Marketing Leadership Cost Comparator

Compare a full-time marketing hire, a fractional leader and an agency on your own numbers. Fully loaded cost over the horizon you choose, cost per productive month, the month the lines cross, and what stopping would cost.

All free tools - Fractional CMO Cost Guide

Three things make a spreadsheet comparison wrong, and all three are counted here. Ramp: every option costs full price before it produces full output. Recruiting and search time: a hire you start looking for in January is not working in January. Your own hours: the cheapest option on paper is often the one that consumes most of the founder's week.

The comparator divides by productive months rather than calendar months, which is the figure that actually compares. It also prices the exit separately - what has already left the bank, and what leaving still obliges you to pay - because a notice period and a minimum term are not the same commitment.

Every figure it reports is one you entered. Nothing in it is a benchmark. For published rate ranges with their sources named, see the Fractional CMO Cost Guide; for which model fits which stage, see Fractional CMO vs In-House Marketing Team.

Run this in your agent

The free AAJ agent skill Marketing Leadership Model does this job inside a coding agent, on your own data. Install it with npx skills add sarojkjha/aaj-marketing-skills --skill marketing-leadership-model.

Using Claude or ChatGPT instead? Add the AAJ engines as a custom connector, with no install: https://aaj-engines-mcp.sarojkjha10.workers.dev/mcp