CTO as a service for founders who need judgement, not another contractor
Someone senior who owns the technical decisions, tells you when an agency is overcharging you, and can still read a pull request. Part time, published monthly rates, no equity conversation required.
- No equity, no long contract, cancel monthly
- We tell you when the answer is to spend nothing
- Independent of your agency, so the review is honest
Why this is worth building, and why us.
There is a stage where a non-technical founder is making decisions they have no way to evaluate. An agency quotes six figures and you cannot tell if it is fair. A developer says something will take four months and you cannot tell if that is true. An investor asks about your technical roadmap and you repeat what someone told you. Every one of those is a decision you are effectively outsourcing to whoever is in the room.
A fractional CTO fills exactly that gap. Not a project manager, not a contractor, and not someone who needs a third of your company. Someone senior enough to make the call, honest enough to tell you when the answer is that your current setup is fine, and technical enough to verify rather than take a vendor at their word.
What the role actually covers
- 01Technical decisions you can live with for three years, made deliberately rather than by default
- 02Vendor and agency review: reading quotes, checking claims, and telling you what is padding
- 03Hiring: writing the role, screening properly, and running the technical interview
- 04Code and architecture review of whoever is building for you now
- 05Investor and due-diligence support, including the technical questions you will be asked
- 06A roadmap tied to the business, not a wish list of interesting engineering
Monthly, cancellable, no equity
A full-time CTO is a serious salary plus equity, and most early companies do not need one full time. They need a few hours of genuine seniority a week and someone reachable when a decision cannot wait.
A one-off, no commitment. We review what you have built, what it cost, what your team or agency is telling you, and what the real risks are, then write it up in language you can act on and forward to an investor. Credited back in full against the first month if you take a retainer within 30 days.
- Advisory$1,997/mo4 hrs/week
A sounding board for decisions, without day-to-day involvement.
- A weekly call plus availability between them for anything urgent
- Review of quotes, contracts, and technical proposals before you sign
- Architecture and tooling decisions when they come up
- An honest read on whether your current team is delivering
- Cancel any month, no notice period
- Most chosenFractional CTO$3,997/mo2 days/week
Owning the technical function while you build the business.
- Everything in Advisory, plus ownership of the technical roadmap
- Managing your developers or agency, including the difficult conversations
- Hiring: role definition, screening, and running technical interviews
- Code review, so quality is verified rather than assumed
- Investor and due-diligence support when you raise
- Named in the role publicly if that helps you
- Embedded CTO$7,997/mo4 days/week
Leading and building, when there is nobody else senior.
- Everything in Fractional CTO, plus hands-on building
- Directly shipping the hard parts rather than only directing them
- Standing up engineering process: reviews, releases, on-call, incidents
- Growing the team and handing over to a permanent hire when you make one
- Effectively a technical co-founder, on a contract instead of a cap table
- Cancel any month, no notice period
- No equity, no long contract, cancel monthly
- We tell you when the answer is to spend nothing
- Independent of your agency, so the review is honest
- A named person, not a rotating consultant
A caveat worth stating: we also build software, so there is an obvious conflict when we review a vendor and could take the work ourselves. We handle it by saying plainly when we would be a candidate, and by being willing to recommend someone else. If that is not comfortable, take the audit as a one-off and use it to brief whoever you like.
The most valuable output is usually "do not build that"
The pattern repeats constantly: a founder is about to spend a large sum building something that a configured off-the-shelf tool would do, or rebuilding a system that works because someone described it as legacy. Custom software is the expensive answer, and it is right less often than the people selling it suggest.
Most of the value here is a senior person with no incentive to inflate the scope saying that the plan is bigger than the problem. That is uncomfortable advice to sell, which is roughly why it is worth buying.
Reading a quote you cannot evaluate
Agency proposals are written to be difficult to compare. Line items bundle discovery, project management, and QA into percentages, timelines assume ideal conditions, and the technical justification is written for someone who will not challenge it. A non-technical founder has no way in.
We read them the way another engineer would: what is genuinely necessary, what is padding, where the change-request revenue is hiding, and whether the timeline is real. Often the outcome is not switching vendors but renegotiating with better questions.
Hiring your first engineers
The first technical hire is the highest-leverage and highest-risk decision an early company makes, and it is usually made by someone who cannot assess the candidate. Interviews become vibes and CV keywords, and the failure only becomes visible months later when velocity never arrives.
We write the role honestly, screen properly, and run the technical interview. Just as importantly we tell you when you should not hire yet, because a permanent engineer before there is a clear roadmap is an expensive way to build the wrong thing quickly.
When you should not hire a fractional CTO
If you have a technical co-founder, you do not need this. If you have a competent lead engineer and just need capacity, hire capacity. If your product is live, stable, and the roadmap is clear, an advisory retainer is probably money spent on reassurance rather than outcomes.
The stage this genuinely fits is narrow: enough technical decisions to matter, not enough to justify a full-time salary, and nobody in the building who can evaluate them. Outside that window we will say so, which costs us a retainer and saves you several.
Not claims. Shipped work.
- 01ChatberryA product taken from idea to production, including the decisions that shaped it.See the work
- 02ReadyShortlistArchitecture and delivery owned end to end for a real business.See the work
- 03Offshore development teamIf what you actually need is senior engineering capacity, start here instead.See the work
Common questions.
01How much does a fractional CTO cost?
Ours is published: $1,997 a month for advisory at roughly four hours a week, $3,997 for a fractional CTO at two days, $7,997 for an embedded CTO at four days including hands-on building. All cancel monthly with no notice period. The $997 technical audit is a one-off if you would rather start there.
02Do you take equity instead?
No. Equity turns an advisory relationship into a negotiation and makes it harder to give you advice you will not like. A monthly fee you can stop keeps the incentives simple: we are worth keeping or we are not, and you can decide that every thirty days.
03Can you review our current agency or developers?
Yes, and it is one of the more common reasons people start. We review the code, the delivery pace, and the commercials, then tell you whether the problem is the vendor, the brief, or expectations. Since we also build software, we will say plainly when we would be a candidate for the work rather than pretending the review is disinterested.
04What is the difference between this and a technical co-founder?
Commitment and equity. A co-founder is permanent, invested, and takes the risk with you. A fractional CTO is a contract you can end, which makes it lower risk and lower commitment on both sides. If you can find a real technical co-founder you trust, that is usually the better answer and we will tell you so.
05Will you help us raise?
On the technical side, yes: the architecture questions investors ask, the diligence pack, and a roadmap that reads as deliberate rather than aspirational. We will not overstate what exists. If your technical story is weak, the honest fix is usually to build the missing piece rather than describe it more confidently.
Get a straight answer about what you have built
Tell us what you are building, who is building it, and what decision is in front of you. If a retainer is not the right answer we will say so, and the $997 audit stands alone if you just want one honest read.
- A real person replies, usually same day
- No sales sequence, no automated nurture
- Technical Audit is credited back if you go ahead