Fractional CMO or a full-time hire: the honest maths
This decision is usually made on budget and then regretted on timing. The real difference is not what each costs per month, it is how long you wait before anything happens and what it costs you if the answer is wrong.
Side by side
| Criterion | Fractional growth leadership | A full-time marketing hire |
|---|---|---|
| Time to productive | Weeks | Six to twelve months, including recruitment |
| Cost | Less than one senior salary | Salary, plus equity, benefits and recruitment fees |
| Breadth of expertise | A team: strategy, product, channel, paid | One person’s background |
| If it is not working | End the retainer | Three to six months, plus severance and a rehire |
| Daily presence | Embedded, but not full-time yours | In every meeting, every day |
| Institutional knowledge | Documented, because it has to be | Lives in one head until they leave |
| Best for | Deciding what to build before you build it | Running a function that is already defined |
When each one is the right call
Fractional growth leadership
- You need senior direction now, not after a hiring process
- You are not yet sure what the marketing function should look like
- A wrong hire at this stage would cost you a year you cannot spare
- You want a team’s range rather than one person’s specialism
A full-time marketing hire
- The strategy is settled and the job is to run it, daily
- The role needs someone in every internal meeting and decision
- You are large enough that the function needs a permanent owner
- You have a strong candidate who already knows your market
Three things worth knowing first
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01
The salary is not the cost
We have written about the maths: a decent growth marketer costs at least $120K plus equity, a sales leader $150K or more, and that is before the six to twelve months it takes them to ramp. For an early-stage company that is a luxury few can afford.
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02
A first marketing hire is a bet on a job description
Most companies write that description before they know what the function needs to do. Hiring fractionally first is often how you find out what to hire for, which makes the eventual hire much more likely to work.
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03
Fractional is not permanent, and should not be
The goal is usually to build the thing, prove it works, document it and hand it to someone permanent. If a fractional partner is still indispensable after two years, something has gone wrong.
Where Sarpea fits
Sarpea works as your fractional growth team: senior strategy plus the hands to execute it, embedded in your tools and your standups. We are explicitly not a replacement for a permanent leader once the function is defined, and we would rather help you hire that person than pretend otherwise.
“Most agencies need six months to learn your space. Sarpea was productive in week one: they joined our standups, used our tools and worked like teammates, not vendors. It’s the closest thing to hiring a growth team overnight.”
Still deciding?
How much does fractional growth leadership cost?
We do not publish a fixed price because every retainer is scoped to what the engagement needs. As a benchmark, it costs less than an outsourced agency of comparable scope and less than the salary of a single in-house marketing manager or director.
Do you replace our future CMO?
No. We build and prove the growth function, then hand it over. A good fractional engagement should make your eventual permanent hire easier, not delay it.
Can you work alongside a marketing team we already have?
Yes, and we often do. We add specialised expertise, strategic direction and execution bandwidth without disrupting how your team already works.
Not sure which you are? Twenty minutes will tell you.
We will say so if the answer is that you need neither of us.