The range and what moves it
Fractional CFO engagements commonly run from a few thousand dollars a month to well into five figures. The variables are hours, the complexity of the business, whether fundraising or transaction support is included, and whether the engagement includes managing an existing finance team.
Compare against the alternative honestly
A full-time CFO is typically 250,000 dollars and up once benefits, bonus and equity are counted, plus the cost and risk of hiring. Fractional is not cheaper per hour; it is cheaper because you buy fewer hours.
Where it genuinely pays
- Pricing decisions, where a few points of margin outweigh the fee entirely.
- Fundraising, where model credibility affects terms.
- Cash forecasting, where visibility prevents expensive emergency decisions.
- Board reporting, where the alternative is a founder spending days on it monthly.
Where it does not
If the books are unreliable, strategic analysis built on them produces confident wrong answers. Fix bookkeeping and controls first. If the real need is daily management of a finance team, that is a controller role.
How to scope it
Start with the decisions you cannot currently make with confidence. Those define the scope. Engagements scoped by hours rather than by decisions tend to drift into reporting production, which is the least valuable thing a CFO does.
TallyWise provides this as part of our fractional CFO services. Book a call to talk through your situation.
