The proposal arrives with a monthly number on it and no obvious way to judge it. One firm quoted $2,000 a month. Another wanted $15,000. A third offered an hourly rate that looked reasonable until you multiplied it by the hours. All three described the service with the same two words, and none of them explained why the numbers were so far apart.
The confusion is not your fault. Fractional CFO is a title, not a scope, and price follows scope. This article lays out the market ranges we see for companies between $3M and $50M in revenue, what pushes a number up or down, what we charge as a reference point, and what a full-time CFO actually costs once you add the parts the salary survey leaves out. If you want to run your own numbers first, the fractional CFO cost calculator does the arithmetic.
Three pricing models, three different purchases
Most fractional CFO pricing falls into one of three shapes: hourly, monthly retainer, or embedded. They are not three prices for the same thing. They are three different products, and the right one depends on whether you need a project finished, a function led, or a seat filled.
Hourly
Hourly rates for experienced fractional CFOs commonly run from $150 to $400 an hour, with higher rates for restructuring, transaction support, and litigation work. Hourly fits a defined project with a defined end: a lender package, a pricing study, a quality-of-earnings response, a bank covenant negotiation. It fits poorly as a model for ongoing leadership, because the meter discourages the one phone call you most need someone to make. In our experience, owners on hourly arrangements stop calling right around the moment things get interesting.
Monthly retainer
Monthly retainers for companies in this size range commonly run from $3,000 to $12,000 a month, and the spread is almost entirely a function of cadence and ownership. At the low end you are buying a monthly financial review, a forecast refresh, and a standing call with someone who has seen your numbers before. At the high end you are buying weekly presence, direct management of the accounting staff, and a person whose name the banker knows. Both are legitimate. They are just not the same thing, and a proposal should say which one it is.
Embedded and interim
Embedded and interim arrangements, where the person functions as your CFO for a defined period rather than advising your CFO, commonly run from $10,000 to $25,000 a month and can go higher in a restructuring, a sale process, or a bankruptcy. You are paying for days rather than hours, for someone who signs the covenant compliance certificate, and for the fact that when the lender calls at 4:30 on a Friday, the call gets answered. Interim engagements are usually custom priced because the situation, not the calendar, sets the scope.
What actually drives the price
Two companies with identical revenue can justify very different fees. Revenue is a weak proxy for the work. What sets the number is complexity, condition, and who is watching. The following factors move a proposal more than any other:
- Entity count. Four operating companies and two holding entities with intercompany balances is a different job from one LLC, even at the same combined revenue.
- Transaction volume. A distributor with 4,000 invoices a month needs more supervision of the close than a consulting firm with 40.
- Condition of the books. If the balance sheet has not been reconciled since the last bookkeeper left, the first 90 days are cleanup, and cleanup is priced separately from leadership.
- Cadence. Monthly, weekly, or daily presence. Each step up roughly doubles the hours and changes what the person can be accountable for.
- Stakeholder demands. A bank covenant package, a bonding agent, an outside investor, or a bankruptcy court each add reporting that must be right and on time.
- Urgency. A forecast due to the lender in 10 days costs more than the same forecast built over 60.
- Industry. Construction, with job costing, WIP schedules, and retainage, carries more accounting mechanics than a comparable service business.
- On-site requirements. Remote work is the default for most engagements. Regular travel is a real cost and should appear as a line item.
When you read a proposal, look for these factors in the scope language. If a firm quotes one flat number without asking about entities, volume, condition, or stakeholders, it has not priced your company. It has priced its own calendar.
Our starting points, as a reference
For calibration, here are our own monthly starting points. They are starting points, not quotes. Final pricing reflects company size, transaction volume, entity count, reporting condition, urgency, cadence, and stakeholder demands. Legal, tax, audit, software, travel, one-time cleanup, and compressed deadlines are separate unless expressly included. The full detail is on the pricing page.
| Engagement | Starting point (monthly) | What it is built for |
|---|---|---|
| Fractional Controller | From $2,500 | Reliable close, reconciled balance sheet, clean monthly financials |
| Fractional CFO | From $3,500 | Forecast, KPIs, lender reporting, monthly leadership of the finance function |
| CFO Advisory | From $5,000 | Standing counsel for an owner who has an accounting team but no finance executive |
| Operating CFO | From $8,500 | Weekly operating presence, direct management of accounting staff, cash and covenant ownership |
| Embedded CFO | From $12,500+ | Functions as your CFO for a defined period, including restructurings and transactions |
| Interim Leadership | Custom | Fills a vacant Controller or CFO seat while you recruit, with a documented handoff |
Notice that the spread inside one firm is wider than the spread between most firms. That is the point. The cheapest line on the table and the most expensive line are different jobs, and the difference is measured in days per month and in what the person is accountable for.
What a full-time CFO costs all-in
The comparison most owners make is fractional fee versus full-time salary, and it flatters the full-time hire because salary is the smallest part of the bill that stays hidden. In our experience, the fully loaded cost of a full-time CFO for a company in this range has at least five components, and the offer letter only names one of them.
- Base salary. For a $3M to $50M private company, base salaries commonly fall between $175,000 and $300,000, higher in expensive metros, for multi-entity groups, and for construction or distribution businesses with heavy accounting mechanics.
- Payroll burden. Employer payroll taxes, health insurance, retirement match, and workers' compensation commonly add 20 to 30 percent on top of base.
- Bonus. A CFO at this level commonly expects an annual bonus of 15 to 30 percent of base tied to profit, cash, or a transaction.
- Equity or phantom equity. Many candidates at this level ask for a stake, a profits interest, or a change-of-control bonus. It is not cash today, but it is a real cost the day you sell.
- Recruiting and ramp. A retained search commonly costs 25 to 33 percent of first-year cash compensation. Then the person needs roughly 90 days to learn your business before producing anything you can use. If the hire does not work out, you pay the search twice.
Put together, an illustrative first-year cost looks like this. These are example numbers for a mid-range hire, not a survey result and not a quote.
| Cost item | Full-time CFO (example) | Fractional CFO (example) |
|---|---|---|
| Base salary or annual fee | $225,000 | $60,000 (at $5,000 per month) |
| Payroll burden at 25 percent | $56,250 | $0 (contractor) |
| Bonus at 20 percent of base | $45,000 | $0 |
| Recruiting fee at 30 percent of cash comp | $81,000 (one-time) | $0 |
| Equity or change-of-control | Deferred, real at exit | None |
| Ramp before useful output | Roughly 90 days | Typically 30 days or less |
| Illustrative year-one cash total | About $407,000 | About $60,000 |
| Illustrative ongoing annual cash | About $326,000 | About $60,000 |
The gap is large, but read it correctly. The full-time CFO is giving you roughly 2,000 hours a year. The fractional CFO in this example is giving you a fraction of that, by design. The right question is not which number is smaller. It is whether your company generates 2,000 hours of CFO-level work a year. Most companies under $50M do not. They generate 20 to 60 hours a month of work that requires a CFO, plus a great deal of accounting work that a Controller should own.
How to judge a proposal
A fractional CFO proposal should answer six questions in writing before you sign it. If it does not, ask, and watch how quickly the answers come.
- Who does the work. The person in the sales meeting or an associate you have not met. Both can be fine, but you should know.
- What the cadence is. Days on-site or on the calendar per month, and which meetings the CFO attends.
- What the deliverables are. A forecast, a monthly package, a KPI dashboard, a lender report. Named, with a delivery date.
- What is excluded. Cleanup, tax, audit support, system implementations, travel. Every proposal excludes something. The good ones say so.
- How the price changes. What happens if you add an entity, buy a company, or lose your bookkeeper in month three.
- How it ends. Whether the engagement is designed to hand off to a full-time hire, and what the documentation looks like when it does.
A low price with vague scope will cost more than a higher price with a clear one, because the vague scope gets renegotiated in month two, usually by email, usually at 9:00 on a Sunday night.
When fractional is the wrong answer
There are honest cases where a fractional CFO is a poor fit. If your company has enough finance work to keep a senior executive busy 50 hours a week, hire one. If you are raising institutional capital on a continuous basis, the investor will likely want a full-time name on the org chart. If the accounting function is broken at the foundation, a CFO of any kind cannot forecast from books that do not reconcile, and the first purchase should be a Controller or a cleanup.
The most common misfit we see is a company buying CFO hours to do Controller work. The forecast never gets built because the person is reconciling credit cards. If the fee is being spent on the close, you are overpaying for accounting and underbuying finance. The fractional CFO versus Controller decision deserves its own article, and it has one.
Where a fractional CFO fits
The fractional model exists because CFO work at this company size arrives in pulses. The bank renewal, the forecast, the pricing decision, the acquisition, the bad quarter. Between the pulses, a competent Controller and a clean close carry the load. A fractional CFO gives you the executive for the pulses and the standing judgment between them, at a cost that tracks the actual work rather than a full-time calendar.
In practice, the engagement starts with an assessment of where the finance function actually stands, moves into cleanup and stabilization if the books need it, installs the forecast and reporting cadence, documents how everything runs, and, when the company is ready, hands off to a full-time hire or a leaner steady state. The price should follow that arc. The first months are heavier. The later months should be lighter, and the proposal should say so.