SERVICE

Fractional CTO Services

Senior technical judgement on the decisions that compound — without hiring a full-time executive.

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What This Service Is

A fractional CTO is an experienced technology leader who works with your company part-time. You get the judgement of someone who has made these calls before — on architecture, vendors, hiring, and roadmap — applied to your business every month, at a fraction of what the equivalent full-time hire would cost.

Who It's For

  • Non-technical founders making technical decisions
  • Companies scaling faster than their systems
  • Teams about to commit serious budget to a build
  • Businesses with a dev team but no technical leadership

Signs You Need One

Most founders wait until something breaks. These are the signals that show up first.

You approve tech decisions you don’t fully understand

Signing off a dev proposal or picking a tool on someone else’s recommendation is fine once. As a habit, it compounds into a stack nobody can explain.

You’re about to spend $10K+ on technology

A custom build, a migration, or a major SaaS commitment at that scale deserves a second opinion from someone technical who has no stake in the sale.

The same problems keep recurring

Sites that keep breaking, integrations that keep failing, a dev team perpetually “still working on it” — these are symptoms. Someone needs to diagnose the cause.

You’re hiring your first developer

Getting the first technical hire wrong is among the most expensive mistakes an early-stage company makes, and it is very hard to unwind.

Growth is outrunning your systems

When operations scale and the tech underneath doesn’t, the gap turns into outages and rework. The point is to spot it before it breaks, not after.

What's Included

Full stack, tooling, and automation audit
Written assessment with a prioritised action list
Build vs buy analysis on major decisions
Vendor and agency selection advisory
Technical review of proposals before you sign
Hiring support — scoping roles and interviewing
Architecture and scalability guidance
Weekly or bi-weekly calls plus async support

How the Engagement Runs

01

Discovery call

A free 15 minutes to work out whether this is the right shape of help for where you are. If it isn’t, we’ll say so.

02

First month: audit

We review your stack, automations, vendors, and roadmap, then hand you a written assessment and a prioritised action list.

03

Ongoing retainer

Weekly or bi-weekly calls plus async support, so the decisions that come up between them get made properly.

When This Isn't the Right Fit

We would rather tell you up front than take a retainer that won't pay for itself. A fractional CTO is the wrong call if:

  • You need code written — hire a developer
  • You need day-to-day project management
  • Your tech is simple, stable, and unchanging
  • You already have a strong CTO or technical co-founder

Pricing

Retainers from $800 / month

Ongoing advisory starts at $800/month. Audit-only engagements and heavier involvement during a migration or a first technical hire are scoped individually.

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GO DEEPER

What Is a Fractional CTO, and When Should You Hire One?

The long-form version — what the role covers, when it pays for itself, when it doesn't, and what a good engagement actually looks like month to month.

Read the full guide →

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Frequently Asked Questions

What exactly is a fractional CTO?+

An experienced technology leader who works with your company part-time or on retainer, giving you senior technical judgement on decisions that compound — architecture, vendors, hiring, and roadmap — without the cost of a full-time executive hire.

How is this different from your Strategy & Consultation service?+

Strategy & Consultation is engagement-based: you get an audit, a roadmap, or a decision reviewed, and it ends with a deliverable. A fractional CTO is ongoing — we stay accountable for technical direction month over month as the decisions keep coming.

Will you write code?+

No. A fractional CTO makes and owns technical decisions; they do not staff your delivery. If you need code written we can scope that separately through our SaaS development service, or brief your existing team.

How much time do I actually get?+

A typical retainer is weekly or bi-weekly calls of 30–60 minutes, plus async support over email or Slack for decisions that come up between them. Heavier engagements during a migration or a hire are scoped individually.

What happens in the first month?+

An audit. We review your stack, existing automations, vendor relationships, and near-term roadmap, then hand you a written assessment and a prioritised action list. That document is yours whether or not you continue.

Do I need to be technical to work with you?+

No — most of our fractional CTO clients are non-technical founders. The job is to translate between your business goals and the technical choices that serve them, in language you can act on.

Not sure if you need one?

That's what the free call is for. Fifteen minutes, and we'll tell you straight.

Book Free Strategy Call →