Fractional CTO

Most growing businesses reach a point where technology decisions are too important to make without senior guidance — but not yet large enough to justify a full-time CTO. That gap is expensive when it goes unfilled.

What this looks like in practice

This isn't a support contract or a block of consulting hours. It's an ongoing leadership relationship where we function as your head of technology. That includes:

  • Technology strategy: A clear roadmap aligned to your business goals, revisited regularly as priorities shift
  • Architecture and build oversight: Ensuring the right decisions get made before they become expensive to change
  • Vendor and partner accountability: Evaluating proposals, managing external developers, and holding third parties to a standard
  • Hiring and team guidance: Helping you identify when and who to hire technically, and how to evaluate candidates
  • Executive-level communication: Translating technology into business terms for stakeholders, investors, or board conversations
  • Ongoing advisory access: A senior technical voice available when decisions need to be made quickly

Who this is for

Fractional CTO engagements are the right fit if:

  • You're a founder or business owner making technology decisions without a trusted technical partner
  • You have developers on staff or under contract but no senior leadership above them
  • You've experienced costly technical mistakes and want oversight that prevents the next one
  • You're growing and need a technology strategy that scales with the business, not just a system that works today

This is not a fit if you need a project built. For that, start with Discovery & Strategy.

How it works

We start with a structured conversation about your business, your current technology landscape, and where the gaps are. We've defined three engagement levels that reflect the most common patterns — and we'll confirm the right fit during that initial conversation.

Fractional CTO engagements run on a monthly retainer with a minimum three-month term. Scope, availability, and cadence are defined upfront so expectations are clear on both sides.

The difference it makes

The cost of bad technology decisions compounds over time. Rebuilds, missed integrations, wrong vendor choices, and unmaintainable codebases are all predictable outcomes when there's no senior technical leadership steering the ship.

A Fractional CTO doesn't just solve today's problem. They help you avoid tomorrow's.

What engagement looks like

Three levels of involvement, built around how your business needs technology leadership right now.

Advisory

Starting at $2,500 / month

A business owner who needs a trusted technical voice available but doesn't have enough technology complexity to justify deeper involvement. They're making occasional technology decisions — evaluating a new SaaS tool, questioning their MSP's recommendation, wondering if their current setup will scale — and they need someone qualified to call.

  • Monthly technology advisory summary
  • One scheduled touchpoint per month
  • Remote availability — response within one business day
  • Bi-Annual technology review
Not included: Vendor management, roadmap ownership, department discovery, development oversight, quarterly planning.

Strategic

Starting at $4,500 / month

A business with meaningful technology complexity — typically $1M–$5M in revenue — where the owner is making decisions that would benefit from senior technical oversight on an ongoing basis. They need someone who owns the technology function, not just answers questions about it.

  • Everything in Advisory
  • Technology roadmap — maintained and updated monthly
  • Biweekly owner touchpoint
  • MSP / vendor oversight
  • Contractor / development team oversight
  • Quarterly planning session
  • New vendor evaluation and recommendation
Not included: Company-wide department discovery, board-level representation, formal initiative ownership across multiple departments simultaneously.

Embedded

Starting at $7,000 / month

A business where technology is becoming a genuine competitive differentiator — or where it currently isn't and needs to be. The owner wants technology working proactively across the entire business, not reactively in response to problems.

  • Everything in Strategic
  • Department discovery program — structured sessions with each department head
  • Monthly business alignment meeting with department leads
  • Technology budget advisory
  • Board or investor representation
  • Proactive risk monitoring
Not included: Development execution, IT support functions covered by MSP, legal or financial advice adjacent to technology decisions.

What a roadmap looks like

A year of technology leadership, in practice. This is the kind of structured, prioritized plan a Fractional CTO engagement produces.

Q13
Vendor contract review
critical
Deploys break production weekly
critical
Remove shared admin password
high
Q23
Replace manual CSV exports
high
Sales team can't see order status
high
Three tools doing the same job
medium
Q33
Checkout drop-off on mobile
high
Board wants monthly revenue reporting
medium
Insurance renewal requires compliance
critical
Q42
Customers ask for self-service portal
medium
Black Friday crashed the site last year
high

Ready to talk about what technology leadership could look like for your business?

Let's discuss your current technology landscape and find the right engagement for your needs.

Schedule a Consultation