Engagements & Pricing

Consulting engagements for DTC and Shopify brands: three tiers, published fees.

Every engagement is the same seat: me, directly, on the decisions that move the number. What changes by tier is how close I sit, how often we talk, and whether I'm in the room when your team decides. Prices are published in US dollars; no hours are tracked at any tier.

Start a conversation Jump to the tiers

"The thinking partner I didn't know I was missing · until nothing was the same after working together."

Client testimonial · DTC health & fitness founder

$0 → $6M

ARR · 18 months · case file →

The benchmark set behind every Read is public: 8 trackers, 27 calculators, 226 rated ad-to-page pairs.

FIG. · What happens after you hit send

Start a conversation →

From the form to the work: a personal reply, a free 30-minute call, a seat from the published tiers, then building with your own team, improving what you already run, week by week. The email, call and board are drawn; the curve is an illustration, not a client result.

01/ Optional first step

The Read: an optional way to test the fit first.

Two weeks, a fixed fee set by the size of the business, and a written document across six lenses that ends in a live readout naming a tier and a number. Sign within 30 days and the fee is credited against the first month of whichever tier follows. It is optional: if you already know the seat you want, go straight to a tier.

What the two weeks contain, the fee by size, and what you get to keep →

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 before you commit: on the scoping call, or in the readout if you start with The Read. A comparable full-time leader runs $30,000 to $45,000 or more 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 → Start with Consulting →

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 getting one wrong is expensive.

About the Advisory tier → Start with Advisory →

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 → Start with Partner →

Set against the market, each tier is priced to be the obvious call on value. Consulting sits below the floor of the fractional executive market. Advisory costs what a fractional CMO or CRO charges at the low end for ten hours a week in one function, and buys a weekly seat across the whole business with the models included. Partner is priced at the top of the fractional CRO band for roughly twice the hours, every function, and M&A in scope, and it still costs less than a full-time leader does before they hire a team.

What the alternatives usually run

OptionUsual costWhat you are paying for

$30k to $45k+/moFull-time VP of Growth, Marketing, or Ecommerce, fully loadedPackages run about $290k for a VP of Growth, $325k for a VP of Marketing and $400k or more for a CMO, before benefits, payroll tax, and equity, plus a recruiter fee and a six-to-twelve-month ramp. Each of these leaders usually builds a team of 2 to 12 people to execute, which takes the in-house cost to roughly $60k to $200k a month.

$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.

$15k to $50k/moDTC growth agency retainerPlus a share of media, often 10 to 20 percent, with creative production and landing pages or CRO billed on top. Hands, not judgment: the agency executes the plan, it does not tell you whether the plan is right.

$200 to $500/hrBoutique strategy consultancyTwo weeks of the same work 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 pays. When you compare them, look past the monthly number to what you are buying: hours, or the call.

Not sure which one

Most people pick the wrong seat on the first read, and it is almost always one size too big. Tell me what is stuck and I will point at the one that fits, even when that turns out to be none of them yet.

Tell me what's stuck

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 right call 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, so neither side drifts month to month or leaves by surprise.
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 start with The Read?

Two weeks with real data tells both of us whether the work is a fit. The first month of any tier then starts with the plan already written, so no retainer month goes to working out what it should be.

QCan I skip The Read?

Yes. The Read is optional. Go straight to a tier if you already know the seat you want, or start with The Read to test the fit; its 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?

The readout names what would fit instead, whether that is an agency, a specific hire, or waiting. You keep the document either way and the fee does not change. About a third of Reads end right there, which is why it is worth starting with when the fit is unclear.

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. What holds revenue back is usually the roadmap, the positioning, the offer, or how the marketing money is being spent, and all of 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 $30,000 to $45,000 or more a month fully loaded, before a recruiter fee, a six-to-twelve-month ramp (the first three to six months go to discovery and review), and the real chance you hire twice. A senior leader also needs a team to execute, which takes the in-house cost to roughly $60,000 to $200,000 a month. 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 $15,000 to $50,000 a month plus a share of media, with creative and landing pages billed on top, for execution rather than judgment. At Taylor Sicard Consulting, 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.

QHow much of my time does this take?

It depends on the tier. Consulting is the call every two weeks and the emails you would send anyway. Advisory adds a weekly hour and a Slack channel. Partner adds a second weekly call and a seat in your leadership meeting. The Read itself needs the data folder by day three, a 60-minute founder call on day five, and 90 minutes for the readout.

QWho does the work?

I do. There is no team behind the form and no junior on the call. Enterprise Engagements add named associates where a phase needs more hands, and you always know who they are.

Tell me where you're stuck.

Every engagement starts with a free 30-minute scoping call, with no pitch and no deck. We talk through where you are, where you're going, and whether there's a fit. If there is, you pick a tier, or start with The Read to test it first.

Start a conversation Or book 30 minutes now →