{"id":31408,"date":"2026-10-15T07:16:54","date_gmt":"2026-10-15T11:16:54","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/simplified.com\/blog\/?p=31408"},"modified":"2026-10-15T07:41:26","modified_gmt":"2026-10-15T11:41:26","slug":"fractional-cmo","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/simplified.com\/blog\/marketing\/fractional-cmo","title":{"rendered":"Fractional CMO: What It Is, What It Costs, and When AI Is Enough"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

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A fractional CMO is a part-time, senior marketing leader who sets your marketing strategy and manages it for a monthly retainer, usually 10 to 20 hours a week. The most common retainer is\u00a0$5,000 to $8,000 a month<\/a>. The role is a strong fit when you already have people to do the work; if you don’t, you may end up paying for plans that never ship.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That last point is where a lot of small businesses get burned. One marketer recently described being hired to “fix marketing” at a company that had worked with a fractional CMO for five months. What did the company have to show for it?\u00a0A 94-slide strategy deck<\/a>, beautifully designed and mostly unexecuted.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The deck wasn’t the problem. The company needed people to do<\/em> the marketing, and most fractional CMOs direct rather than do.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A quick disclosure: we sell AI marketing software, so we have a point of view. Most articles about fractional CMOs are written by firms that sell fractional CMO services, so they have one too. We’ll give you a fair test for which one you need, including when the answer is “hire a fractional CMO.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Key Takeaways<\/strong><\/p>\n\n