What does We Scale Startups charge?

Growth Diagnosis from £2k, 90-Day Growth Sprint from £8k, Acquisition System Build from £15k, Fractional CMO from £5k/mo, Fractional CMO Plus from £7.5k/mo. Final scope depends on channel mix, reporting depth, and how much senior ownership the team needs.

How does that compare to a full-time CMO?

A full-time UK marketing leader is often £120–180k base plus employer NI, pension, recruiter fees, and ramp. A 12-month fractional engagement at published anchors is typically lower cash cost, with a 3-month minimum instead of permanent notice.

Fractional CMO cost in the UK (2026)

Q: How much does a fractional CMO cost in the UK?

For post-PMF startups, published retainers commonly sit around £5k–£12k/month depending on days per week and operating depth. We Scale Startups publishes Fractional CMO from £5k/mo (~1 day/week) and Fractional CMO Plus from £7.5k/mo (~2 days/week), with a 3-month minimum.

Founders asking “how much does a fractional CMO cost in the UK?” usually need a comparison frame, not a secret quote.

Here is the frame We Scale Startups uses publicly.

Public WSS anchors (UK)

| Engagement | From | Typical shape | | --- | --- | --- | | Growth Diagnosis | £2k | ~1 week. Bottleneck map and sequenced recommendation. | | 90-Day Growth Sprint | £8k | 12 weeks. Audit → plan → ship tests → transfer. | | Acquisition System Build | £15k | 8–12 weeks. Channels, pages, offers, reporting as one system. | | Fractional CMO | £5k/mo | ~1 day/week, 3-month minimum. Senior ownership and weekly rhythm. | | Fractional CMO Plus | £7.5k/mo | ~2 days/week. Deeper operating support and agency management. |

Those numbers are deliberately visible. They filter the wrong buying conversation early.

What the monthly fee buys

You are not buying a cheaper full-time CMO.

You are buying senior ownership for the stage where the company needs better growth decisions before it needs a permanent executive layer:

diagnosis of the current growth bottleneck
ICP, positioning, offer, and channel judgement
reporting and a weekly scale / stop / fix rhythm
agency or team direction
cleaner hiring briefs
handoff of the operating system when the company is ready to internalise it

That is why comparing a fractional CMO only to a channel agency can mislead. The agency may be valuable. The job is different. One executes a channel. The other decides what the system should do.

Useful comparison bands

For post-PMF Seed–Series B teams, put the retainer next to:

Specialist agency retainers — often roughly £6k–£20k/month for production-heavy scopes
Full-time marketing leadership — often £120–180k base plus equity and on-costs, with a multi-month hire cycle and ramp
Narrow consultants / freelancers — useful for one slice, not usually for whole-GTM ownership

Market retainers we see published for fractional CMO work commonly land around £5k–£12k/month, driven by days per week and operating depth — not by “cheaper media buying.”

What moves the price

Days per week embedded
Number of acquisition channels in scope
Agency or contractor coordination load
Reporting / CRM hygiene work
International or multi-product complexity
How much of the first 90 days is diagnosis versus execution

A short diagnosis or sprint is fixed-duration. Ongoing retainers scale with embedded time.

When the spend is justified

Easiest to justify when the founder is still the bottleneck on growth decisions, pipeline arrives in waves, channels run in isolation, and the company is not ready for a £150k full-time hire.

Harder to justify pre-PMF, pre-revenue, or when there is no internal owner who will run the weekly cadence after the engagement.

Decision rule

If you know exactly which channel to execute, hire production (agency or specialist).

If you do not know which channel matters, why the funnel is stuck, what the positioning should say, or what the team should stop doing, senior fractional leadership is usually the cleaner first step.