Services · Pricing
How each engagement is priced
A retained day rate, a program quoted one phase at a time, a fixed-price audit. What is fixed, what varies, and when you get a number.
Short answer
Fractional CRM leadership is a retained day rate for the days agreed, reviewed quarterly, on one month’s notice. A lifecycle and retention program is quoted one phase at a time, starting with a fixed-price two-week diagnosis. The AI Marketing Audit is three weeks at fixed scope and price, the number of teams the only variable. Each gets a written scope with a figure on it before work starts.
What is fixed, and what moves it
None of the three is an estimate that grows. The scope carries the number, written down before anything starts.
What actually moves a price
- The size of the marketing organisation. The audit’s only variable.
- Days per week. Settled with you, reviewed each quarter.
- Which phase you are buying. Each is quoted separately.
- The state of the data underneath. Unqueryable history becomes phase one.
I take no vendor commission and no licence to sell you, so nothing recommended here is paid for by somebody else.
- Seat
- Retained day rate, reviewed quarterly
- Program
- Quoted per phase
- Audit
- Fixed scope, fixed price, three weeks
- Notice
- One month on the seat, both ways
- You get
- Me, for the days agreed — no bench
- Not in it
- Platform licences and media
Fractional leadership, priced
A retained day rate for the days a week we agree. A day buys the roadmap, the team, the vendor calls and the retention number I am measured on. If you need hands too, I help write the brief and build the team.
- Shape
- Retained day rate
- Varies
- Days per week, settled with you
- Quoted
- In writing, before anything starts
Retention programs, priced
Quoted one phase at a time. The first is Diagnose: two weeks in your data. It is allowed to end in a recommendation that you do not need the rest.
Each is quoted at the end of the phase before, so you never commit to a figure for work nobody has looked at.
- Shape
- Quoted per phase
- Varies
- How many phases you buy
- First phase
- Diagnose — two weeks
The AI Marketing Audit, priced
Three weeks, fixed scope, fixed price. The number of teams is the only variable.
An audit billed by the day has an incentive to find more audit. A fixed price removes it.
- Shape
- Fixed scope, fixed price
- Varies
- The number of teams
- Your time
- Kickoff, 45 minutes per team, closing workshop
Fractional against a hire, as arithmetic
Cheaper is the wrong test, but the sum is worth doing with your own numbers.
Fractional is days a week times the day rate times the weeks. The permanent column gets understated, so build it in full:
- Base salary for a senior CRM leader.
- Employer contributions and pension, at this year’s rate.
- Equipment, tooling, and a manager’s time.
- The recruitment fee, if there is a search.
- Two quarters of vacancy, with nobody carrying the number.
- The ramp, before a new hire is productive.
Gross the salary up for contributions and pension, add the fee and the two quarters, divide by working days, then compare with days times rate. A figure filled in here would illustrate my assumptions rather than measure your costs.
Availability is where fractional loses. If the role is twelve months of full-time work, hire — and I can build that function with you.
The sum does capture the cost of waiting. Fractional produces in the first quarter; a hire, in the second or third.
Send the size of the team and the shape of the problem, and a scoped number comes back.[email protected]
Questions about money
How much does a fractional Head of CRM cost?
A retained day rate for the days we agree, reviewed quarterly, on one month’s notice. The number of days decides the total, not the length of the contract.
What does a lifecycle and retention program cost?
Quoted a phase at a time. The first is Diagnose: two weeks in your data. It ends in a number for the phase after, or a recommendation that you need none.
What does the AI Marketing Audit cost?
Fixed, and quoted before we start. The number of teams is the only variable. Send the size of the marketing organisation and a scoped quote comes back.
How does a fractional seat compare with an agency or a permanent hire?
They are three different sums, and the variable people expect to matter usually isn’t the one that does. A permanent hire is salary plus employer costs, pension, tooling and recruitment fee, spread over a year — plus the two quarters of vacancy before they start and the ramp before they are productive. An agency is priced against output: briefs in, work out, at a volume no internal team carries alone, and senior attention that varies with the account. A fractional seat is days per week times a day rate, set with you and reviewed each quarter, with the accountability of the hire and none of the vacancy. The decisive question is therefore how many days the role genuinely needs, not what a day costs — and if the honest answer is five, hire someone.
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