How much does a fractional CTO cost in Australia?
Most fractional CTOs in Australia charge a monthly retainer, and the price follows the time commitment. Advisory-only arrangements of a few hours a month start from around $1,000 a month. Hands-on leadership of roughly one day a week typically runs $5,000 to $6,000 a month, two days a week around $11,000, and a near full-time embedded CTO $20,000 or more. For comparison, a full-time CTO commonly costs $250,000 or more in salary, before superannuation, equity and recruitment fees.
I scope each engagement to the outcome you need and quote after an initial conversation.
What services does a CTO provide?
A CTO sets technology direction and makes sure technology spend serves the business. That covers technology strategy and roadmap, architecture and build-versus-buy decisions, hiring and leading the engineering team, managing vendors and delivery, security and risk, and representing technology to the board and investors. A fractional CTO does the same work part-time, usually one to three days a week.
What impact does a CTO have on a business?
A good CTO turns technology spend into business results: faster delivery, fewer costly rebuilds, lower vendor and cloud costs, an engineering team that can hire and retain good people, and technical credibility with investors and acquirers.
Do I need a full-time CTO or a fractional CTO?
Most growing businesses need senior technology decisions before they need a full-time technology executive. A fractional CTO fits when you need direction but not 40 hours a week of it: an early product build, a first engineering hire, a stalled delivery program, an AI initiative, or preparation for investment or sale. A full-time CTO makes sense once technology leadership is a daily, full-time load.
Can a fractional CTO be hands-on?
Some fractional CTOs will write code, but it is usually an expensive use of their skill set. You are paying for senior judgement: direction, architecture, hiring and the decisions your team cannot make on its own, and every hour spent coding is an hour not spent on those. If you need hands-on delivery as well, raise it early so it can be scoped and priced into the engagement from the start.
Is there a minimum time commitment for a fractional CTO?
Minimum commitments vary between providers, and fractional CTO engagements come in many lengths. Short engagements suit situations like an interim CTO while a permanent hire is recruited, or keeping the ship running while an existing CTO is on leave. Longer engagements suit ongoing part-time technology leadership with no fixed end date.
I do not set a minimum. An engagement with me can run from a single month to an ongoing arrangement, depending on what you need.
Can a fractional CTO lead AI adoption?
Yes. The hard part of AI adoption is deciding which initiatives are worth funding and getting them into production, and that is technology leadership work.
I help leadership teams prioritise AI initiatives, build the business cases, and deliver them.
Can a fractional CTO run technical due diligence?
Yes. Technical due diligence assesses architecture, code quality, security, scalability, technical debt and team capability, so investors, acquirers and boards know what they are buying and what it will cost to fix.
I provide independent assessments for investment, acquisition and board decisions.
