What is a fractional CRO?

A fractional CRO is a chief revenue officer who works part-time, inside your business, and owns the number. They sit in the pipeline review, join the calls that matter, rewrite the qualification standard, help hire the account executives, and tell you which deals are not real. It is an operating role rather than an advisory one. A consultant hands you an ICP, a sales process and a 90-day plan. A fractional CRO executes it with your team.

What does a fractional CRO cost?

Most fractional CRO engagements run between $10,000 and $25,000 a month depending on depth and days per week. At Founders Help Line a full GTM Team engagement, which is a fractional CRO plus a project manager and a working seller, runs $20,000 to $25,000 a month. Lighter advisory runs $2,500 to $7,500. A strategy-and-playbook engagement without execution runs $14,000 to $16,000.

When does a founder need a fractional CRO rather than a full-time VP of Sales?

When the motion is not documented yet. Median VP Sales tenure runs about nineteen months and SaaStr puts first-time SaaS VP Sales hires who do not reach twelve months at seventy percent, almost always because there was no repeatable motion for that person to run. A fractional CRO builds the motion, proves it by closing deals personally, then hires the full-time leader into something that works. That sequence is cheaper than hiring first and rebuilding after.

What is the difference between a fractional CRO and a consultant?

A consultant produces a document. A fractional CRO produces revenue and then a document. The test is whether they will carry a number, sit in your Monday pipeline meeting, get on the calls, and hire the people who take over. If the engagement ends in a readout rather than a working motion and a trained team, it was consulting.

How long should a fractional CRO engagement last?

Six months is the usual minimum, because a sales cycle has to run at least once inside the engagement for anything to be proven. A good fractional CRO is designing their own exit from the first week: the measure of success is that the motion runs without them and somebody they hired is running it.

What should I ask a fractional CRO before hiring them?

Ask what they will personally close in the first ninety days. Ask who they have hired and whether those people are still in seat. Ask what they would tell you to stop doing. Ask for a company where they recommended against the work. Ask how the engagement ends and what exists on paper when it does. An operator answers these in specifics. A consultant answers them in frameworks.

Founders Help Line → Fractional CRO

Fractional CRO

A fractional CRO carries the number. A consultant hands you a deck.

Everything a Seed to Series B founder should know before hiring one: what the role actually is, when you need it, what the market pays, and the ten questions that separate an operator from a strategist. Written by someone who has done the job.

What a fractional CRO actually does

A fractional chief revenue officer works part-time, inside your business, and owns the revenue number. Not advises on it. Owns it.

A consultant says

Here is your ICP
Here is a sales process
Here is a 90-day GTM plan
Here is a dashboard
Here is the readout deck

A fractional CRO says

I am in your Monday pipeline review
I am on the calls that matter
I am rewriting the qualification standard
I am helping you hire the account executive
I am telling you which deals are not real

Both have their place. The mistake is paying for the second and receiving the first. The simplest test: ask what they will personally close in the first ninety days. An operator gives you a number and a named account. A consultant gives you a methodology.

When you need one, and when you do not

A fractional CRO is the right call when

You are still closing most of the revenue yourself and it is not scaling
The board is asking when you will hire a VP of Sales and you are not sure the business is ready
You have reps but the motion only works when you are in the room
Nothing is written down, so every new hire invents their own version
You are a non-US company trying to open the United States
You need senior judgment at a fraction of a $350K base plus equity

You probably do not need one when

You are pre-product or pre-revenue, where the founder has to sell
You have a working motion and need capacity, which is a hiring problem
You want lead generation, which is an agency problem
The real issue is product or retention wearing a sales costume
You want someone to validate a decision you have already made

What a fractional CRO costs

Market rates for fractional CRO and fractional GTM leadership generally run $10,000 to $25,000 a month, scaling with days per week and whether execution is included or only advice. Here is what we charge, published, because a rate you have to ask for is a rate that moves.

$2,500–$7,500

AdvisorA direct line to a senior operator. Monthly or annual. Not a fractional CRO engagement, and we will say so.

$14,000–$16,000

Growth PartnerThe go-to-market assessed and scored, and the playbook that comes out of it. Weekly working sessions and a dedicated project manager. Strategy with hands on it, short of carrying the number.

$20,000–$25,000

GTM TeamThe full fractional CRO engagement. A CRO, CMO, customer success or US market lead inside the business owning the number, with a project manager and a working seller alongside. This is the one where someone closes deals personally and hires the people who take over.

Six months is the usual minimum. A sales cycle has to run at least once inside the engagement before anything is proven, and a fractional CRO who cannot point at their own exit is not doing the job.

Ten questions to ask before you hire one

Ask every candidate the same ten and compare the answers. Operators answer in specifics. Strategists answer in frameworks.

01What will you personally close in the first ninety days, and from which accounts?

02Who have you hired into a revenue seat, and are they still there?

03What would you tell me to stop doing myself?

04Name a company where you recommended against the engagement, and why.

05What exists on paper at the end that did not exist at the start?

06How does this end, and how will we both know it worked?

07Walk me through a deal you lost and what you changed afterwards.

08What is your qualification standard, in writing, and who enforces it?

09How many other engagements are you carrying right now?

10What do you think is actually wrong with our go-to-market, based on what you have seen so far?

Question ten is the one that matters. A good operator will have formed a view before the call ends and will tell you something uncomfortable. If the answer is a discovery process, you are buying consulting.

Who you would be hiring

Preston Junger has spent twenty-five years building and scaling revenue functions. SVP, Brand Solutions at Yelp, employee number 82, through its run from roughly $2M to $700M in revenue and from 80 people to 4,000, where he grew display revenue 2000% from a standing start. SVP and first US hire at 7shifts. Digital advertising go-to-market across the IAC brands, and the launch of search advertising sales at Yahoo!.

Entrepreneur in Residence at Techstars, German Accelerator, NUMA, Nordic Innovation House and Ellis Accelerator, and advisor to the Tech Council of Denmark. Four of those five are European, which is not an accident: opening the United States for a company that has already proven itself at home is the engagement he is asked for most.

Closed the first twenty himself, then hired the teamA company moving upmarket into enterprise. Twenty mid-market accounts carried through the funnel personally, the playbook written out of those live deals, two enterprise account executives and a junior hired to run it.

Built a US commercial function from nothingA European company with no US presence. Model, route to market, first partners closed personally, outbound engine, then an external BDR team onboarded against materials that already worked. Renewed, then extended.

A second revenue line from zeroTeamSnap, Series C. Brand advertising sold to agencies and brands direct, in a company that had never sold media. Largest deal in company history closed, $300K+ in attributed revenue, engagement renewed.

Answered a channel question with evidenceA Series B company wanted to know whether field sales was real or an expensive distraction. Playbook built, tested in a live market, rep hired and coached, business case delivered with a go or no-go call.

All eight engagements Full background