Here are the numbers the three pages currently ranking for this phrase publish, what actually moves them, and the shape that exists below the floor they all start at.
Finance Alliance puts the 2026 average at $3,000 to $12,000 a month, and hourly work at $150 to $500 with $300 as the average. Preferred CFO segments it, $3,000 to $7,500 a month early stage, $7,500 to $15,000 growth stage, and $15,000 to $30,000 and above where the business is complex. Tipalti publishes retainers of $3,000 to $5,000 early stage, $5,000 to $8,000 growth, and $7,000 to $15,000 mid market, with hourly at $175 to $500.
Tipalti is also the only one of the three that does the arithmetic out loud. Forty hours a month at $350 is $14,000 a month, or $168,000 a year, against a full time mid market comparison of $487,500 including benefits.
Sources. Finance Alliance, What is a Fractional CFO, financealliance.io. Preferred CFO, What Is a Fractional CFO, preferredcfo.com. Tipalti, What Is a Fractional CFO, tipalti.com. All three read 27 September 2026.
Two of those three pages are published by companies that do not sell the service, and the one that does shows no engagement of its own anywhere on the page. Read the ranges as a market picture rather than as a quote.
Five things, and revenue is only one of them. How many bank and card accounts have to be reconciled. Whether payroll is one state or several. Whether there is inventory or work in progress, which turns a two hour close into a two day one. How many entities file, because two entities is not twice the work but it is not the same work either. And whether a decision is being modelled every month or once a quarter.
What you are not paying for matters as much. There is no office to carry, no minimum hours to burn, and no separate bill from a second firm for the return, because the return is prepared at the same desk that closed the months it reports.
Every range above starts at about $3,000 a month, and a large number of the owners reading this should not be spending that yet. Below the floor the honest package is a monthly close, the return, and one sitting in October where the year is priced before it ends. That is a fraction of an engagement and it is the thing that changes the year.
We will tell you on the first call which of the two you are, and we tell people they are below the floor more often than we sell the seat. There is no price printed on this site, because a figure without your account count, your entity count and your close state would be a guess.
Everything this site describes is work a person may do without a license, and it is what happens here every month. An audit, a review, a compilation or an opinion on your statements under GAAP is a different matter, because Texas keeps those for licensed firms and there is no CPA license at this desk.
So if a lender or an investor has asked you for a signed report, you will hear that inside the first twenty minutes and leave with the name of a firm that can sign it. The rest of what is out of scope, payroll runs and IRS letters included, is written out on the disclosures page.
Owners tend to arrive here trying to price an hourly consultant and leave knowing what they wanted was a monthly seat with the books and the return inside it.
What gets handed over is the closed month and the October number, and the return is prepared at the same desk. It all arrives on a screen you already open, so you are not paying for somebody's drive.
You will be talking to the Steven Palmieri practice.