We offer this service, so read the numbers with that in mind. We are publishing them anyway, because the alternative is that you spend three calls working out whether you can afford the conversation.
Short version: light advisory of a day or two a month typically runs $2,000 to $5,000 a month. Hands-on involvement across a live build sits closer to $8,000 to $20,000 a month. Day rates for senior technology leadership in Australia commonly fall between $1,200 and $2,500.
A fractional CTO is a senior technology leader working with you part-time. The job is the same as a full-time CTO: set the technical direction, make the architecture and vendor decisions, oversee whoever writes the code, handle technical hiring, and explain the technology position to your board and your investors in language they can act on.
What is different is the dosage. Most pre-seed and seed companies do not generate five days a week of CTO-level decisions. They generate about four days a month of them, plus a need for someone accountable in between.
A day or two a month. Regular sessions, architecture and vendor input, review of what your developers are producing, and someone to sanity-check the plan before you commit money to it. This suits founders who have a team or an agency already and need senior judgement rather than more hands.
One to two days a week, involved in the actual work. Running the build, managing developers or contractors, in the room for investor conversations, and owning the technical outcome rather than commenting on it. This is the range for a company actively building.
A technical due diligence before a raise, an architecture review, a rebuild assessment, or a hiring process for your first engineers. Priced as a defined deliverable, commonly $5,000 to $25,000 depending on depth. Often the right first step, because it gives both sides evidence before anyone signs a retainer.
A full-time CTO in Australia costs roughly $200,000 to $300,000 a year in salary and superannuation, plus meaningful equity, and realistically three to six months to find and land. For a company that is still proving the product, that is a large fixed commitment against a need that is genuinely part-time.
The honest counter-argument: a full-time CTO builds and holds institutional knowledge in a way a fractional one cannot, and at some point you want that. The point of a fractional arrangement is to get senior judgement now and hire permanently when the work justifies it, not to avoid hiring forever.
If an engagement is only meeting attendance, you are buying a consultant rather than a CTO. Both are legitimate purchases, but they are not the same one and should not be priced the same.
It is worth it when you are about to spend real money on a build and nobody in the room can honestly assess whether the plan is sound. A few weeks of senior input costs a fraction of what a rebuild costs, and the rebuild is what you are buying insurance against.
It is not worth it if you have not validated that anyone wants the product. No amount of technical leadership saves an idea customers do not want, and the money is better spent finding that out. It is also unnecessary if you already have a strong technical co-founder. If you are wondering whether you need one of those, we have written about the technical co-founder alternative.
Ask how many other clients they hold and how they handle a week where two need them at once. Ask what happens if they and your developers disagree, and who decides. Ask what the exit looks like: good engagements are designed to hand over, not to become permanent. And ask whether they can build as well as advise, because a plan nobody can execute is not much of an asset.
That last one is the difference in how we work. Most fractional CTOs stop at advice. Once the strategy is set, the same in-house team carries it through scoping, design and build. See our fractional CTO services, or start with tech strategy if what you need first is a plan. Get in touch and we will tell you honestly whether you need one yet.
Light advisory, meaning a day or two a month, typically runs $2,000 to $5,000 a month. Hands-on involvement across a live build sits closer to $8,000 to $20,000 a month. Day rates for senior technology leadership in Australia commonly fall between $1,200 and $2,500.
A full-time CTO in Australia costs $200,000 to $300,000 a year plus equity. Most pre-seed and seed companies do not have five days a week of CTO-level decisions to make, so they end up paying full-time rates for part-time value.
Technical direction and architecture decisions, oversight of whoever writes the code, hiring input, and translating the technical position for investors and your board. If an engagement is only meeting attendance, you are buying a consultant rather than a CTO.
It is worth it when you are about to commit real money to a build and nobody in the room can tell whether the plan is sound. The cost of a few weeks of senior input is far less than the cost of rebuilding in a year.