What a fractional CMO retainer costs (and exactly what's included).
Two retainer tiers, both with a 3-month minimum. Before the prices, here's what makes this different from most fractional CMOs you'll talk to:
Most fractional CMOs sell you a strategy and then hand the work off to an agency, a VA, or a team of subcontractors.
That's not what I do. I own the marketing strategy for your business AND I do the actual work: social media posts, emails, launches, website updates. Keep scrolling to see exactly what's included at each pricing tier, and which one most clients start with.
You don't need five people touching your marketing. You need one person who deeply knows your business.
You know you need help, but you don't want to hire a full team or deal with managing another employee.
You want content that actually drives results, not just fills space in the feed and disappears.
You want marketing that runs every single week, through busy seasons and slow ones both.
You have a strategy doc from a previous coach or consultant sitting in Google Drive. Nothing ever got implemented because you were supposed to do the implementing.
You know marketing is the ceiling on your business right now.
You just don't have the brain space to build a plan and the bandwidth to run it at the same time.
Does any of this feel familiar?
Your business is in a good place. You have offers that work, clients who love you, and enough revenue that you're thinking seriously about what the next level actually looks like.
But marketing is the thing you can feel holding you back. Maybe...
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-Danielle Hayden, CEO of Kickstart accounting
Before working with Madelyn, our marketing felt scattered and time-consuming. Since bringing her on as our CMO, we’ve launched consistent email campaigns, increased our engagement on social media, and finally have a strategy that actually supports our business goals.
She’s completely taken marketing off our plate—saving us hours every week—and our brand presence has never looked better.
-Bridget KerMorris, Middle School Parent Coach (featured on the TODAY Show)
"I can’t thank you enough for mapping this out! You are an angel. I have so much clarity now with your plan. 10/10 recommend for the least stressful website and marketing experience possible!"
-Brooke Dover, office manager at alabama ophthalmology associates
"If you’re tired of guessing at your marketing and ready to grow with intention, Madelyn is the partner you need. We frequently get attention and feedback on our content. We were never consistent before Madelyn, but we've seen how important consistency and good content really are to our practice!
-Nadine bozeman, founder of secrets of a bridal seamstres
"Thank you SO much, Madelyn!! Your talent is incredible. I'm telling my friend Courtney that she needs to hire you. You are AMAZING!! Like this is life changing for me!"
What does a fractional CMO actually do? (and why most of them don't do all of it).
A fractional CMO is a senior marketing leader (sometimes called a fractional marketing director or outsourced CMO) who works with your business on a part-time, monthly retainer. Think of it like having a CMO on payroll, minus the salary, the benefits, and the year it'd take to find someone who actually fits your business.
For most service businesses, hiring a full-time marketing director easily runs $90,000–$150,000 a year in salary alone, plus benefits, plus the tools, plus the team they'd need underneath them to actually do the work. A fractional CMO gets you the same senior-level thinking on a monthly retainer for a fraction of that. (That's literally where the name comes from.)
The strategy — who you're targeting, how you're positioning yourself, what channels you're investing in, what you're saying, how we'll know it's working.
The execution — the actual captions, the actual emails, the actual launch sequences, the actual website updates. Done by me. Not subcontracted. Not handed off.
Just one person who knows your brand, your voice, and your business well enough to run it without being re-briefed every month.
How I'm different from most fractional CMOs
(For a broader overview of fractional CMO services for service businesses, start on the homepage.)
A marketing agency sells you execution: posts scheduled, content produced, ads run, usually with a team of people underneath one account manager. That can work well for larger businesses. For most service providers and small practices in the 6-to-low-7-figure range, it often feels impersonal, and the content tends to come out sounding like everyone else's.
A fractional CMO works differently. You get one senior marketing person who owns the strategy and (in my case) the execution, too. Fewer hands on your account. More context. More alignment with how you actually sound and who you actually want to reach.
This setup tends to work best for:
- Service providers and coaches who are ready for professional marketing but don't want the feel of an agency
- Practice owners (med spas, plastic surgeons, therapy practices, law firms, dental offices) who need marketing that understands their specific client or patient journey
- Business owners who know marketing is the next investment but don't want to hire a full-time marketing director yet
If any of those sound like you, you're exactly who this page is for.
Fractional CMO vs marketing agency: how this is different
This is a done-for-you marketing partnership. You don't hand me a brief and wait. I listen and build the strategy together on month one, and the content, the campaigns, and the day-to-day execution happens without you having to manage it.
Here's exactly what fractional CMO retainer pricing looks like with me: two tiers, both with a 3-month minimum.
What's included in the fractional CMO retainer
Tier One — $3,000/month
- Monthly strategy call (where we look at what's working, what's not, and what we're doing next)
- Slack access for day-to-day questions, last-minute asks, and quick decisions
- Social media posts, 3x/week (Instagram + Facebook — mix of reels, carousels, static posts)
- Weekly email marketing (written in your voice)
- Quarterly launch email sequences (for a specific offer, program, or promotion)
- Ongoing content strategy adjustments based on what's actually performing
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Tier 2 — $4,500/month
- Up to 10 hours a month of ShowIt website updates (new landing pages, offer pages, copy refreshes, image swaps, blog post formatting)
- Seasonal homepage updates that match your current offers, launches, and promotions
- Technical maintenance to keep your site fast, mobile-friendly, and optimized for search.
- Priority support for any mid-month asks — a new testimonial to add, a press mention to feature, updated pricing to reflect, a service page to spin up fast.
Please also note: I cap fractional CMO clients at 2 new ones per quarter so each business gets the attention it actually needs.
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let's talk numbers
In general:
- $3,000–$6,000/month is where a senior fractional CMO who owns both strategy and execution typically lands. This is the right range for most service providers, coaches, and boutique practices in the $150K–$1.5M revenue range.
- $6,000–$15,000/month is where strategy-only fractional CMOs live — the ones who build the plan and coordinate a team or agency to execute it.
- $15,000+/month is enterprise-level, usually for businesses over $5M in revenue with internal marketing teams.
Fractional CMO pricing and rates
The first two weeks are spent getting into your business properly. We look at what you're selling, who you're selling to, what's worked before (and why), what hasn't (and why), and where the biggest levers are.
You give me context and share about your offers, your voice, your brand, the client types you want more of and the ones you don't.
I build the marketing plan from that.
How we actually work together: The Ask, Execute, Evaluate Method
Phase 1: ask
Then I start running it. Week by week, month by month. Content goes out, mails get sent, launches get planned and executed.
You stay in the loop through ClickUp (where everything is reviewed 1–2 weeks before it posts) and Slack (for quick check-ins and last-minute asks).
You don't have to write anything. You don't have to schedule anything. You approve, you redirect when you want to, and you let it run!
How we actually work together: The Ask, Execute, Evaluate Method
Phase 2: execute
Every quarter, we look at what happened.
We look at what content got the most reach, and conversion. We look at what didn't and why. We pay attention to what your audience is actually responding to vs. what we assumed they would.
Then we adjust. Your marketing plan isn't a static document; it shifts based on what the numbers are telling us.
How we actually work together: The Ask, Execute, Evaluate Method
Phase 3: evaluate
Real numbers from accounts i manage
Social Media
Email Marketing
A little about me...
Hi, I'm Madelyn Victoria, a fractional CMO, social media manager, and ShowIt website designer!
I work with service providers, coaches, and practice owners in the 6-to-low-7-figure range — including med spas, plastic surgery practices, dental and therapy offices, law firms, interior designers, and wedding pros (just to name a few). My clients are genuinely good at what they do, but marketing keeps falling to the bottom of their to-do list.
My area of expertise is owning the strategy AND doing the work. You'll have one person who actually understands your business and who'll still be the one writing your captions nine months in.
I'm a fractional CMO based in small-town Wetumpka, Alabama, and I serve clients across the U.S. I'm an Enneagram 1 who loves hiking, reading, 80's music, and spending lots of time with family!
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How we get started
Step 1 — Book a discovery call
Step 2 — Get your custom proposal
You hear from me on a regular check-in cadence — but you don't have to chase trends or lose hours analyzing email analytics. That's my job, not yours.
Step 3 — Hand it off
→ Want to know more about what this actually looks like day to day? Read this blog post: What Does a CMO Do?
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Questions you're probably already thinking about...
A fractional CMO is a senior marketing leader who works with your business part-time, on a monthly retainer. Instead of hiring a full-time senior marketing lead (which usually runs into six figures annually in salary alone), you get the same level of strategic thinking for a fraction of the cost.
In my model, I also do the execution — so you're not paying a CMO just to supervise an agency. One person handles both.
No, and the difference matters. A fractional marketing agency usually assigns you an account manager and a team of execution people. A fractional CMO is one senior person. With me specifically, that one person (hi!) also does the actual execution, which is less common in the CMO world. If you've tried the agency model and found it too impersonal, the fractional CMO model usually feels like a relief.
Yes, the vast majority of my clients are outside of Alabama. I work with service providers and coaches across the U.S., and occasionally internationally. Everything is delivered remotely: strategy, content, email, launches, and website updates.
3 months. After that, the engagement continues month-to-month with no long-term contract required. The reason for the 3-month minimum is simple: fractional CMO work compounds. The first month is strategy, onboarding, and sharing the first batch of content. Months two and three are when the execution actually starts showing up in your numbers. Anything shorter than that doesn't give the work a fair chance to prove itself.
Short answer: you'll see your marketing running noticeably better within the first 30 days — more consistent content, better strategy, less of it sitting on your plate. Real audience and inquiry growth tends to land in the 90-to-180-day range once the content compounds. If someone promises faster than that without running paid ads, they're overpromising.
Yes. If you have an executive assistant, a designer, a podcast editor, or anyone else who's already working well, I integrate. I'm there to own marketing strategy and execution, not to replace people who are already doing good work! Most of my clients have at least one other person on the team, and we split the lanes clearly from day one.
Tier 2 includes 10 hours of monthly website updates. If you need a bigger website build (like a full rebrand or a new site from scratch), that lives as a separate project outside the retainer.
You're probably ready if: your business is doing around $150K+ in revenue, you have offers that are selling but not at the pace you want, and you're spending more time managing marketing than working with clients. You're probably not ready yet if: you're still figuring out your offer, under-$100K in revenue, or looking for someone to build your funnels from zero. In that case, start with social media management or a project.
We talk about it directly. The 3-month minimum exists so the work has time to compound, but if something feels off before then, you tell me and we adjust — that's literally why there's a strategy call every month and Slack access in between. After the 3-month minimum, you can step away with 30 days' notice. I'd rather hear "this isn't the right fit" than have you stay in something that isn't moving your business forward. I also won't take a client on if I don't think the retainer is the right next step — I'd rather tell you on the discovery call and point you somewhere better.
Yes, after the 3-month minimum is up. Pauses are typically used for slow seasons, a big personal life event, or a temporary cash-flow shift — not as a workaround for the minimum. Tell me what's going on and we'll work out a pause window (usually 1 to 3 months) and a clean re-onboarding when you come back. The only thing pauses don't cover: keeping your spot in the schedule indefinitely if I have a waitlist, since I cap clients per quarter.
You didn't build your business to spend Sunday nights writing captions or waking up on Monday wondering if anything's scheduled for the week.
Let someone else run the marketing side, so you can get back to doing the work you're actually brilliant at.
Ready to get started?
My fractional CMO rates:
If your budget is under $3,000/month, fractional CMO probably isn't the right starting point yet. Social media management or a done-for-you project is usually a better first step.
For context: