Fractional CTO Cost Calculator

// your assumptions

Company Stage (sets starter defaults below)

Every field below is editable — the stage buttons just set a reasonable US starting point.

Option A — Full-Time CTO Hire

Annual base salary ($)

Benefits & employer overhead (%)

US average loaded-cost add-on (payroll tax, healthcare, 401k, etc.) — base salary alone understates the real cost.

Recruiting / search cost ($)

Average executive cost-per-hire (search fees, interview time, relocation).

Months to fill the role

Cost of delay while the seat is empty ($/month)

What a stalled roadmap, delayed launch, or missed fundraising milestone costs you per month with no technical leader in the room. Set to 0 to exclude.

Option B — Fractional CTO

Monthly retainer ($)

US fractional CTO retainers typically run $8,000–$25,000/month depending on scope and days/week — adjust to the engagement you're evaluating.

Option C — Senior Independent Contractor

Hourly rate ($)

Hours per week

// Modeled 12-month savings vs. a full-time hire

0% lower first-year cost

A lower number isn't automatically the right call — see "What this comparison doesn't measure" below before you decide.

// 12-month modeled cost, all three options

// how the full-time number breaks down

What This Comparison Doesn't Measure

The dollar figures above are directly comparable. What they're buying is not. Before you decide on cost alone, weigh these dimensions too:

	Full-Time CTO	Fractional CTO	Contractor
Availability	Full-time, always on	Scheduled days/week, usually reachable between	Scoped hours only
Accountability for outcomes	Full ownership	Full ownership, contractually scoped	Task/project-level, not org-level
Org & team leadership	Native to the role	Yes, by design	Rarely in scope
Ramp time to productive	60–90+ days	Days to weeks	Days to weeks
Continuity risk	Single point of failure	Often backed by a bench/network	Single point of failure
Best fit	Post–Series B/C, sustained technical org	Pre-seed through growth, or alongside a full-time hire during a gap	Narrow, well-defined project work

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⚠ Important disclaimer

These are planning estimates, not financial, hiring, or legal advice. Salary, overhead, recruiting, and rate figures are illustrative US-market benchmarks, not a survey of your specific industry, geography, or candidate pool. The full-time model counts a full year of loaded salary plus a one-time delay cost, which can overstate true calendar-year-one spend if the hire starts partway through the year.

Use this to sanity-check the order of magnitude, then validate against your own compensation data and the actual engagement scope you're considering.

How We Calculate This

Three independent 12-month totals, each built from the inputs above:

Full-Time CTO = (base salary × (1 + benefits/overhead %)) + recruiting cost + (cost of delay × months to fill).
Fractional CTO = monthly retainer × 12.
Senior Contractor = hourly rate × hours/week × 48 working weeks/year.

Default benchmarks are directional, drawn from publicly reported US figures: executive base salaries scale roughly $165K–$270K+ from seed to growth stage (compensation surveys such as Built In and Kruze Consulting); benefits/payroll overhead runs ~40–45% of base in the US (Bureau of Labor Statistics); average executive cost-per-hire is reported around $36,000 (SHRM); and fractional CTO retainers in the US market typically fall between $8,000 and $25,000/month depending on scope and days/week (fractional-marketplace rate data, e.g. Fractionus, Go Fractional, A.Team). Every one of these is a benchmark, not a quote — adjust freely.

Frequently Asked Questions

What's the real difference between a fractional CTO and a contractor?

A contractor is typically scoped to a project or a deliverable. A fractional CTO holds the role itself — technical strategy, architecture decisions, team leadership, vendor and hiring calls, and accountability for outcomes — just on a part-time cadence instead of full-time. That's why the "what this doesn't measure" table above treats them very differently even when the dollar figures land close together.

How many days a week does a fractional CTO typically work?

Most US engagements run 1–3 days per week, sometimes expressed as a set number of hours or a fixed monthly retainer instead. Early-stage companies often start lighter (1 day/week) and increase cadence around fundraising, a major technical decision, or a team build-out.

When does it make sense to hire full-time instead?

Generally once the engineering org reaches a size and complexity where day-to-day presence, team management, and always-on accountability matter more than the cost savings — commonly somewhere around Series B/C, or earlier if technology is the core product. Many companies also use a fractional CTO as a bridge while running a full-time search, which is exactly the "cost of delay" scenario this calculator is built to model.

Are these numbers specific to my company?

No — they're US-market benchmarks meant to get you in the right order of magnitude quickly. Your actual compensation band depends on your location, industry, funding stage, and the specific candidate pool. Swap in your own numbers wherever you have them.

Do you store what I enter?

No. Everything runs in your browser — nothing is sent anywhere unless you explicitly ask to have the comparison emailed to you.

// Considering a fractional CTO?

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