Fractional CMO or a marketing director?
A fractional CMO sets positioning, channels and the budget for part of a week: £5,367 to £9,967 a month at two days a week. A full-time marketing director does the same and also runs the team and the campaigns every day, at a salary plus employer costs. Pick the director once there is a team to manage and a week of marketing work to fill.
Below is what each one actually owns, what they cost on the same basis, how each one fails, and when to pick the other one.
| A fractional CMO | A marketing director | |
|---|---|---|
| Who owns the outcome | Positioning, and whether the market understands what you sell | Everything a fractional CMO owns, plus running it daily |
| Commitment | One to three days a week, flexing with the work, no end date assumed | Five days a week on the payroll, with a notice period |
| How it is priced | £700 to £1,300 a day | Salary plus employer National Insurance, pension and a recruitment fee, which in year one is meaningfully more than the salary alone. |
| Typical monthly cost | £5,367 to £9,967 a month at two days a week | £14,673 a month across year one, from a £130,000 salary with employer costs and the search fee |
| How it fails | Being asked to execute campaigns personally, which is a senior day rate spent on work a specialist would do better and cheaper. | Hiring five days of senior marketing when the company has one product, one channel and no team, which buys availability rather than output. |
| Pick it when | There is one product, one channel and no team yet | There is already a marketing team that needs managing every day |
What a marketing director actually is
A full-time hire running marketing five days a week, usually building and managing the team as they go. A part-time marketing director, or a virtual CMO, is the same seat with fewer days and belongs on the fractional side of this comparison.
What each one owns
| A fractional CMO | A marketing director |
|---|---|
| Positioning, and whether the market understands what you sell | Everything a fractional CMO owns, plus running it daily |
| Where the budget goes, and what it is expected to return | Managing a marketing team, including the difficult conversations |
| The channel strategy, and killing the channels that do not work | Campaign delivery week in, week out |
| Hiring the marketing team, and knowing what good looks like | Continuity across a long brand or demand programme |
What neither of them does
Neither is a content team or a media buyer. A senior marketing seat decides the strategy and hires the execution, and a company with no execution capacity gets a strategy nobody runs.
How each one fails
The fractional CMO: Being asked to execute campaigns personally, which is a senior day rate spent on work a specialist would do better and cheaper.
A marketing director: Hiring five days of senior marketing when the company has one product, one channel and no team, which buys availability rather than output.
What they cost, on the same basis
A fractional CMO charges £700 to £1,300 a day, which is £5,367 to £9,967 a month at two days a week. Salary plus employer National Insurance, pension and a recruitment fee, which in year one is meaningfully more than the salary alone. The monthly and annual arithmetic for the fractional side, against a full-time equivalent, is on the cost page for this seat.
Pick a marketing director when
- There is already a marketing team that needs managing every day
- Marketing is the main commercial engine and genuinely fills a week
- You need one person accountable for delivery, not just direction
We would rather say that plainly than win an engagement that was the wrong shape. Nobody pays us to list on the bench, so there is nothing in it for us either way.
When you want both
Rarely at the same time. The usual path is a fractional CMO who sets the strategy and hires the director who then runs it.
Year one, fractional against full-time
The full-time column uses the cost model's £130,000 base salary for a senior marketing hire, a mid-market assumption rather than a London top-end figure, with employer National Insurance, the statutory minimum pension and a 20 per cent search fee. The fractional column is the UK band of £700 to £1,300 a day over 46 billable weeks. Bonus and equity would widen the gap and are left out.
| Fractional, two days a week | Full-time hire | |
|---|---|---|
| Salary or fees | £64,400 to £119,600 | £130,000 |
| Employer National Insurance | None | £18,750 |
| Statutory pension | None | £1,321 |
| Search fee | None | £26,000 |
| Year one total | £64,400 to £119,600 | £176,071 |
Read next: Fractional against full-time, the full method; What a fractional CMO costs, month by month.
Common questions
Should I hire a fractional CMO or a marketing director?
A fractional CMO sets positioning, channels and the budget for part of a week: £5,367 to £9,967 a month at two days a week. A full-time marketing director does the same and also runs the team and the campaigns every day, at a salary plus employer costs. Pick the director once there is a team to manage and a week of marketing work to fill.
Is a fractional CMO cheaper than a marketing director?
On a like-for-like basis it usually is, because you buy the days you need rather than all of them. A fractional CMO runs £700 to £1,300 a day, most often one to three days a week. Salary plus employer National Insurance, pension and a recruitment fee, which in year one is meaningfully more than the salary alone. But cheaper is the wrong question if the work genuinely needs the other one.
When is a marketing director the better choice than a fractional CMO?
There is already a marketing team that needs managing every day. Marketing is the main commercial engine and genuinely fills a week. You need one person accountable for delivery, not just direction.
Can I use a fractional CMO and a marketing director at the same time?
Rarely at the same time. The usual path is a fractional CMO who sets the strategy and hires the director who then runs it.
When should a company move from a fractional to a full-time CMO?
When marketing work fills most of a week, every week, and there is a team that needs managing daily. In practice the signal is a fractional CMO asking for a third or fourth day for more than a quarter, at which point full-time usually costs less. A good fractional CMO says so, and often helps hire the director who replaces them.