FOR B2B FOUNDERS WHOSE GROWTH HAS STALLED SOMEWHERE BETWEEN $1M AND $15M
Fractional CMO or Full-Time? I've Held the Job Both Ways. Here's When Each One Wins.
A full-time CMO at a company your size costs $310,000 to $410,000 a year fully loaded, before equity. A full-time VP of sales, $360,000 to $520,000. A full-time CRO in the US, $400,000 to $700,000 or more.
I've run marketing and sales in every revenue role I've held since 1999, up to chief revenue officer with the board meeting on my calendar. Since 2020 I've done it fractionally, as a fractional CMO and as a fractional CRO.
So here's the comparison from someone who's been on both sides of it, including when you should skip me and hire full-time.
The Question Isn't Which One's Cheaper. It's Which One Goes First.
Most comparisons of fractional and full-time were written by a fractional executive, and they make the same case: fractional costs less. It's true, and it's the least useful thing to know. If cost were the whole question, you'd have decided already.
They're built for different jobs. A full-time executive is priced, hired and measured to run a function: take a marketing team that works, or a revenue organization that works, and make it bigger. That's what $310,000 and up buys, and it's worth it when there's something to run.
A fractional executive is there to build it. Decide who you're for and why you win, get everyone telling that story the same way, put in the channels and the process and the measurement, and write all of it down on your systems. Then hand it to someone.
Hire in the wrong order and you pay for it. Hire a full-time executive into a function that works, and they start by improving it. Hire one into a function that doesn't, and they spend however long it takes inventing it, on a full-time salary, against a job description you wrote without ever having seen the job done.
That has a name: an out-of-order fix. You pay to fix prospecting while your positioning is still broken, and the money leaks somewhere you can't see.
I once walked into a role where the CEO had fired round after round of people in marketing and sales. By the time I got there, he was out of patience, and I couldn't blame him. He wanted outbound prospecting fixed, now, and he couldn't tell me who his market was.
We tried it his way, and it didn't work. So we went back, begrudgingly, fixed positioning, then moved forward to prospecting. Predictably, it worked.
As the hire, I did it his way first. Without an equity stake, I can say so on day one.
I've been on both sides of the hire. As the full-time hire, I walked into companies that needed building and companies that needed running, and the first year goes better when there's something to run. Now, as a fractional executive, I do the building, so whoever comes after me has something to run.
What It Costs to Build the Function, and What It Costs to Hire Someone to Run It
If it's marketing you need led
Full-time CMO
Fractional CMO, from me
If it's sales you need led
Full-time VP of sales
Fractional VP of Sales, from me
If it's marketing and sales
A full-time CMO and a sales chief
Full-time CRO
Fractional CRO, from me
What "fully loaded" means. Base salary, then the bonus on top of it (20% to 30%), payroll taxes and benefits (28% to 35% more), and the search firm's fee (25% to 30% of first-year salary). The offer letter shows the base. The company pays all of it, plus the equity.
And my numbers are all of it. Month to month, paid in advance. No equity, no severance, no bonus, no minimum term, no notice period.
Priced on what I'm accountable for, never on hours. Every engagement is remote.
Even at the top of each range, the fractional role costs less than the floor of the full-time hire it resembles. At the top of the Fractional CRO band, it's $286,000 a year under the cheapest pair of hires, and $16,000 under the cheapest full-time CRO.
Hire Full-Time Too Early and You're Hiring for a Job Nobody's Seen Done
If you've never had marketing work, you've never seen the job done. So you write a job description from other companies' job descriptions, you interview people who are very good at interviews, and you pick the one who sounded most like they knew what they were doing.
Nobody would have done better with what you had.
That's also how a lot of companies end up with a VP of marketing who can run a team but has never built one, or a promising hire everyone hoped would grow into it.
And "permanent" is shorter than it sounds. At the largest US companies, chief marketing officers hold the job for a little over four years on average, less time than the CEO, the CFO or the head of HR.
Other counts run shorter. In one database of 14,000 executives, CMOs and CROs held the job about a year and nine months, and CEOs more than four years.
The search comes before that clock starts, three to six months of it, and the first three months or so in the job go to getting up to speed. So the stretch where a company gets what it's paying for is shorter than either number.
If it's marketing and sales, you make that hire twice. Hire a full-time CMO and a full-time head of sales as peers and you've built the argument between them into the org chart, and you're the only one who can settle it. That's the structure a CRO exists to replace. Why One Leader Over Both Works →
Build the function first, then hire someone to run it. Someone who's done the job builds it on your systems while you watch.
I fix revenue with the RevenueEngine™: four fixes, always in the same order (positioning, messaging, prospecting, sales), so every dollar goes to the fix that comes next and nothing gets built on one that's broken.
Then, when you hire full-time, you're hiring for a job you've watched done, and the person you hire walks into a function that already works. Or someone on your own team has grown into it, with the playbook to run it.
I've worked in this order in every revenue role I've held since 1999, at companies that did more than $1B in revenue while I led their revenue teams. Revenue grew in every one, somewhere between 107% and 600%.
When You Should Hire Full-Time, and Skip Me
I'd rather lose the engagement than be the wrong answer. Full-time is the right call when:
Your marketing already works, or your revenue organization does. It needs someone to run it and grow it. That's the job a full-time executive is priced for, and they'll do it better than I will, because they'll do nothing else.
You need someone in the building. Every engagement I run is remote. If the situation needs an executive physically in the room every day, hire one.
You want the equity doing the work. A full-time executive with a real stake, vesting over years, is tied to the outcome in a way a monthly contract isn't. If that's what your board wants, it's a good reason.
The company has outgrown building. Several products, several markets, a team big enough that its leader has to be there daily. Past that point, hire full-time.
You already know exactly who you'd hire and why. Then you don't need someone to work out what the job is. Go make the offer.
And one reason that isn't a reason: a cheaper full-time title. A junior with a VP title and a raise is still a junior. You've probably already tried it.
Four Questions That Tell You Whether to Hire Full-Time Now or Fractional First
Yes to 1, 2 and 3: hire full-time, and don't let anyone talk you out of it, including me.
Yes to 4: I'm the wrong answer. Every engagement I run is remote.
Any other answer: fractional first.
Not sure how to answer 1 or 2? WeekZero™ will tell you. The plan it ends with says which of the four offers you need, if any.
Where it's broken picks the role. There are three where I do the fixing, and one where your team does ↓
How a Fractional Engagement Ends: With the Full-Time Hire, Into Something That Works
I don't sell fractional as a permanent answer. It ends one of two ways, and we both know which one we're aiming for from the first month.
You hire full-time, into a function that already works. You know what the job is because you've watched it done. You know what the numbers should look like because they're on your dashboard. And I'll help you write the job description and sit in on the interviews, so you're hiring for the real job.
Or someone on your team grows into it. They've worked beside me, and I've already made the mistakes they're about to make. They had it in them; they just didn't have the playbook. Now it's on your systems.
Either way, you keep everything I built.
Who Does the Fixing: Me, as Your CMO, VP of Sales or CRO, or Your Team, With My Advice
If you want me to do the fixing
Your marketing team needs a leader. Fractional CMO: I fix positioning and messaging, and build marketing's side of prospecting. Your marketing team reports to me; your head of sales stays a peer, reporting to you. $10,000 to $18,000 a month, remote. Fractional CMO →
Your sales team needs a leader. Fractional VP of Sales: I fix outbound and sales. Your sales team reports to me; your head of marketing stays a peer, reporting to you. $10,000 to $18,000 a month, remote. Fractional VP of Sales →
Marketing and sales blame each other. Fractional CRO: I fix all four, and both teams report to me. The revenue number is mine through renewal and expansion. $20,000 to $32,000 a month, remote. Fractional CRO →
If your team does the fixing
You want to keep running it, and know what to fix next. Advisory: you ask what to do next, and I tell you what, in what order and why. Nothing reports to me and no number is mine. $6,000 to $8,000 a month, remote. Advisory →
Every price, side by side: Pricing →
Fractional CMO or Full-Time: What Founders Ask Someone Who's Held the Job Both Ways
Is a fractional CMO cheaper than a full-time CMO?
Yes, by a lot. A full-time CMO at a company under $15M costs $310,000 to $410,000 a year fully loaded, plus equity. My fractional CMO role is $120,000 to $216,000 a year ($10,000 to $18,000 a month), remote, with no equity. Your marketing team reports to me; your head of sales stays a peer, reporting to you.
Cheaper's nice. Choose it because the function needs building before anyone can run it.
How much does a full-time CRO cost?
$400,000 to $700,000 or more a year fully loaded in the US, plus 1% to 2.5% of the company in equity, and three to six months to find one. My fractional CRO role is $240,000 to $384,000 a year ($20,000 to $32,000 a month), remote, with no equity. Marketing and sales report to me, and I report to you.
How much does a full-time VP of sales cost?
$360,000 to $520,000 a year fully loaded at a company under $15M, plus equity, and three to six months to find one. My fractional VP of sales role is $120,000 to $216,000 a year ($10,000 to $18,000 a month), remote, with no equity. Your sales team reports to me; your head of marketing stays a peer, reporting to you.
What does "fully loaded" mean?
Everything the hire costs the company, not just the salary: base, bonus (20% to 30%), payroll taxes and benefits (28% to 35% on top), and the search firm's fee (25% to 30% of first-year salary). Equity comes on top of that.
When should a company hire a full-time CMO?
When marketing already works and needs someone to run it and grow it, when the company can carry $310,000 or more a year plus equity for several years, and when you know the job well enough to hire for it. If any of those isn't true yet, build the function first.
Is a fractional executive as committed as a full-time one?
Committed differently. A full-time executive is committed by salary, equity and a contract.
I'm committed to the deliverables and dates we agree every month, which you hold me to, and you can end it at the end of any month. You won't have to wonder what I'm doing. It's on a list with a date next to it.
What happens when we hire full-time?
That's how it's supposed to end. The new hire walks into a function that already works, with the playbook, the process and the dashboards on your systems. I help with the handover, and then I'm gone.
Can a fractional executive help us hire the full-time one?
Yes. You'll have watched the job done, so we write the job description from what the role actually is, and I sit in on the interviews.
Would you take the job full-time?
No. I've held it full-time, and I know what it's for. This is the other job: building the function so the next person can run it.
Does fractional work if our marketing team is tiny or doesn't exist?
Yes, as long as there's someone to do the work, whether that's a small team, contractors or an agency. I direct the work and build the systems; I don't produce the ads and the content myself. If there's nobody at all to do it, the first job is hiring them, and that's part of the plan.
What about a fractional executive before we have product-market fit?
Don't. Before your customers love what you sell, a marketing or sales executive, fractional or full-time, sells the wrong thing faster. Find out who it's for first.
Do you take equity?
No. No equity, no severance, no notice period.
Find Out Whether You Need to Build It or Hire Someone to Run It
That's what WeekZero™ is for. Other firms charge to find what's broken. The closest published price is a demand agency's six-week revenue assessment: $35,000. Mine takes a week, and it's free.
Before you decide anything, I'll spend a week on your numbers and in conversations with you, the people who run your marketing and your sales, and your customers: deals you won and lost, and prospects who bought and who didn't.
Then an hour with you: here's what's working, here's what isn't, and here's whether the function needs building or running.
If it needs running, I'll tell you to go hire full-time, and you'll leave with a plan and a clear picture of the job to hire for. If it needs building, you'll know the order I'd build it in. You keep the plan either way.
Free: a week of analysis, a one-hour report-out, and an action plan you keep. I take one a week, because each one is a week of my time. NDA on request.
I work with B2B companies between $1M and $15M whose customers already love them.