Fractional CTO Services: What You Get and What It Costs

Fractional CTO services are part-time technical leadership: a senior technologist who sets architecture, weighs in on hiring, and makes vendor and build-versus-buy calls, priced as a fraction of a full-time executive salary. The fractional CTO decides what gets built. A separate team, in-house or a subscription pod, builds it.

**Key numbers**

- A **loaded US senior engineer** runs roughly $250,000 a year once salary, benefits, and recruiting are counted, and a full-time CTO's compensation sits higher again. Both are estimates that move with seniority, region, and equity mix.
- A **Builder Pod** is $5,000/month: one build track, a pod lead plus a two-engineer bench, month-to-month with 30 days' cancellation notice.
- A **Growth Pod** is $10,000/month: two concurrent build tracks, a pod lead plus a three-engineer bench, architecture planning built into the engagement.
- Most pods start working within **5 business days** and ship the first piece of work in week 1 or 2, per our [how-it-works](/how-it-works) page.
- Gartner projects more than **80% of enterprises** will have used generative AI APIs or deployed generative AI-enabled applications in production by 2026, up from under 5% in 2023, which is part of why demand for technical leadership is climbing right now.

## What "fractional CTO services" actually means

A fractional CTO is a part-time executive who owns the technical strategy of a company without holding a full-time seat on the payroll. The scope typically includes:

- Architecture decisions: what stack, what data model, what to build versus buy.
- Hiring input: writing job descriptions, sitting in on technical interviews, deciding when a role should be a full-time hire versus a contractor.
- Vendor and tooling decisions: which cloud, which AI provider, which security posture to adopt.
- Roadmap and board-level translation: turning a product vision into a sequenced technical plan a non-technical founder or board can evaluate.

What a fractional CTO is not, by definition, is a builder. The role is judgment and direction, not pull requests. That distinction matters because a large share of people who search "fractional CTO services" actually need code shipped, not a strategy deck, and a good fractional CTO will tell you that on the first call. For a fuller breakdown of the role itself, see [what a CTO does day to day](/blog/what-is-a-cto) and our companion piece on [what a fractional CTO is](/blog/what-is-a-fractional-cto).

## Fractional CTO vs. a build pod: two different layers

Think of the work in two layers. The strategy layer decides what to build and how. The delivery layer builds it. A fractional CTO sits in the strategy layer. A build pod, ours or anyone's, sits in the delivery layer.

Here is where the confusion usually starts: many companies searching for a fractional CTO do not actually have a strategy gap. They have a shipped-code gap. They know what they want built. They need hands on the keyboard, in their own repository, on a predictable weekly cadence. That is a pod problem, not a CTO problem, and paying for strategic advisory when the real bottleneck is engineering capacity wastes both the budget and the calendar.

The reverse also happens. A company hires a pod, gets fast delivery, and then discovers nobody is making the harder calls: which architecture will still hold at ten times the data volume, whether a vendor contract locks them in, how to sequence three competing roadmap priorities into something a board will fund. That is a strategy gap, and no amount of shipped code fixes it on its own.


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<text x="90" y="100" font-family="monospace" font-size="15" fill="#8B7CF6">STRATEGY LAYER - fractional CTO</text>
<text x="90" y="128" font-family="monospace" font-size="13" fill="#F4F2FF">Architecture decisions * hiring input * vendor and build-vs-buy calls</text>
<text x="90" y="150" font-family="monospace" font-size="13" fill="#F4F2FF">Roadmap sequencing * board-level translation</text>
<text x="90" y="180" font-family="monospace" font-size="13" fill="#F4F2FF">Output: decisions, plans, hiring criteria</text>

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<text x="90" y="285" font-family="monospace" font-size="15" fill="#8B7CF6">DELIVERY LAYER - build pod</text>
<text x="90" y="313" font-family="monospace" font-size="13" fill="#F4F2FF">Pod lead owns scope and architecture for the build itself</text>
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<text x="90" y="365" font-family="monospace" font-size="13" fill="#F4F2FF">Output: shipped, tested, deployed software</text>

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<text x="450" y="460" text-anchor="middle" font-family="monospace" font-size="12" fill="#F4F2FF">closing part of the gap between the two layers</text>


The honest answer for most companies is that they need both at some point, but rarely in equal measure, and rarely starting on the same day.

## Typical engagement shapes for a fractional CTO

Engagement structure varies firm to firm, and there is no single industry standard, but two shapes dominate the market.

**Advisory hours.** A recurring block of hours per week or month spent on architecture review, roadmap sessions, hiring interviews, and vendor calls. The fractional CTO does not write code and does not sit in your repository day to day. How many hours, at what cadence, and at what hourly or monthly rate varies widely from firm to firm, because there is no published standard the way there is for our own pod pricing, so this is exactly the detail to pin down in writing before signing anything. This shape fits a company that has an engineering team already and needs a second set of experienced eyes on direction.

**Embedded technical ownership.** A deeper engagement where the fractional CTO effectively runs engineering part-time: standups, sprint planning, direct management of an existing team, sign-off on every architecture decision. The hours and reporting cadence are again negotiated per engagement rather than standardized. This shape fits a company with engineers but no technical executive, where the gap is leadership, not headcount.

Neither shape includes the engineers who write the production code. A fractional CTO on a limited advisory schedule cannot also be your build capacity, and a fractional CTO working full embedded hours is priced closer to a part-time executive salary than to a delivery team. We cover the drivers behind fractional CTO rates in more detail in [Fractional CTO Cost and Rates in 2026](/blog/fractional-cto-cost-and-rates).

## Where our pod model fits into this

We do not sell fractional CTO advisory hours as a standalone product. What we sell is a subscription engineering team, and on our Growth and Enterprise pods, the pod lead already owns a meaningful slice of what a fractional CTO would otherwise be hired to do.

On a [Growth Pod](/pods) at $10,000/month, the pod lead owns scope and architecture for two concurrent build tracks, runs bi-weekly live strategy calls, and does architecture planning as a named line item in the engagement, not an add-on. On the Enterprise Organization Pod, a dedicated senior lead owns architecture across three or more parallel build tracks and runs executive roadmap reviews, which is functionally board-facing technical leadership for the scope of the build.

Every pod, regardless of plan, is built from the same components: a pod lead, senior engineers, and QA, sized from two to five people depending on the plan. Our team works from Orange County, California and Prishtina, Kosovo, on Central European time, so a US morning standup typically reviews work that was built and tested overnight. The engagement itself starts with a single conversation and a free clickable prototype you can walk away from with no commitment; only after that does the pod start, usually within five business days, per [how it works](/how-it-works).

What this substitutes for: the architecture-and-roadmap portion of a fractional CTO engagement, specifically for the systems we are building. What it does not substitute for: company-wide technical strategy that spans systems, teams, and vendors we are not touching, board governance conversations unrelated to a specific build, or hiring decisions for roles outside the pod itself.

If your primary need is shipped code, with architecture decisions made by someone accountable for the outcome rather than someone advising from the sideline, a Growth or Enterprise pod closes most of the gap a fractional CTO would otherwise be hired to close, at a price that also includes the engineers who build. If your primary need is strategy across a broader surface than one build, that is a genuine fractional CTO engagement, and it is worth hiring for on its own terms. See [what a fractional CTO is](/blog/what-is-a-fractional-cto) for the fuller version of that distinction.

## Cost comparison: fractional CTO vs. a pod vs. a full-time hire

| Option | Typical cost | What it covers | What it does not cover |
|---|---|---|---|
| Full-time CTO hire | A base salary above a $250,000+ loaded senior engineer's, plus equity, plus a hiring cycle that commonly runs 3-6 months | Full-time strategy, hiring, architecture, and often people management | Nothing left uncovered, but the cost and hiring cycle are the highest of the three |
| Fractional CTO (advisory) | No published industry standard; varies by hours committed, seniority, and region - see our cost breakdown for how the range is typically estimated | Strategy, architecture review, hiring input, vendor decisions | Does not write or ship code; you still need engineers |
| Builder Pod | $5,000/month, published, month-to-month | One build track, pod lead who owns that build's scope and architecture, two-engineer bench, weekly ship | Not company-wide strategy; architecture ownership is scoped to the active build |
| Growth Pod | $10,000/month, published, month-to-month | Two build tracks, architecture planning, bi-weekly strategy calls, three-engineer bench | Same as above, wider scope; still not board-level strategy outside the build |
| Enterprise Organization Pod | Custom, quoted per engagement | Three or more build tracks, dedicated senior lead, executive roadmap reviews | Custom terms mean scope is negotiated, not fixed by a published price |

Every pod price above matches our [live pricing page](/pricing) exactly and is billed monthly, with no per-hour billing and no change orders. A fractional CTO's rate has no equivalent published standard, which is why it appears as a range tied to hours and seniority rather than a fixed figure, and why the full detail belongs in [Fractional CTO Cost and Rates in 2026](/blog/fractional-cto-cost-and-rates) rather than a single number here.

## When a fractional CTO is the right call, and when it is not

A fractional CTO fits when:

- You have engineers already, in-house or contracted, but no one making final architecture or vendor calls.
- You are raising funding and a board or investor wants to see a named technical leader, not a rotating cast of contractors.
- Your technical risk spans multiple systems, teams, or acquisitions, and the judgment needed is broader than any single build.
- You need someone to sit in interviews and make the hire/no-hire call on engineering roles.

A fractional CTO is the wrong tool when:

- You do not have engineers yet and the real need is people who write code, tested and shipped, starting this month.
- Your technical questions are scoped to one product or one build, not the whole company.
- You have already made the architecture decisions and just need them executed reliably, weekly, in your own repository.

In that second set of situations, a pod is the faster and cheaper path, because a pod's lead already carries the architecture decisions for the build in question, and the bench underneath does the work a fractional CTO cannot.

## A checklist before you sign anything

1. Ask exactly what hours are included and whether the fractional CTO writes any code themselves, or only advises.
2. Ask who owns the decision if the fractional CTO and your engineering team disagree on architecture.
3. Ask what happens to continuity if the fractional CTO leaves mid-engagement; a one-person dependency is a real risk at this scope.
4. Ask whether the engagement includes hiring your future full-time CTO, or whether that is a separate, later conversation.
5. If regulated data is involved (health records, financial data, government data), ask what compliance controls the fractional CTO or the delivery team actually operates, not just what they claim. See our [security posture](/security) for what a signed BAA and HIPAA-aligned controls look like when they are backed by specifics rather than a claimed certification that does not exist for HIPAA.
6. Compare the total monthly cost, advisory plus delivery, against a pod's published price before assuming advisory-only is cheaper. Ours, for reference, is capacity-based: no per-hour billing, no statements of work for ongoing work, and a paused month is not billed while the pod seat is held.

## The short version

A fractional CTO sells judgment: architecture calls, hiring input, vendor decisions, priced as a fraction of a full-time executive salary and structured as either advisory hours or embedded part-time ownership, with the exact shape and rate varying firm to firm. A build pod sells delivery: engineers writing tested code in your own repository on a weekly ship cadence, priced as a flat monthly subscription starting at $5,000 for a Builder Pod and $10,000 for a Growth Pod. Most companies searching "fractional CTO services" actually need the second thing first, since a Growth or Enterprise pod lead already owns the architecture and roadmap for the build in question; the fractional CTO conversation becomes worth having once the technical questions span more than one build or system.