Fractional CMO Salary, Cost, and Hourly Rate, Explained (2024)
Fractional CMOs Often Cost Between $150 to $350/Hour or $3,000 to $15,000/Month
The cost of a fractional CMO can vary significantly, but most currently charge between $150 and $350/hour or $3,000 to $21,000/month. This will depend on various factors, including the CMO's experience and required skillset, expected time commitment, and whether you hire an individual CMO or use a CMO agency to source talent.
While this may sound expensive, the alternative (a full-time CMO) could be much worse for your pocketbook. Full-time CMO salaries range widely, with Salary.com reporting that the average CMO made more than $358,000 in 2024, while others reported a lower average of between $177,000 (Glassdoor) and $225,000 (Built In). If we estimate that the average CMO works 40 hours a week (though they likely work much more), that would range between about $90 to $190/hour.
This makes a fractional CMO sound pricey. But here’s the thing: most fractional CMOs work only between 5-15 hours/week for a single client, and that means, as we mentioned before, you’ll likely pay between $3,000/month (for a 5-hour/week CMO at $150/hour) and $20,000/month (for a 15-hour/week CMO at $350/hour). That’s between $36,000 and $252,000/year.
How Much Do You Save By Hiring a Fractional CMO?
Let’s average things out and say you use a fractional CMO for $250/hour for 7.5 hours/week. That’s $7,500/month or $90,000/year. On the full-time job market, that CMO might easily be paid a salary of $265,000 (not including benefits), so you could save close to 300% simply by hiring a fractional executive. Of course, a fractional CMO can’t provide quite everything a full-time CMO does, but fortunately, in many cases, they can bring you everything you need at the price point you’re willing to pay.
Direct Hiring vs. Using a Fractional CMO Agency
If you’ve decided to hire a fractional CMO, you’ll have to decide whether to hire individuals directly or use a CMO staffing agency, as both have benefits and drawbacks. Putting out an ad on sites like Indeed and LinkedIn or Google searching for fractional CMO candidates can be time-consuming, and you’ll need to pay for job ads. In contrast, a fractional CMO agency can take care of all of this for you and may be able to match you more quickly with a candidate that fits your needs.
So, why even bother hiring yourself? There are a few reasons.
First, while an agency or staffing company may be able to match you with a better candidate than you could find on your own, they may not. Their candidate pool may often be limited to a stable of pre-selected fractional executives and may not represent all the great talent today.
Second, it will probably be way more expensive. The exact expense depends on the agency’s revenue model and whether the fractional CMO gets paid directly by you or the agency. If the staffing agency just connects you to the candidate, they will likely require you to pay a one-time hiring fee representing 20-25% of the CMOs 1-year salary (though prices can range from as low as 15% to as high as 45%).
If you plan to pay your fractional CMO around $90,000/year, that could mean a hiring fee of $22,000, sometimes as much as $40,000, which may not be a cost you can afford right now. In contrast, if the CMO works directly for the agency and is hired out to you, they will still likely charge a 20%+ premium, built directly into the CMO’s monthly fee.
The good part is that you don’t have to pay it all at once-- but the bad part is that you must keep paying the agency indefinitely. If you keep your fractional CMO around for a few years, that could be hundreds of thousands of dollars!
Of course, you could try to “steal” your new CMO from the agency and split the difference, but (other than being pretty unethical) that’s a huge headache and a lawsuit waiting to happen. So, in the end (unless you’re in a big hurry), it’s often better to start hiring independently and to only utilize an agency if you’re having real trouble finding a great candidate,
How to Determine The ROI of a Fractional CMO
As with hiring any employee, deciding whether (and which) fractional CMO to hire comes down to dollars and cents. Ultimately, you only want to hire people who will increase their bottom line. Unfortunately, this has been historically difficult for CMOs, who, on average, have some of the shortest average tenures of any type of C-suite executive-- which may partially be because, according to studies, 80% of CEOs are currently dissatisfied with their CMO.
However, this isn’t all the CMO's fault (nor is it the CEOs). In general, it’s because of a lack of clear expectations and that CMOs historically haven’t had a quantitative way to show their results, but this is all changing. Today, technology can track almost everything marketing-related, but, in the end, CMO performance often comes down to three things: cost per lead (CPL), cost per customer (CPC, sometimes referred to as CPAC), and total new marketing revenue that directly results from campaigns directed by the CMO.
Therefore, if you’re serious about not just hiring a new fractional marketing executive but getting great results, you’ll want to write out a detailed job description and/or RFP (request for proposal) detailing your company’s current marketing metrics (including your budget), your desired marketing metrics, and how you expect your new CMO to bridge that gap.
For example, if you run a financial SaaS startup and currently pay $15/qualified lead, with a conversion rate of 2%, your cost per customer is $750. If your software costs $200/month, and your average client uses it for 2 years, your customer lifetime value (CLTV) would be $4,800.
While this might sound great, it may not be as scalable as you need it to be. For example, if your marketing budget is only $250,000/year, you can only afford to buy (or generate) about 16,600 leads/year or, with a 2% conversion rate, sell 330 subscriptions/year. This would generate a 2-year revenue growth of about $1.59M. However, if your investors expect a 2-year revenue growth of $2.5M, you’ll need some serious help.
Therefore, you might show candidates and agencies an RFP with data including:
Current Marketing Metrics:
Marketing Budget: $250,000/year
CPL: $15
Conversion Rate: 2%
CPC: $750
CLTV: $4,800 (over 2 years)
Projected Revenue Growth: $1.59M (over 2 years)
Desired Marketing Metrics:
CPL: $9.50
Conversion Rate: 2%
CPC: $475
CLTV: $4,800 (over 2 years)
Projected Revenue Growth: $2.5M (over 2 years)
Of course, you can also change your desired conversion rate if you think there’s room for growth (in that case, having a CMO with conversion rate optimization or CRO experience could be key). You can also change your desired customer lifetime value, particularly if you think your marketing team could better retain customers.
You’ll also want to make sure the fractional CMO’s fee fits into your marketing budget; while we didn’t add that here, this could mean that you’ll need to push your desired cost per lead even lower in order to compensate for the additional expense.
If you don’t want all that information out in public, that’s okay; you can always outline the basics in the job description and tell candidates the specifics during the early stages of the hiring process. And, if you’re really secretive (like a startup in stealth mode), you can always ask a candidate or agency to sign a non-disclosure agreement (NDA) before revealing potentially sensitive company information.
The Top 5 CMO Agencies
Below, we’ll briefly review a few of the best-known CMO staffing agencies in the industry today:
CMOX: CMOX is one of the most prominent fractional CMO accelerators and talent agencies. Run by Casey Slaughter Stanton, the author of the bestselling book “The Fractional CMO Method,” CMOX has developed a reputation as a leader in the fractional executive industry.
Chief Outsiders: Chief Outsiders is another popular fractional executive staffing agency. According to its website, it has hired over 1,950 fractional CMOs for clients over the last few years. In addition to providing staffing services for fractional CMOs, it also helps companies hire fractional CSOs or Chief Strategy Officers.
Able and Howe: Able and Howe is a full-service marketing agency offering fractional CMO placement services. The company focuses on providing in-depth research and analytics before the CMO selection process to improve company fit. It also helps companies generate long-term game plans and assists them with tracking CMO performance post-hiring.
Alpha Apex: Alpha Apex is an executive staffing, management consulting, and growth marketing firm offering fractional CMO talent services. They focus on placing executives with experience in a wide array of niche industries, ranging from aerospace and engineering to oil and gas, architecture, and energy (just to name a few). Well-known Alpha Apex clients include Amazon Web Services (AWS), SEMRush, and Siemens.
TechCXO: TechCXO is a tech-focused executive staffing agency that specializes in placing CTOs, CMOs, and CSOs in full-time and fractional capacities. In addition, they also specialize in software implementation and provide limited management consulting services. According to their website, they’ve placed executives in over 5,000 companies over the last two decades.
If you’d like a longer list of fractional CMO agencies, check out this list of the top 15 fractional CMO companies from Outsourced Accelerator.
Fractional CMO Alternatives: Fractional Marketing Directors and Marketing Managers
A fractional CMO may not be everyone, but that doesn’t mean you can’t necessarily get a fractional marketing executive. If you want an experienced marketer but can’t shell out a fractional CMO's average $250/hour fee, you may still be in luck. In this case, you might consider a fractional marketing director or a fractional marketing manager.
A fractional marketing director or a fractional marketing manager typically won’t have the same experience or chops as a fractional CMO. However, while they may not sit in the c-suite, they may still be able to provide you with significant insight and actionable steps to make your company more profitable.
Because the concept of hiring fractional marketing directors and managers is somewhat newer than the idea of hiring fractional CMOs, it’s difficult to find accurate information about their costs. Full-time marketing director salaries generally range between $108,000 (Glassdoor) to $186,000 (Salary.com).
Of course, because they’re part-time, need to juggle multiple clients, and don’t get benefits, just like fractional CMOs, fractional marketing directors will charge more per hour than their average salary would indicate. If we estimate that the average marketing director makes around $145,000/year or about 54% of a CMO’s salary, they might then charge between $75 to $175/hour.
Fractional marketing managers, while even less experienced, are often even more affordable. Full-time marketing manager salaries range from $107,000 (Glassdoor) to $119,000 (Salary.com). So, if we estimate that the average marketing manager makes around $110,000/year, or about 38% of a CMO’s salary, they may often charge between $60 to $135/hour.
In Conclusion: Fractional CMO Costs Vary Widely, As Do Services
Ultimately, hiring fractional executives, including fractional CMOs, isn’t cheap. However, hiring a part-time CMO at 5-10 hours/week could be significantly less expensive than hiring a full-time marketing manager or marketing director, and, with their additional leadership skills, you may find that the ROI of a fractional CMO is significantly higher than a lower level marketing employee, all while costing just a fractional of a full-time Chief Marketing Officer.
However, in the end, it all comes down to ROI. Will hiring a CMO really add to your bottom line? That’s up to you to decide, but the clearer your expectations and the earlier you express them, the more likely you are to find a fractional marketing executive who can meet and exceed them, making you happier (and your company more profitable).
