FRACTIONAL CTO

A fractional CTO you can name, one or three days a week.

Senior technical leadership without a full-time hire. A named tech lead from Leanware owns your architecture, roadmap, engineering decisions, and vendors on a monthly retainer: about $4,000/mo for one day a week or $10,000/mo for three, depending on the project. You meet the person before you commit.

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Fractional CTO at a glance

1 DAY A WEEK
About $4,000/mo
3 DAYS A WEEK
About $10,000/mo
WHO
A named tech lead
  • Architecture and technical roadmap
  • Delivery oversight and code standards
  • Hiring and vendor decisions
  • Security and compliance posture
  • Board and investor technical reporting
  • AI strategy inside the product

Trusted by great companies.

  • Notary.io
  • ElephantCPA
  • Docbraces
  • Groundlight
  • Plannerd
  • GloFlow
  • Asana Rebel

THE ROLE

What a fractional CTO does for your company.

The role is the same as a full-time CTO, scoped to the days a week your stage needs: own the technical decisions, make them well, and be accountable for them.

Architecture and technical roadmap

Decides what gets built on what, sequences the roadmap against the runway, and writes down the reasoning so the decisions survive the person.

Delivery oversight and code standards

Reviews the work your engineers or your vendors ship, sets the standards for code, testing, and releases, and catches the shortcuts before they compound.

Hiring and vendor decisions

Interviews engineering candidates, scopes and vets agencies and contractors, and tells you which quote is honest and which is not.

Security and compliance posture

Owns the answers to the security questionnaire, the incident plan, access and secrets hygiene, and the compliance path your customers will ask about.

Board and investor technical reporting

Translates engineering into the language of the board: what shipped, what it cost, what the risks are, and what the next quarter needs.

AI strategy inside the product

Decides where AI belongs in your product and your process, which models and vendors to use, and how to evaluate them, from a team that ships AI in production every week.

HOW IT WORKS

From first call to a named technical owner in four steps.

You are not buying an anonymous slot. You are hiring a specific person, part-time, with a team behind them.

  1. 01

    Call, 30 minutes

    You describe the company, the product, the team, and the decisions nobody is currently making. We tell you which tier fits and whether a fractional CTO is the right instrument at all.

  2. 02

    Meet the tech lead

    We propose one of our available tech leads based on your stack and your stage. You meet them before anything is signed. If the fit is off, we propose someone else or say the timing is wrong.

  3. 03

    Onboarding, the first two weeks

    The tech lead reads the codebase, the roadmap, and the vendor contracts, meets the team, and delivers a written first assessment: what is fine, what is urgent, and what they will own first.

  4. 04

    The weekly cadence

    Fixed days each week, a standing session with you, and a written monthly report you can forward to the board. Change tier or exit monthly; the documentation and the decisions stay with you.

PRICING

What a fractional CTO costs.

Two tiers, priced as monthly retainers. Approximate. The exact retainer depends on the project. The tier is set on the first call and revisited whenever your stage changes.

1 day a week

about $4,000/mo

Pre-seed and seed companies with a small team or an agency building the product, who need the decisions made and reviewed every week.

  • Weekly standing session with you
  • Architecture and roadmap ownership
  • Code, release, and vendor review
  • Monthly written report

3 days a week

about $10,000/mo

Seed to Series A companies with an in-house team, an active roadmap, and customers asking about security and scale.

  • Everything in one day a week
  • Hands-on time in the codebase and with the team
  • Hiring and vendor management
  • Board-ready reporting and investor calls

WHAT MOVES THE RETAINER WITHIN A TIER

  • Team size: leading two engineers is a different week from leading twelve plus two vendors.
  • Stage: pre-launch architecture decisions weigh more than steady-state maintenance oversight.
  • Compliance: a health, financial, or enterprise sales motion adds security and audit work to the role.
HOW IT COMPARES

Fractional CTO vs a dedicated team, an agency, or a full-time hire.

Each of these solves a different problem. The table says which one, so you buy the right instrument.

Dimension Fractional CTO Dedicated team Agency build Full-time CTO
Who owns technical decisions A named tech lead, accountable to you You, or your own tech lead The agency, within the contract Your CTO
Cost shape Monthly retainer, two tiers Monthly retainer per engineer Fixed fee or milestones Salary plus equity
Time to start Two to four weeks, after you meet the tech lead Two to four weeks After discovery and scoping Three to six months to hire
Writes code Reviews and sets standards; hands-on at three days Yes, full-time Yes, on the scoped build Depends on stage
Exit terms Monthly; decisions and documentation stay with you Monthly At milestones Notice period and equity terms
Best when You have builders but nobody owning the decisions You need engineering capacity under your own direction You need a defined product shipped You can afford and attract a senior full-time leader

IS THIS YOU

When a fractional CTO is the right hire.

Four situations where a part-time technical owner beats both a full-time hire and no one.

  • You are a non-technical founder with a product in market

    An agency or an AI tool built the product, users are on it, and every technical decision lands on your desk without anyone qualified to make it.

  • Your CTO search is taking longer than your roadmap can wait

    The right full-time hire is months away. A fractional CTO keeps the decisions moving, helps you interview, and hands over cleanly when the hire lands.

  • Investors or enterprise customers are asking hard technical questions

    Security questionnaires, scalability, data handling, a technical due diligence. You need someone who owns the answers, not someone who guesses at them.

  • Your engineers are shipping without anyone setting direction

    Good developers, no architecture ownership. Decisions get made by whoever touches the code last, and the cost shows up two quarters later.

WHAT THIS IS NOT

Four things a fractional CTO is often confused with.

Not an account manager

The tech lead is a senior engineer who has shipped products, not a coordinator relaying questions to engineers you never meet. You get their judgment directly.

Not staff augmentation

You are not renting a developer by the hour. You are hiring a technical owner for the decisions. If you need engineering capacity as well, that is our dedicated team line, and the two work together.

Not a strategy deck

Consulting engagements end with recommendations. This role owns the decisions week after week and is accountable for how they turn out.

Not a permanent substitute for a CTO

At some stage a full-time technical leader is the right call. When that time comes, the fractional CTO helps you hire them and hands over documented decisions, not tribal knowledge.

INHERITED A CODEBASE?

Start with a code audit if nobody has read the code.

When the app was built by an agency, an AI tool, or a team that left, the first job of a technical owner is to know what they own. A fixed-fee code audit answers that in one to two weeks and gives the fractional CTO a ranked list to start from.

Code Audit

One senior engineer audits the codebase for a fixed fee of $4,000 to $12,000 in one to two weeks: security, architecture, tests, deploy, and monitoring, with a prioritized fix list and a quote to take the app over.

FIXED FEE
$4,000 to $12,000
DURATION
1 to 2 weeks
WHO
One senior engineer
See the code audit

FREQUENTLY ASKED

Questions founders ask about fractional CTO services.

The questions we hear from founders comparing a fractional CTO with a full-time hire, an advisor, or an agency.

  • What is a fractional CTO?

    A senior technology leader who works for your company part-time, typically one to three days a week, and owns the technical decisions a full-time CTO would own: architecture, roadmap, engineering standards, hiring, vendors, and security. At Leanware the role is filled by a named tech lead from our team, with the rest of the team behind them.

  • How much does a fractional CTO cost?

    Two tiers: about $4,000/mo for one day a week and about $10,000/mo for three days a week, billed monthly. The exact retainer depends on the project: team size, stage, and compliance load. Both tiers can be changed or ended monthly.

  • How many hours does a fractional CTO work?

    One day a week is about eight focused hours plus a standing session with you. Three days a week adds hands-on time in the codebase, with the team, and with hiring and vendors. The days are fixed each week so the team knows when decisions get made.

  • Fractional CTO vs interim CTO vs technical advisor: what is the difference?

    An advisor gives opinions on a call and owns nothing. An interim CTO is full-time for a defined gap. A fractional CTO is part-time and ongoing, and owns the decisions: accountable for the architecture, the roadmap, and the outcomes, not only for advice.

  • Does the fractional CTO write code?

    At one day a week the role is decisions, reviews, and standards. At three days a week the tech lead is hands-on where it matters: unblocking the team, prototyping an architecture change, or fixing what an audit flagged. If you need sustained engineering capacity, we add a dedicated team under the same technical owner.

  • Can I meet the tech lead before signing?

    Yes, always. We propose a specific person based on your stack and stage, you meet them, and nothing is signed until you are comfortable. Our tech leads are on the About page.

    Meet the team
  • Can this turn into a dedicated team or a full-time hire?

    Both are normal outcomes. Many companies add engineers from our dedicated team line under the fractional CTO once the roadmap outgrows the current team. When a full-time CTO is the right call, the fractional CTO helps you hire and hands over documented decisions.

  • How fast can we start?

    Two to four weeks from the first call in most cases: one call to set the tier, a meeting with the proposed tech lead, and a written first assessment in the first two weeks of the engagement.

TRACK RECORD
READY FOR A TECHNICAL OWNER

Put a name on the technical decisions this quarter.

A 30-minute call with a senior engineer. You describe the company and the team; we tell you which tier fits and propose a tech lead you can meet before anything is signed. If a fractional CTO is not the right instrument, we say so on the call.

Tell us about the company, the product, and the team. A senior engineer will review it and come back with the tier that fits and a tech lead you can meet before anything is signed. If a fractional CTO is not the right instrument, we say so.

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