A fractional CMO gives you a board-level marketing leader for a day or two a week. The question I'm asked most is what it costs. Here are the numbers, what drives them, and how to work out whether it will pay back.
Typical UK costs
Rates vary with experience and sector, but these are realistic ranges for the UK:
- Day rate: around £1,200 to £1,500 for a CMO with board-level experience at well-known businesses.
- Monthly retainer: around £4,000 to £8,000 for one to two days a week.
- Generalist marketing consultants: more like £400 to £600 a day, but that is a different level of experience.
For comparison, a full-time CMO costs £250,000 or more a year once you add salary, bonus, pension, National Insurance and recruitment fees.
My own fractional CMO support starts at £3,500 a month for around a day a week, with a three-month minimum.
What you're paying for
You're not buying hours. You're buying judgement that took decades to build: knowing which lever to pull first, what good looks like, and which mistakes to avoid because they've been made before.
Some businesses see marketing as the people who "do the ads and the POS". I see it differently. Marketing exists to put the customer front and centre of every decision. That means understanding what customers need, finding what gets in their way, working with the rest of the business to fix it, and then building a trade plan and communications that bring them in. A good fractional CMO does all of that, and has the customer at the table in every meeting.
What affects the price
- Time commitment. One day a week costs less than two. Many engagements start heavier and reduce once the plan is in place.
- Scope. Leading a team and agencies across brand, trading, ecommerce and insight is a bigger job than advising on one area.
- Sector experience. A specialist who knows your sector gets to the answer faster. In retail, that means understanding weekly trading, margin, buyers and stores.
- Length of engagement. Longer commitments usually bring a lower effective day rate.
Fractional, full-time or agency?
- Full-time CMO: right when marketing is a full-time leadership job and you can afford it. Expensive to get wrong.
- Agency: good at delivering a channel, such as paid search or social. An agency won't own your overall plan or challenge your proposition.
- Fractional CMO: right when you need senior direction but not five days a week of it. You get someone accountable for the commercial result, inside your leadership team.
How to judge whether it's worth it
Do the maths the way your finance director would. If you trade at a 15% gross margin, a £3,500 monthly fee needs about £23,000 of extra sales a month to break even. In a business turning over £10m, that is under 3% growth.
Then look at both sides of the ledger. A fractional CMO should find savings as well as growth. A proper review of marketing spend almost always finds money going on customers who would have bought anyway.
When not to hire one
If your business is very small, you probably don't need ongoing leadership yet. A one-off strategy session or a marketing health check will give you a plan to follow yourself. And if the real problem is product, price or availability, fix that first. Marketing can't sell what customers don't want.