By Andreas Pettersson, Founder, Leaders ADAPT
You will not find The Alternative Board cost on The Alternative Board's website. I looked, in October 2026, on the home page, the what we do page and the franchise site. The price is not there, and that is not an oversight.
It is a model. TAB sells territories to franchise owners, and each owner prices membership for their own market. So the honest answer to "what does TAB cost" is "whatever your nearest facilitator quotes you", and the useful page is the one that tells you how that quote gets built, what you get for it, and what the same money buys elsewhere.
I run a virtual CEO mastermind at Leaders ADAPT, at most 14 members, no revenue gate, and I am a competitor to TAB for some of the same owners. Read what follows with that on the table.
Quick answer: The Alternative Board cost is not published. TAB operates as a franchise, and its franchise site states that member businesses pay a recurring monthly participation fee set by the local franchise owner. Independent listings confirm TAB publishes no fees and no revenue threshold. The only reliable figure is a written quote from the local board facilitator.
What does The Alternative Board cost, and what is actually on the record?
The Alternative Board cost is a monthly participation fee set by each local TAB franchise owner, not a national price list. Here is everything the company and the independent listings disclose, with sources, so you know what is fact and what is a quote.
| Item | What is on the record | Source |
|---|---|---|
| Membership price | Not published. Members pay "a recurring monthly participation fee" | TAB Franchise |
| Who sets the price | The local franchise owner, who runs an independent business and selects their own clients | TAB Franchise |
| Revenue requirement | None published | Asora listing |
| Footprint | Over 340 offices in the US and over 27 countries | TAB Franchise |
| Meeting cadence | Monthly local advisory boards | Asora listing |
| What a franchise costs to open | Total startup investment of $77,000 to $95,000, net worth of $300,000 required in the US and Canada | TAB Franchise |
| Free entry point | The Business Snapshot, described as a free diagnostic report | The Alternative Board |
Two numbers in that table matter more than the missing one.
The franchise investment and the net worth requirement tell you what the local owner has to earn back, and that is the floor under your fee.
How does the TAB franchise model set your price?
Think of a TAB territory as a small restaurant. The owner paid to open it, pays to keep it open, and needs enough covers at a high enough ticket to make the year work. Your membership is a cover.
The franchise site says owners operate local businesses, set their own schedules and select their own clients, and can run alone or with a small team of contractors. That is a low overhead business, which is good for you. It also means the owner's income is your fees minus their costs, which is why two TAB boards fifty miles apart can quote different numbers for the same product.
So when you get a quote, you are not being told what TAB costs. You are being told what that owner needs. Ask what the fee includes, whether the one on one coaching is bundled or billed separately, and whether the price changes as the board fills.
What do you get for a TAB membership?
TAB's own pages describe three parts.
- A local peer advisory board of non competing business owners, meeting monthly.
- One on one coaching with what the site calls a seasoned business coach, with no stated frequency.
- Strategic tools, starting with the free Business Snapshot diagnostic.
The person running the room is the facilitator, who is the franchise owner or a coach working with them. That is the part to weigh hardest. In a member moderated forum, the quality of the room is the members. In a facilitated board, the quality of the room is one person, and you are choosing them by territory, not by track record. Meet the facilitator twice before you sign, and ask what they ran before they bought the franchise.
How does TAB cost compare with Vistage, EO, YPO and Hampton?
Every figure below is from the organization's own site or a named review. Where a group publishes nothing, the table says so rather than guessing.
| Group | Published price | Revenue gate | Who runs the room | Source |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| The Alternative Board | None. Monthly fee set locally | None published | Franchise facilitator | TAB Franchise |
| Vistage CEO program | $2,500 initiation plus $1,380 a month, about $19,060 in year one | $5M+ | A Chair, usually a former executive | Long Angle, Vistage |
| Entrepreneurs' Organization | Not on the about page, set by chapter | $1M+ gross | Member moderated forum | EO |
| Hampton | $15,000 a year plus $2,500 initiation | More than $3M revenue or raised, or a $10M+ exit | Paid moderator | Long Angle |
| YPO | Not on the membership page, set by chapter | $16M+ and under 45 | Member moderated forum | YPO |
| Leaders ADAPT CEO Mastermind | Shared on a fit call | None | The founder, an operator who ran a 150 person company | CEO Mastermind |
Read the gate column before the price column. Vistage, EO, YPO and Hampton will turn away most owners under $1 million to $3 million before money is discussed. TAB and my group will not. That is the real reason TAB shows up in so many searches by smaller owners, and it is a legitimate reason. The full sourced map of who admits you at each revenue level is on the ceo peer group requirements page, and the Vistage figures are broken down on vistage cost.
Who does a TAB board fit, and who does it not?
TAB fits an owner who wants a room in their own city, a facilitator who will also coach them one on one, and no revenue test at the door. If you run a $2 million local services company and you want to look six other local owners in the eye once a month, that is a real product and the franchise model is what makes it available in a town of 80,000.
It does not fit an owner who needs peers at their own stage. A board with no gate and a local catchment will hold a wide spread of company sizes, and the person with the $400,000 business and the person with the $9 million business are not facing the same decisions.
It also does not fit an owner who wants the facilitator to have run something bigger than a franchise territory. A franchise tells you the format is consistent. It tells you nothing about whether the person running your board has ever run a company at your stage. Ask.
One concession from a competitor. TAB is local, in person and owner led, with no gate at the door, and that matches three things I tell my own clients to look for. I have said to direct, low emotion communicators that local, in person groups beat remote ones, because body language carries what video does not. My group is virtual first. If the room in your city is the part you want, that is a real point for TAB.
A quote is not a signal of quality. It is a signal of what the territory needs to earn. Judge the room.
The board you buy and the board you build
Here is something I tell members who are weighing a paid board. You can also build one, and the two are not substitutes for each other.
An unpaid private advisory board is four or five experienced people, often later in their careers, who want the title and the problem more than the money. You give them advisory equity that vests against milestones, you buy board insurance, which runs around two thousand dollars a year, and you put a real agenda in front of them quarterly.
It is a move to make about a year out from when you need it, because the people take time to find and the trust takes time to earn.
That board gives you depth on your business. A peer group gives you breadth across many businesses and the one thing an advisory board never gives you, which is somebody else in the hot seat whose mistake you are about to make. I run my group for the second thing. The hot seat is a member presenting against a ten slide template, the board of advisors feedback is five fixed prompts, and nobody is paid to be polite.
When the question is not the price but the people
The Leaders ADAPT CEO Mastermind is a virtual peer group of at most 14 founders and CEOs of $1 million to $50 million companies. No revenue gate. I run it myself, as the person who scaled a company to more than 150 people and sold it to Canon, not as a facilitator who bought a territory.
One member takes the hot seat each month, the group works the decision through five fixed prompts, every member leaves with one committed action and a date, and the recap goes to Slack the same day. Weekly office hours fill the gaps between sessions.
It is not a local board and you will not shake hands in a conference room. If that is the part you want, TAB is the better fit. If the part you want is the truth about the decision in front of you, the fit call takes twenty minutes.
The Alternative Board cost FAQ
How much does The Alternative Board cost?
The Alternative Board does not publish a membership price. Its franchise site states that member businesses pay a recurring monthly participation fee, and the amount is set by the local franchise owner. Independent network listings record that TAB publishes no fees, so the only reliable number is the one your local board facilitator quotes in writing.
Why does TAB not publish its price?
TAB runs on a franchise model. Local owners operate independent businesses, set their own schedules and select their own clients, according to the TAB franchise site, and they price membership for their market. A single national price would not fit a model where each territory is a separately owned business with its own costs.
What do you get for a TAB membership?
TAB describes three parts: a local peer advisory board of non competing business owners that meets monthly, one on one coaching with a business coach, and strategic tools including a free diagnostic called the Business Snapshot. The board facilitator is the local franchise owner or a coach they work with, not a member.
Does The Alternative Board have a revenue requirement?
No published one. TAB does not state a revenue threshold on its website and independent listings confirm that none is published. The target member is described as a forward thinking business owner, from just starting out to thinking about an exit, which is a wider band than Vistage, EO, YPO or Hampton accept.
How does TAB compare with Vistage on cost?
Vistage publishes enough for a year one figure of about $19,060 for its CEO program, a $2,500 initiation fee plus $1,380 a month, per Long Angle. TAB publishes nothing, so a like for like comparison is only possible after a local quote. Vistage also requires $5 million in revenue for that program, while TAB has no published gate.
What are the alternatives to The Alternative Board?
The published alternatives are Vistage ($5 million revenue for the CEO program, $1 to $4 million for small business), Entrepreneurs' Organization ($1 million), Hampton (above $3 million in revenue or funding, 18 chapter cities), YPO ($16 million and under 45), and operator led virtual masterminds with no revenue gate such as the Leaders ADAPT CEO Mastermind.
What to do before you sign a TAB agreement
Get the fee in writing, with the one on one coaching either in or out of it, and the cancellation notice period. Ask the facilitator what they ran before the franchise and how long the board has been together. Sit in on one meeting if they will let you, and count how many members are within a factor of three of your revenue.
Then put the same list to one alternative from the table above. The Alternative Board cost will make sense, or not, only next to a second quote.
What would you rather pay for this year, a room in your city, or a room at your stage?
