At some point every growing company prices the question: do we hire a real CFO, or one of these fractional ones? The framing is backwards — a good fractional CFO is a real CFO, working part-time — but the cost question deserves a real answer. Here it is, both sides told honestly.
The full cost table
The salary is the visible part of a full-time CFO. The fully-loaded number is what hits your P&L:
| Cost component | Fractional CFO | Full-time CFO |
|---|---|---|
| Cash compensation | $36K – $180K/yr ($3K–$15K/mo) | $200K – $300K base |
| Bonus | — | 20 – 40% of base |
| Equity | Rarely | 0.25% – 1.0% |
| Benefits + employer taxes | Included in rate | $30K – $60K/yr |
| Recruiting / search fee | None | $50K – $90K (25–30% of comp) |
| Year-one total | $36K – $180K | $350K – $450K+ |
At the common $8K/month engagement, the fractional CFO costs $96K a year — and the ~$300K difference funds a fractional controller, a senior bookkeeper, and a healthy software budget. That team is usually the better-shaped finance function for a sub-$30M business than one expensive executive sitting above thin support.
Beyond cost: the five dimensions that actually decide it
Availability. Full-time wins, obviously — they’re in the building (or the Slack) every day. When a lender calls with a covenant question at 4pm, the full-time CFO answers at 4:05. The fractional CFO answers within the engagement’s rhythm. For most businesses most weeks, the rhythm is enough; in a crisis or a live transaction, daily presence has real value.
Breadth of pattern-matching. Fractional wins. A fractional CFO working across ten companies has seen your problem before — the pricing mistake, the covenant trap, the fundraise mis-timing — because they saw it at someone else’s company last year. A full-time CFO brings depth in one context; fractional brings a comparison set.
Ramp time. Fractional wins decisively: 1–2 weeks from intro call to first working session, versus a 3–6 month executive search plus onboarding. If you need finance leadership this quarter, the search timeline alone answers the question.
Commitment and flexibility. Fractional wins on optionality — month-to-month after an initial term, scale hours up during a raise and down after. Full-time wins on alignment: equity and a single employer focus the mind. If you’re asking someone to bet three years on your outcome, that’s a full-time ask.
Team leadership. Full-time wins. Developing a finance team — hiring, mentoring, performance-managing five people — is daily work. A fractional CFO directs; a full-time CFO builds. If your finance org is heading past a handful of people, weigh this heavily.
Score it honestly: cost, breadth, and speed go fractional; presence and team-building go full-time. Which columns matter depends entirely on your next 18 months.
Three scenarios, three answers
The $6M services firm with foggy margins. No transaction on the horizon, no finance team to manage — just decisions being made on instinct. Fractional, standard tier. This is the center of the fractional value proposition.
The $18M company raising a Series B. Investor scrutiny, a data room, a board that wants weekly numbers during the process. Fractional, embedded tier — with a plan. Run the raise fractionally; revisit full-time once the post-money board expectations are clear.
The $45M company doing two acquisitions a year with eight people in finance. Daily integration decisions, lender relationships, a team that needs a leader. Full-time. A fractional CFO here would be a part-time person in a full-time seat — the wrong shape, whatever it saves.
The bridge path most companies actually take
The binary framing misses how this usually plays out: companies run fractional for two or three years, let the role prove what full-time scope would even look like, then hire full-time from a position of knowledge — with a working forecast, a defined role, and often the fractional CFO helping run the search. Both halves of that path are things we place; see the fractional CFO service page for how engagements are structured, or the full cost breakdown for pricing depth.
The bottom line
Buy fractional when the work is strategic but part-time — which describes most companies under $30M. Buy full-time when finance is a daily executive job: transactions, complex capital, a real team. And if you’re genuinely unsure, that uncertainty is itself the answer: start fractional, and let the engagement reveal the full-time role — or reveal that you never needed one.