By Andreas Pettersson, Founder, Leaders ADAPT
You need a CFO, or a COO, or someone to run marketing like an adult. You do not need another forty page proposal. You need to know which shape of help fits the hole in your leadership team, and whether you can afford to get it wrong again.
I have bought every shape on this page. I built Arcules from zero to 150 people and sold it to Canon, then ran it as Canon's youngest standalone CEO. For a stretch I was CEO, CFO and CTO at once, which is a bad idea and also the reason I know what each seat is for. Now I run a bench of fractional executives for CEOs of $5M to $50M companies.
Here is the short version. Fractional is a share of a person for as long as you need the judgment. Interim is all of a person for a fixed time. Advisory is judgment without hands. A consultant is a project. A full time hire is a seat you are sure about. The table below puts the five side by side. The decision test at the end tells you which one you are actually shopping for.
Quick answer: A fractional executive holds a seat one to three days a week on a monthly retainer, for as long as the company needs senior judgment. An interim executive holds the seat full time for a fixed period, usually three to twelve months, until a permanent hire arrives. Advisory adds judgment one to two hours a week while the CEO keeps the decision. Consultants deliver a project. Full time hires own the seat permanently.
Leaders ADAPT sells advisory, fractional and exit readiness engagements delivered through its own bench. Every market rate on this page belongs to another provider, is their own published figure, and is linked with the date I read it. If a figure has changed, their page wins. No provider named on this page pays us.
The comparison table: fractional vs interim vs advisory vs consultant vs full time
Five shapes, six rows. Cost shape is how the invoice is built, not what it says, because the number depends on the seat and the company.
| Fractional executive | Interim executive | Advisory | Consultant | Full time hire | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Time | One to three days a week | Full time, five days a week | One to two hours a week, or a fixed working session | Project based, often a team | Full time, every week |
| Length | Six months to several years, renewed by results | Three to twelve months, ends when the permanent hire starts | Six to twelve months, often renewed | Weeks to a few months, ends at the deliverable | Open ended |
| Who owns the decision | The executive, inside the authority the CEO sets | The executive, with full seat authority | The CEO or the sitting executive, always | The CEO, after the recommendation | The executive |
| Cost shape | Monthly retainer, scaled to days per week | Day rate or monthly fee at a premium, no benefits or equity | Fixed monthly fee or fixed price per session | Project fee or hourly, scoped up front | Salary, benefits, bonus, often equity, plus a recruiter fee |
| When to use it | The function needs senior judgment but not a full week | The seat is empty and the work cannot wait | A capable leader needs a sounding board, not a replacement | A defined problem with a known method and an end | You are sure about the seat for the next three years |
| Typical failure | Treated as a consultant, so never given authority | Stays too long and blocks the permanent hire | Becomes a crutch for decisions the CEO should own | The deck is right and nothing changes | Hired for the company you have, not the one you are building |
These are not rungs on a ladder. Plenty of $30M companies run a fractional CFO for five years and never hire full time, because three days a week is the right amount of CFO for them. And the cost shapes matter more than the rates. An interim at a day rate is cheap for three months and ruinous for eighteen. A fractional retainer is the opposite.
Fractional executive: a seat, a few days a week, for as long as it earns its fee
A fractional executive is a real CFO, COO, CTO, CMO or chief revenue officer who works for several companies at once. You get one to three days a week of their time, they take ownership of the function, they sit in your leadership team meeting, and they stay as long as the arrangement produces results.
That last part is what separates fractional from interim. There is no end date built in. The engagement is reviewed quarterly and runs as long as the company needs that level of judgment. For a company between $5M and $50M that is often the permanent answer for finance, and a two year answer for operations or revenue while the next layer of leaders grows up.
GoFractional's benchmarks, updated August 2026, put the average fractional CFO at $177 an hour, with retainers from roughly $11,500 to $16,200 a month for 10 to 25 hours a week. The same source puts fractional COO retainers at $10,000 to $20,000 a month (July 2026) and fractional CMO retainers at $4,000 to $20,000 a month, with an average of $12,000 (August 2026). Treat these as market estimates from one marketplace, not quotes. The fractional executive cost page carries the fuller table and the questions to ask about a quote.
The failure mode is the one I see most. The CEO buys three days a week of a CFO and then treats them like a consultant: no authority, no seat at the table, reports instead of decisions. Six months later the CEO says fractional did not work. It never started. If you want to know what the seat should actually produce, the fractional CFO guide lists the first 90 days of output, and the fractional executive services hub covers the other seats.
Interim executive: a full time seat with an end date
An interim executive is a full time leader for a fixed period. The seat is empty, or about to be, and the work cannot wait for a six month search. The interim arrives inside weeks, takes the full authority of the role, runs it five days a week, and leaves when the permanent hire starts or the transition is done.
The classic cases are sudden. The CFO resigns six weeks before the audit. The COO leaves mid integration. In each case you need all of a person, now, and you know it is temporary.
Interim pricing reflects that. You pay a day rate or a monthly fee at a premium to a full time salary, with no benefits, no equity and no severance, and you pay it from day one. For the baseline, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics puts the median pay for chief executives at $213,990 a year and for top executives as a group at $108,780 (May 2025). An interim at the top of a mid sized company will cost more per month than that median salary would, and should, because the start is immediate and the end is fixed.
The interim vs fractional test in one line: if the work needs someone in the building every day, it is interim. If it needs senior judgment two days a week and the team can run the rest, it is fractional. CEOs often buy interim because it feels safer, then discover they bought five days of a person for a two day problem.
The failure mode is the interim who stays. Eighteen months in, the search never started, the interim knows everything, and the company pays a premium rate for a permanent seat with no succession. Set the end date in the contract and start the search the week the interim arrives.
Advisory: judgment on tap, the decision stays yours
Advisory is the shape most CEOs actually want and most rarely buy on purpose. One to two hours a week with a sitting executive or with the CEO. The advisor has held the seat before. They review the decisions in front of you, challenge the assumptions, and tell you what they would do. You keep the decision and you do the work.
The cost shape is a fixed monthly fee, or a fixed price for a two to three hour working session on one problem. There is no retainer for days and no project scope, because the advisor is not producing anything except better decisions. The CFO advisory page shows what that looks like for a finance leader, and the CEO advisor guide covers the version where the client is you.
Advisory vs fractional comes down to one question: is there a competent person in the seat? If your controller is good and just needs a CFO's judgment on the pricing model and the bank conversation, advisory is enough and far cheaper. If nobody owns finance beyond the bookkeeper, advisory is a mirror with nobody to hold it, and you need fractional.
The failure mode is dependence. The CEO stops deciding until the weekly call. My rule: every advisory session ends with the client naming the decision they will make before we speak again. If I am making the decisions, I am a badly paid fractional executive. The wider shapes of advisory are compared on the business advisory services page.
Consultant and full time hire: the two shapes you already know
A consultant delivers a project. A defined problem, a known method, a team that does the analysis, a deliverable, an end. The cost shape is a project fee or hourly billing scoped up front. BLS puts the median wage for management analysts at $101,860 (May 2025) and projects 10 percent growth to 2035, which tells you the labor cost. Firm fees sit well above it.
Part time executive vs consultant is the comparison owners get wrong most often, because both show up for a few days and both send an invoice. The difference is ownership. The consultant recommends and leaves. The fractional executive decides, within the authority you give, and is still there when the decision plays out. If you want someone to tell you what to do and then do it with your team, buy fractional.
A full time hire is the seat you are sure about. Salary, benefits, bonus, usually equity, and a recruiter fee on top, for one person's whole attention. It is the cheapest shape per hour and the most expensive to get wrong, because a bad executive hire costs a year of the function and often a chunk of the team. The owners who call me after a failed general manager hire know this. The switch points from fractional to full time are in the fractional CFO guide.
Where AI fits in the fractional vs interim decision
AI has changed the arithmetic for the fractional and advisory shapes, and barely touched interim.
A fractional CFO with a good AI stack can produce in two days what took four a few years ago: the 13 week cash model, the board pack, the variance commentary. Two days a week of senior judgment now covers more ground, which is one reason three day fractional engagements are becoming two day ones. The seat still needs a human to own the decision, but the hands have multiplied.
Advisory benefits the same way. An advisor who helps a sitting controller or head of marketing put AI tools to work turns a two hour weekly session into a function upgrade. That work shows up in almost every fractional engagement we run now, whichever seat it started in. Our fractional AI executive offer exists for companies where AI is the seat.
Two limits. Interim is about presence, and AI does not change the fact that an empty full time seat needs a person in it every day. And AI widens the judgment gap rather than closing it. The owner who delegates the wrong things to AI ends up with faster reports and the same unmade decisions. Companies running EOS see this sharply, which is why we wrote AI for EOS companies as a separate guide.
What a fractional or interim executive does not fix
Neither shape fixes a CEO who will not delegate. The two reasons CEOs book a call with me more than any others: they hate one on ones, and delegation boomerangs back. A fractional COO on three days a week inherits both. The team routes around the new executive to the owner, the owner takes the decision back, and the COO waits for authority that never arrives.
Neither shape fixes a leadership team that has never agreed on priorities. Drop a fractional CFO into a company with twelve top priorities and the CFO will build an excellent model of a mess. At Arcules we ran 47 simultaneous priorities one year, and no executive, interim or otherwise, could have made that work. The work of agreeing what matters belongs to the team, and the leadership team development guide covers how that gets built.
Neither shape fixes a seat you have not defined. If you cannot write down what the executive decides without you, write the decision rights first. One page. Then pick the shape.
And none of them fixes a company the owner has decided to sell rather than fix. If that is you, the honest page is exit readiness, because a buyer prices the absence of a second in command, and a fractional executive hired three months before a sale does not change that.
Who is on the bench for this
Every Leaders ADAPT engagement runs through me. I take the first call, match the seat to a person from the bench, and stay in the room for the leadership side.
Steve Shaw is the fractional CFO on the bench. Twenty years in finance leadership. Steve works with owners on clean books, cash discipline, financial positioning before a sale, and the numbers conversation with buyers and lenders.
Sergey Dmitriev is the fractional CTO and AI systems partner. Sergey builds and runs the AI and data work we deliver, including digital twin and company knowledge systems, and trains leadership teams on AI tools with me.
Steve Proger is the fractional chief revenue officer. He builds revenue engines, pipeline discipline and sales leadership for owner led companies where the founder is still the best salesperson.
Thor Legvold is the leadership psychologist on the bench. Assessments, executive fit, team dynamics and the people decisions behind a scale up or a sale.
The CMO and COO seats are filled by operators who have run those functions in owner led companies at this size, matched after the first call.
Fractional vs interim vs advisory FAQ
What is the difference between a fractional and an interim executive?
A fractional executive holds a seat part time, usually one to three days a week, for as long as the company needs that level of judgment, often a year or more. An interim executive holds the seat full time for a fixed period, typically three to twelve months, to cover a gap or run a transition until a permanent hire arrives. Fractional is a share of a person. Interim is all of a person for a while.
Is a fractional executive the same as a consultant?
No. A consultant delivers a defined project with a deliverable, then leaves. A fractional executive takes ownership of a function, sits in the leadership team meeting, manages people where needed and is accountable for results over months. The consultant recommends. The fractional executive decides inside the authority the CEO gives them and lives with the outcome.
What does advisory mean compared with fractional?
Advisory is one to two hours a week with a sitting executive or the CEO, where the advisor adds judgment and the client keeps every decision and does the work. Fractional means the executive takes the work and part of the decision rights inside the company. Advisory suits a leader who needs a sounding board. Fractional suits a seat that is empty or under strength.
How much does a fractional executive cost compared with interim or full time?
Published 2026 benchmarks put fractional CFO retainers at roughly $11,500 to $16,200 a month and fractional COO retainers at $10,000 to $20,000 a month (GoFractional). A full time chief executive earned a median $213,990 in May 2025 (BLS), before benefits and equity. Interim executives are usually priced per day or month at a premium to a full time salary, because the engagement is short and the start is immediate.
When should a company choose an interim executive over a fractional one?
Choose interim when the seat is empty, the work needs someone there every day, and you know a permanent hire follows. A sudden CFO departure before an audit, a COO exit mid integration, or a founder stepping back for health reasons are typical cases. Choose fractional when the function needs senior judgment a few days a week and a full time hire would be underused.
Can a fractional executive become a full time hire?
Yes, and it is one of the cleaner paths to a full time hire, because both sides have worked together for months before anyone signs an offer. Agree the conversion terms up front with the fractional firm or the person, including notice, fee and timing. Many fractional executives prefer to stay fractional, so ask early rather than assume.
What is the five question decision test?
Five questions, answered in order. Is the seat empty or under strength. Does the work need someone there every day. Do you want to keep the decision or hand it over. Is the problem a project with an end or a function without one. Will you still need this seat in two years. The pattern of answers points to fractional, interim, advisory, a consultant or a full time hire.
The five question decision test
Answer these in order, in writing, before you talk to anyone who sells one of the shapes, including me.
- Is the seat empty, or under strength? Empty means nobody owns the function above a manager. Under strength means someone owns it who needs senior judgment next to them. Empty points to interim or fractional. Under strength points to advisory.
- Does the work need someone in the building every day? If yes, interim or full time. If two or three days of senior attention would carry it, fractional. If the sitting leader can carry it with weekly counsel, advisory.
- Do you want to keep the decision, or hand it over? Keep it and you want advisory or a consultant. Hand it over and you want fractional, interim or full time. Be honest here. Most owners say hand it over and behave like keep it.
- Is this a project with an end, or a function without one? A project is a consultant. A function is one of the other four.
- Will you still need this seat at this level in two years? Yes with certainty is a full time hire. Yes but at a different level is fractional. No, it is a bridge, is interim.
Read the pattern. Empty seat, every day, hand it over, bridge: interim. Under strength, two days, hand it over, two years at a different level: fractional. Under strength, weekly, keep it: advisory. Named problem with an end: consultant. Empty, every day, yes with certainty: full time hire, and a fractional executive while you search is how you make sure the full time one is right.
Fees for Leaders ADAPT engagements are quoted per engagement after the first call. The first step is free, and it is the same first step for every shape: the assessments and a conversation.
What the first conversation looks like
It is a 30 minute call with me, not a salesperson. You tell me which seat hurts and what you have already tried to fill it. I tell you which of the five shapes I think you are shopping for, and whether the bench has the right person. If the honest answer is a full time hire or an interim from a search firm, I say so and point you there.
If we work together, I match the executive from the bench, we agree the decision rights on one page before day one, and I stay in the room for the leadership side, because the fractional executive will only be as effective as the team around them. Every engagement is reviewed quarterly against the outcomes we wrote down at the start.
Your first step for tomorrow morning: take the free leadership and AI readiness assessments, then answer the five questions above in writing. If the pattern says fractional or advisory, book a fit conversation and bring the page. That is how the fractional vs interim executive decision gets made once instead of twice.
