Pricing guide by Helen Forsyth, Fractional CCO
How Much Does a
Fractional CCO Cost?
A guide with my own numbers in it: what a UK fractional Chief Commercial Officer costs, what drives the figure up or down, what you are and are not paying for, and how the total compares with hiring the same seniority full-time.
The short answer
My fractional CCO retainers start from £1,800 per month, the minimum retainer, and scale with the business need and the time required. Every engagement is quoted on the work in front of it, not against a published package.
I work outside IR35, so the retainer is the whole cost. There is no employer National Insurance, no pension contribution, no holiday or sick pay, no benefits, no equity dilution, and no recruitment fee.
For comparison, the same seniority full-time (a Sales Director or VP Sales in the UK) is typically £80,000–£150,000 per year plus OTE, employer NI, pension and benefits, plus a recruitment fee and a three to four month hiring process before anyone speaks to a customer.
Part 01
Why you will struggle to find a straight market answer
Search for fractional executive rates and you will find figures that disagree with each other by a factor of five. The reason is that “a day a week” is not a unit of work.
One fractional CCO’s day a week is a strategy review and a board paper. Another’s includes building the Ideal Customer Profile, rewriting the proposition, restructuring the pipeline and personally running the outreach to prove it converts. Those are different jobs at the same nominal time commitment, and no published rate card can distinguish between them.
So rather than asking for the day rate, ask “what will be different in 90 days, and who is doing the work?” If the answer to the second half is “your team, guided by me,” you are buying advice, and you should price it as advice.
Part 02
What determines the fee
Five things move the number, in roughly this order of impact:
- How much has to be built from nothing. A business with a tested ICP and a working pipeline needs less foundational work than one where every commercial assumption is still an assumption.
- Time required per month. Foundation-building is more intensive than running an established motion. Most engagements start heavier and settle down.
- How much hands-on execution is in scope. Designing the pipeline is one thing; running the outreach, pitching and negotiating personally is another, and it takes considerably more time.
- Complexity of the commercial model. Multiple products, multiple buyer types, channel or partner routes, or an international dimension all add work.
- Whether recruitment and handover are included. Writing the brief, sifting, interviewing and onboarding a permanent commercial hire is a distinct piece of work at the end of an engagement.
Your funding round, how urgent the board has decided this is and how much you have previously paid a consultancy do not move it. The fee reflects the work.
Part 03
What the retainer includes
Scope is agreed per engagement, but this is the shape of it:
Included as standard
- Ideal Customer Profile research, definition and testing
- Value proposition and core messaging
- Go-to-market strategy and channel selection
- Pricing and commercial model review
- Pipeline design, stages and conversion metrics
- CRM structure and reporting discipline
- Hands-on outreach, pitching and negotiation
- Sales and marketing alignment under one owner
- Documented, transferable process for the team that follows
Scoped and quoted separately
- Recruitment of the permanent commercial hire
- Extended non-executive or advisory continuation
- Significant travel or long-term on-site presence
- Paid media budget, tooling and software licences
- Design, build or content production resource
- Anything requiring a third party you would pay directly
Third-party costs are always yours and always visible. I do not mark up media spend or software, because a commercial adviser with a financial interest in one channel cannot advise you impartially.
Part 04
The comparison to make
Compare the total commitment, not the headline figure. The retainer and the salary are not equivalent units.
| Fractional CCO | Full-time commercial hire | |
|---|---|---|
| Headline cost | From £1,800 per month, scaled to need | £80,000–£150,000 per year base |
| On top of that | Nothing. The retainer is the cost. | OTE, employer NI, pension, benefits, equity |
| Recruitment cost | None | Typically 15–25% of first-year salary |
| Time to first customer conversation | Days | Three to four months of hiring, then onboarding |
| Notice and exit | Short, contractual | Notice period, possible settlement, re-hire cost |
| If the commercial direction turns out wrong | You change it. Cost is proportionate and reversible. | You have built a team around a strategy that does not work |
| What you are buying | Senior commercial foundations, built and proven, then handed over | Permanent capacity to run a commercial function that already works |
The last row is where the decision sits. If your commercial function already works and you need it run at scale, hire full-time, because it is the better value. If the foundations are missing or broken, a permanent hire is a bet on a direction nobody has validated yet, and the fractional route lets you validate it first. That argument is set out at length in the first sales hire mistake.
Part 05
Why there is no proposal and no fixed package
I do not write proposals. A proposal takes an hour and most people skip straight to the fee page, so I would rather give you the hour than the document.
After a free 30-minute intro call, I offer a free working session instead. You bring one current problem and we troubleshoot it live. The session is scoped around that problem, so it takes the time it needs rather than a fixed slot.
A proposal only proves my fee model. A working session shows whether I am the right person for the job. If we both want to proceed afterwards, we agree the scope; one example is a 90-day plan with measurable outcomes. Then the retainer starts. If we do not, you have had free commercial consultancy and saved yourself an expensive hiring mistake.
The same logic applies to packaged tiers. Bronze, silver and gold retainers are priced for the seller’s convenience, and they force the work to fit the package. Quoting on the time the work needs is harder to display on a pricing page, but it is a fairer basis for the price.
Part 06
The cost of getting this wrong
Any pricing conversation should include the alternatives, so here they are.
- The wrong permanent hire. Base salary plus recruitment fee plus twelve months of lost commercial progress, then the same vacancy and the same underlying problem. That is comfortably a six-figure error.
- Continued founder-led selling past its limit. Rarely on any budget line, and usually the most expensive option there is, because the constraint is the founder’s calendar and no amount of effort widens it.
- Agency spend against an unvalidated proposition. Paying for skilled delivery of the wrong message to the wrong buyer produces excellent reporting and no revenue.
None of this means fractional is always the right answer. It means the retainer should be compared against the cost of the alternatives rather than against zero.
Part 07
How the commercial arrangement works
Monthly retainer, invoiced monthly
From £1,800 per month, scaled to the business need and the time required. No timesheets, no minimum-term lock-in beyond the agreed plan.
Outside IR35
I am responsible for my own tax, National Insurance and pension, so you carry none of the employment overhead of a senior hire. It is easy to onboard and there is no long-term employment commitment. See the IR35 guide for what that means on your side.
An agreed plan with outcomes attached, for example over 90 days
Every engagement starts with an agreed plan containing measurable goals. You can hold me to it, and if the leading indicators are not moving we change the approach.
Designed to end
The point is to build a commercial foundation that outlasts the engagement, then help you hire the person who runs it. A retainer that never ends is a sign the work is not transferring.
Questions
Pricing questions
How much does a fractional CCO cost per month in the UK?
My retainers start from £1,800 per month, the minimum retainer, and scale with the time and scope the work requires. Published market figures vary widely because a nominal day a week can mean anything from a strategy review to building and personally running a commercial function, so compare what is being delivered rather than the rate.
Do you charge a day rate?
I mainly work on a monthly retainer, from £1,800 per month, because commercial architecture is not delivered in discrete billable days. Where a day rate applies, it is £1,800. Each project is quoted on the time required to deliver the agreed outcomes.
Is there a minimum commitment?
One way an engagement can run is with a 90-day plan, because building and testing a commercial foundation often takes that long to show results. It is an example, not a fixed package or guaranteed scope. Beyond that, the arrangement continues monthly for as long as it is useful. There is no multi-year lock-in.
What is not included in the retainer?
Third-party costs are always yours and always visible: paid media budget, software licences, tooling, and any design, build or content production resource. Recruitment of your permanent commercial hire and extended advisory or non-executive continuation are scoped and quoted separately. I do not mark up media spend or software.
Is a fractional CCO cheaper than hiring full-time?
In cash terms, usually much cheaper, because the retainer carries no employer National Insurance, pension, benefits, equity or recruitment fee. But the right comparison depends on what you need. If your commercial function already works and needs running at scale, a full-time hire is better value. If the foundations are missing, a permanent hire is a bet on an unvalidated direction.
Will you write a proposal so I can compare quotes?
No, and I appreciate that is inconvenient if you are running a formal comparison. I offer a free working session on one of your current problems instead of the paperwork. It costs you nothing, it takes the time the problem needs, and it tells you far more about whether I can do the job than a document I wrote about myself.
What happens to the cost if you are only needed for one day a week?
That is the normal shape of it. Most engagements run at one to three days a week, and the fee reflects the time and scope agreed. Foundation-building periods tend to be more intensive and often settle down once the foundations are in place and running.
Get a number for your business
Book a free 30-minute call, tell me what needs building, and I will tell you what it would take and what it would cost. If you do not need a fractional CCO, I will tell you that instead.
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