DOCUMENT TSC-2026/ENG · ENGAGEMENTS & PRICING · REV. 01

Engagements & Pricing

Three ways to work with me, and one front door.

Every engagement is the same seat: me, directly, on the decisions that move the number. What changes by tier is how close I sit, meaning how often we talk, which channels stay open between calls, and whether I am in the room when your team makes the call. Prices are published, in US dollars, so the scoping call can be about fit rather than a negotiation. No hours are tracked at any tier.

Start a conversation Jump to the tiers

01/ The front door

The Read. Two weeks, fixed fee, a written read of your business.

Full detail on The Read, including what you get and what stays with me →

The Read is the first paid step for every new client and the only way into a retainer. I take your numbers, your team, and your own account of what is wrong, and hand back a document that says what is actually true, what it is costing you, and what to do first over the next 90 days. There are two variants because the data is different: the DTC Read for consumer brands and the SaaS Read for software and app companies.

Six lenses, in the same order every time. The last one is the one nobody else sells.

Unit economics

CAC, contribution margin, payback, LTV by cohort, and how much of the revenue is bought with discounts.

Growth engine

Channel mix, the handoff from ad to page, the retention curve, and whether pricing and packaging are doing their job.

Product & offer

What is carrying revenue, what is dead weight, and where the roadmap and the P&L disagree.

Team & org

Who owns the number, where decisions stall, and how much of the operation is rented from agencies.

Cash & capital

Runway, inventory or burn, debt, the shape of the cap table, and what a raise or an exit would look like from here.

Founder

What you think the problem is, set against what the numbers say. Usually the gap between the two is the finding.

Fourteen days, fixed calendar

Day 0Fee paid. The data request goes out the same day: a one-page list naming the exact exports.
Day 3Data folder complete. The clock does not start until it is.
Day 5Founder call, 60 minutes.
Day 8Leadership calls, 30 minutes each, depending on the size of the Read.
Day 12Draft complete.
Day 14Readout, 90 minutes, live. The document and a one-page 90-day priority list are yours to keep.

Sized to the business

FeeWho it fitsIncludes

$5,000Under $3M revenue, or under $1M ARRFour lenses (L1 to L3 and L6), the founder call, the readout

$10,000$3M to $20M revenue, or $1M to $10M ARRAll six lenses, two leadership calls, the readout

$15,000Above that, or a raise, acquisition, or exit in scopeAll six lenses, three leadership calls, a capital-options section, the readout

The credit

Sign any tier within 30 days of the readout and the full fee of The Read is credited against your first invoices: a $5,000 Read against a $6,000 first month makes the first month close to free. The credit lapses 30 days after the readout and cannot be combined with the annual prepay discount.

What you keep: the findings document, usually 12 to 15 pages, the one-page priority list, and the readout. What stays with me: the working model and the benchmark set behind the comparisons. The document is written as conclusions and sequence, which is what is useful to you and useless to anyone trying to run it on another company.

02/ The tiers

Same seat. Three distances from it.

Each tier is a monthly retainer, billed in advance in US dollars, with no hours tracked. Where a client lands inside a range depends on the size of the business, the number of people I work with directly, and whether a deal is in process. The range is set in the readout of The Read, so you know the number before you commit to anything beyond two weeks. A comparable full-time leader runs $25,000 to $35,000 a month fully loaded; the tiers below are set against that.

Consulting6-month minimum

from $6,000/mo

$6,000 to $8,000

A 60-minute call every two weeks
Email between calls, answered within two business days
A written priorities check every quarter
Access to the same benchmark set and models I use on every engagement

For founders under $5M, or seed-stage software companies, who want a standing second opinion on the calls that matter and do not need a weekly operator yet.

About the Consulting tier →

Advisory12-month term

from $10,000/mo

$10,000 to $15,000 · most engagements

A 60-minute call every week
Slack, email, and shared working spreadsheets between calls
I build and maintain the models we decide from
An optional one-week on-site each quarter

For consumer brands from $5M to $100M and software companies past $1M ARR, where the decisions come monthly and the cost of getting one wrong is real.

About the Advisory tier →

Partner6-month minimum · quarterly review

from $20,000/mo

$20,000 to $25,000

Two 60-minute calls a week
A seat in your leadership meetings
Hands on the work: the model, the deck, the pricing page, the negotiation
Fundraising, acquisitions, and exits in scope, with your board and the buyers

For companies where the decisions are weekly and you want a co-founder's level of ownership without giving up the equity. This is the seat people mean when they ask for a fractional CRO.

About the Partner tier →

Set against the market, the tiers are priced to be the obvious call rather than the cheap one. Consulting sits below the floor of the fractional executive market. Advisory sits at the low end of what a fractional CMO or CRO charges for ten hours a week in one function, for a weekly seat across the whole business with the models included. Partner sits at the top of the fractional CRO band for roughly twice the hours, every function, and M&A in scope, and still at two-thirds or less of a full-time leader.

What the alternatives usually run

OptionUsual costWhat you are paying for

$25k to $35k/moFull-time VP of Growth, Marketing, or Ecommerce, fully loadedA $200k to $300k package before benefits, payroll tax, and equity, plus a recruiter fee and a three-to-six-month ramp. One person's experience, all of their hours, whether the week needs them or not.

$12k to $22k/moFractional CMO or CRO at the experienced end of the marketplacesUsually ten hours a week, scoped to marketing or sales. Board-level scope and revenue accountability sit at the top of that band.

$10k to $25k/moDTC growth agency retainerPlus 10 to 20 percent of media. Hands, not judgment: the agency executes the plan, it does not tell you whether the plan is right.

$200 to $500/hrBoutique strategy consultancyA two-week diagnostic at those rates runs $16,000 to $40,000, delivered by whoever was free that fortnight.

Ranges are 2026 US market figures from published rate guides and salary data, stated at the level a scaling brand or software company actually pays. The comparison that matters is not the monthly number; it is whether you are buying hours or the call.

03/ Which tier

Read down the left column until one sounds like you.

You have a good team and a clear plan, and you want someone who has done it to check the plan every couple of weeks.Consulting

You are under $5M, or pre-Series A, and a full weekly cadence would cost more than the decisions it would improve.Consulting

Growth has stalled or gone unprofitable and you cannot tell which of five explanations is the real one.Advisory

You are choosing between hiring a senior leader, an agency, and figuring it out yourself, and each choice costs six figures if it is wrong.Advisory

You need a working model of the business that someone else owns and keeps honest, and a weekly call to decide from it.Advisory

There is a raise, an acquisition, or a sale in the next twelve months and you want someone on your side of the table who has been on both.Partner

You would hire a co-founder or a CRO tomorrow if you could find one, and the decisions cannot wait for the search.Partner

You want a one-time outside read with no commitment beyond it.The Read

You are a strategy, commerce, or corporate development team inside a large company, with an MSA and a procurement process, and you buy defined scopes rather than seats.Enterprise

Enterprise Engagements are priced and structured separately, as phased fixed-fee work under your MSA; the tiers above are the retainers that follow them. If none of these fit, say so on the scoping call. Sometimes the answer is an agency, a hire, or nothing yet, and I would rather tell you that in thirty minutes than in month three.

04/ Terms

The paperwork, in plain language.

Term: Consulting runs a six-month minimum. Advisory runs a twelve-month term. Partner runs a six-month minimum with a scope review every quarter, because that seat usually ends when the hire is made. After the minimum, every tier renews for twelve months at a time.
Notice: Sixty days, in writing, from either side, once the minimum has run. No month-to-month drift and no surprise exits in either direction.
Fees: Billed monthly in advance, in US dollars. Fees are reviewed at each annual renewal and the step is written into the contract, so it is never a conversation.
Pause: Advisory and Partner clients can pause once per contract year for up to thirty days at a holding fee. The seat, the Slack channel, and the models stay open.
Annual prepay: Ten percent off Advisory or Partner paid twelve months in advance. Cannot be combined with the credit from The Read.
Scope: Async means questions, reviews, and working sessions on the current priorities. A board deck, a full pricing rebuild, or diligence on a live deal is scoped and quoted separately before the work starts, at any tier.
Capacity: One or two new clients a quarter, across all tiers. If the quarter is full you will hear that on the scoping call, with a date.
Moving tiers: Up at any monthly boundary. Down at the end of the current minimum term.

05/ Common questions

Questions before we talk.

QWhy is The Read required before a retainer?

A retainer priced before I have seen the numbers is priced on a guess. Two weeks with real data tells both of us whether the work is a fit, and it means the first month of any tier starts with a plan already written rather than a month spent finding out what the plan should be.

QCan I skip The Read?

Returning clients and referrals from a current client can go straight to a tier. Everyone else starts with The Read, and the fee comes back as a credit if you sign within 30 days of the readout.

QWhat if The Read says you are not the right fit?

Then the readout says so, along with who or what would be, whether that is an agency, a specific hire, or waiting six months. The document is still yours and the fee is still the fee. Roughly a third of Reads end there, which is the point of doing it first.

QHow is the price set inside a range?

Three things move it: the size of the business, the number of people on your side I work with directly, and whether a raise, acquisition, or sale is in process. The number is stated in the readout of The Read, before you commit to a tier.

QDo you still work as a fractional CRO?

Yes. That seat is the Partner tier: two calls a week, a place in the leadership meetings, and my hands on the model, the deck, the pricing, and the negotiation. The title undersells it, because the constraint is rarely revenue itself. It is usually the roadmap, the positioning, the offer, or how the marketing money is being spent, and those are in scope from day one.

QDo you take equity instead of fees?

Cash first, at every tier. Advisor equity is only ever alongside a cash retainer, on a standard vesting schedule, and usually attached to fundraising or exit work where the outcome is the point. I have written about why equity-only advisory tends to go badly for both sides.

QHow does this compare to a full-time hire?

A comparable full-time leader runs $25,000 to $35,000 a month fully loaded, before a recruiter fee, a three-to-six-month ramp, and the real chance you hire twice. An experienced fractional CMO or CRO runs $12,000 to $22,000 a month for ten hours a week inside one function. A DTC growth agency retainer runs $10,000 to $25,000 a month plus a share of media, for execution rather than judgment. Consulting starts at $6,000, Advisory at $10,000, and Partner at $20,000, with no ramp, no severance, and a sixty-day exit either way. If you already know exactly what to do and only need hands, an agency is cheaper, and I will tell you so.

Tell me where you're stuck.

Every engagement starts with a free 30-minute scoping call. No pitch, no deck, a direct conversation about where you are, where you're going, and whether there's a fit. If there is, the next step is The Read.

Start a conversation Or book 30 minutes now →