelled themselves “fractional”. The UK market has both. A 2026 survey of 113 UK fractional marketing leaders found 38% earning under £5,000 a month and 4% earning over £20,000. The spread is the experience gap.
Sector adds a premium where the rules are strict: financial services, healthcare, anything regulated. So does AI-native marketing, because few people can do it properly yet.
Scope is the part you control. Owning the strategy, leading the team and managing the agencies is one job. Advising once a month is another. Agree the scope first and the price follows.
What you get for it
Done properly, the job covers four things. Owning the strategy and tying it to the revenue number the board cares about. Leading the in-house team and the agencies, including deciding who to hire next. Building the reporting that connects spend to leads, sales and margin. And making sure the work gets done, hands on where it’s needed.
What you don’t get is a full-time presence. A fractional CMO works a set number of days a month, agreed up front. If your business needs someone in the building every day, you need a full-time hire and the cost that comes with it.
Fractional versus full-time
The arithmetic is simple. At two days a week, a fractional CMO costs around 40% of a full-time one. You usually get a more experienced person for it, because the fractional model attracts people who’ve already done the big job. The April 2025 rise in employer National Insurance made the gap wider.
The trade-off is availability. If the honest answer is “we need a marketing director in every meeting”, fractional is the wrong model. A good fractional CMO will tell you so on the first call.
Fractional versus an agency
An agency sells execution in one or two channels and reports on its own work. A fractional CMO sits on your side of the table, owns the whole function, and decides what the agencies should be doing. The two aren’t alternatives. Most businesses with a fractional CMO still use agencies. They just get more out of them, because someone senior is briefing them and holding them to a number.
If you have no team and no agencies, and you need campaigns run, an agency is the better first purchase. If you have a team and a budget but nobody senior steering it, that’s the fractional CMO’s job.
How to judge whether it’s worth it
Ask for three things before you sign. A written diagnosis of your marketing within the first month, so you know what’s actually wrong. A plan with three measurable outcomes the CMO will be judged on. And a review date, usually at ninety days, where you decide to expand, hold or stop.
If a fractional CMO can’t tell you how the engagement starts, what the first ninety days deliver and how it ends, the day rate isn’t the problem.
What I charge
A set number of days a month at a day rate, agreed up front, with a three-month term to start. Every engagement begins with a diagnosis and a one-page plan. So you know what it costs and what it should move before you commit to anything beyond that. The quickest way to find out whether the numbers work for your business is a 30-minute call, with your numbers in front of us.
