For owners who have outgrown “ask the IT guy”
A CTO, two days a week.
Technology is now the thing holding your business back, and nobody in the building owns it. Hiring a full-time technology leader costs north of $20,000 a month and takes a quarter to find. This is the same judgement, on retainer, starting in a week or two.
Does this describe your week?
The decisions keep landing on your desk.
A fractional CTO is the right shape when the problem is ownership rather than hands. If you need someone to build one specific thing, a fixed-price project is cheaper and faster.
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Your developer keeps asking you to decide things you can’t judge.
Someone has to say yes or no to the architecture, the vendor, the rewrite. Right now that someone is you, guessing.
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Three vendors, and none of them owns the outcome.
The website people blame the CRM people. Every invoice is defensible and nothing works end to end.
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You’re about to sign something you can’t read.
A six-figure platform contract, a migration quote, an acquisition’s worth of systems. You need someone whose job is to find the trap. Buying a company?
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The roadmap is a list of things people are annoyed about.
Work gets done in the order it was complained about, which is why the important thing has been next quarter for a year.
Who I’m doing this for
Two engagements. Same job.
An insurance agency with four thousand clients needed a system built and someone to own whether it actually worked. An enterprise software company brought me back to decide where AI belongs in their product. Different industries, one job: make the call, then stay for the consequences.
Four thousand clients, and not one follow-up missed.
A text-message system built in one week — it reaches the whole book on schedule, then stops and hands the client to the right agent the moment they reply.
Read the full case studyBringing AI into an enterprise M&A platform.
Devensoft builds M&A software for enterprise deal teams — and they were a team I used to build software for. Now I'm working with them on where AI fits in the platform.
The M&A engagement is described at category level on purpose — deal work is confidential, and a retainer that leaks is worth nothing to the next client. The rest of the work is written up in full.
The packages
Three sizes. Published rates.
Pick by how much of the problem you want me to own, not by how many hours you want to buy. Every rate here is the rate — there is no discount to negotiate for, which means there is none you missed.
Technical Advisor
$2,800
Per month · ~8 hrs
Month-to-month
You already have someone building things — an agency, a contractor, a nephew — and you need a second opinion you can trust.
- — Weekly 60-minute call: decisions, vendor quotes, hiring, "is this a good idea"
- — Email and Slack access, answered the same business day
- — Any contract, SOW, or quote reviewed before you sign it
- — A standing one-page "what I'd do next", kept current
Not included
Writing code · Running your projects · On-call · Managing your vendors
Talk about an advisor retainerFractional CTO · Most take this
$5,600
Per month · ~20 hrs
3-month initial term, monthly after
Technology has become the bottleneck and nobody in the building owns it.
- — Everything in Technical Advisor
- — I own the technology roadmap and the budget that goes with it
- — I manage your existing vendors and contractors directly — you are the escalation point, not the owner
- — One improvement project a month, run to done: automation, integration, cleanup
- — I sit in leadership meetings as the technical voice
- — Monthly written report: what changed, what it cost, what's next
Not included
24/7 on-call · Helpdesk · Bulk implementation work (quoted separately as a project)
Book a discovery callEmbedded CTO
$11,200
Per month · ~48 hrs
6-month initial term
Earliest start: December 15, 2026
You are mid-transition — an acquisition, a system migration, a compliance deadline — and you need a technology leader in the room, not on a call.
- — Everything in Fractional CTO
- — 1.5 days a week of genuinely reserved time, on-site in the DMV when it helps
- — I hire and manage the technical team, and own the performance conversations
- — Direct delivery work, not just oversight
- — Board and lender-ready technology reporting
Not included
An exclusivity clause — I keep other clients
Book a discovery callWant this on one page to read later or forward? All three packages, the terms and the first 30 days are on one printable sheet — open it and save it as a PDF.
Buying a company rather than running one? These same three rates, relabelled for where they sit in a deal, are on a one-page sheet for deal teams — built to print.
Two segments get their own version of this page, written in their own nouns rather than in general ones: independent insurance agencies and private equity portfolio companies. Same three rates either way.
If a month runs long, you hear about it while it is happening, not on the invoice. If the work needs more than the package holds, we move up a tier or I quote the extra as a fixed-price project — your choice, in advance, every time.
What you’re comparing against
Every tier costs less than the hire it stands in for.
A senior engineering leader in the DC metro runs roughly $180,000–$220,000 base. Loaded with payroll tax, benefits and equipment, that is about $20,000 a month — plus a two to four months search and the risk of getting it wrong.
| Package | Per month | Hours | Per hour | Vs. the hire |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Technical Advisor | $2,800 | ~8 | $350 | 86% less |
| Fractional CTO | $5,600 | ~20 | $280 | 72% less |
| Embedded CTO | $11,200 | ~48 | $233 | 44% less |
| Full-time hire | ~$20,000 | ~160 | ~$125 | — |
The hourly number falls as the commitment rises, and that is deliberate: reserved time is cheaper for me to deliver than hours scattered across three clients. You are buying judgement and ownership, not a timesheet — but the hours are published so you can check the maths.
The first 30 days
What you have at the end of each week.
It starts with a 30-minute call, free — you describe what is stuck and I tell you which package fits, or that none of them does. Plenty of those calls end with “you need a one-off project, not a retainer,” and that is a fine outcome. If we do start, this is the month that follows. Same plan at every tier; the bigger tiers simply have more hours in which to do it.
- 01
Week 1
Access, and the one number we are moving.
A 90-minute kickoff, read access to the systems you run, and a conversation with whoever keeps each of them alive.
What you have at the end of the week
A written inventory of your technology: every system, what it costs a year, who owns it, and what stops working if that person leaves. Plus the one measure this engagement is judged on, agreed in writing.
What I need from you · Logins, or an admin who can grant them. Ninety minutes of yours. The names of three people I can talk to.
- 02
Week 2
Your technology, written down.
I read the contracts and the last year of invoices, watch how the work really gets done, and check which of the things you have been told are true.
What you have at the end of the week
The picture: what you run, what it costs, and what is held together by one person — in plain English, in a document you could hand to a lender, a buyer, or the next person in this seat.
What I need from you · Your vendor contracts and twelve months of software invoices.
- 03
Week 3
A plan with prices and an order.
I turn the picture into decisions: what to fix, what to leave, what to stop paying for, and what it is worth spending to get each one.
What you have at the end of the week
A ranked plan — the work, the cost, the saving, and the order — with the first item already started and the two or three things I would stop doing named out loud.
What I need from you · An hour to walk through it, and your yes on the first item.
- 04
Week 4
One thing lands, then it is a rhythm.
I finish the first item rather than adding a second, so the retainer has something to show before you pay for month two.
What you have at the end of the week
One finished thing you can point at: a contract renegotiated, a manual process automated, a drifting project back on a date. From here it is a weekly call, a monthly written report, and an escalation number that reaches a person.
What I need from you · Whoever has to approve the change, available once.
If a week slips, it is usually access. Nothing in this plan starts until logins exist, so the one thing worth doing before day one is deciding who can grant them. After the initial term, 30 days’ notice ends the retainer — no exit conversation, no penalty.
Hire or retainer
What owners ask before they decide.
Most people reading this page are also holding a job description. These are the questions that actually settle it, answered the way I’d answer them on the phone — including the parts where hiring someone is the better call.
Why not just hire someone full-time?
Cost, speed, and risk. A senior technology leader in the DC area is paid about $180,000–$220,000 a year; add payroll tax, benefits, and a laptop and you are spending north of $20,000 a month, every month. Finding a good one takes two to four months, and if you pick wrong you usually find out around month six. Every package here costs less than that hire, starts in a week or two, and ends on 30 days' notice. You are buying the same judgement for one or two days a week instead of five.
What do I give up compared with a real employee?
Hours and presence, mainly — and it is worth being honest about it. An employee is there every day, picks up the small things nobody wrote down, and builds up years of knowing how your business works. I am there one or two days a week: remote on the smaller tiers, on-site around Annapolis and the DC metro when being in the room is what moves it. If what you need is five days a week of hands on keyboards, or a leader who will still be in that chair in five years, hire someone. I will help you do that well.
What happens when we are ready to hire a full-time CTO?
I help you do it and then get out of the way: write the job description, sit in on the interviews, tell you honestly which candidate I would bet on, and hand over the roadmap, the vendor relationships, and the documentation. A good number of these engagements are meant to end exactly that way. If it helps, I drop to the Technical Advisor retainer for a few months so the new person has someone to call.
What if we need more hours than the package includes?
We move up a tier, or I quote the extra work as a fixed-price project on top. What I don't do is quietly bill you for overage — if a month is running long, you hear about it while it's happening, not on the invoice.
Do you replace our existing agency or developer?
Usually not. Most of the time the people building things are fine and what's missing is someone deciding what gets built and holding them to it. I manage them. If the relationship genuinely isn't working, I'll tell you that plainly and help you replace it.
How soon does this pay for itself?
The first month is published week by week, so you can check. Week one you get a written inventory of what you run, what it costs and what depends on one person. By week four one concrete thing has landed: a vendor contract renegotiated, a manual process automated, a project that was drifting put back on a date. If after 90 days you can't point at something that paid for the retainer, you should stop paying it.
What are the terms, and how do I get out?
Invoiced monthly in advance. Technical Advisor is month-to-month. Fractional CTO has a 3-month initial term, then monthly. Embedded CTO has a 6-month initial term. After the initial term, either of us can end it with 30 days' notice — no exit conversation and no penalty. No exclusivity either way: I keep other clients, and you keep whoever else you want.
More of the general ones on the FAQ page.
Ready?
One call. 30 minutes. Free.
Bring the decision you’ve been putting off. I’ll tell you honestly which of the three fits, or that a one-off project would serve you better and cost a tenth as much.