Pricing
What a CMO costs, and what I charge
The numbers first: what DETGAAO charges, what a full-time CMO, a fractional one and an agency cost in Zürich and the US, and the cases where the right answer is none of them. Every market figure links to its source.
What DETGAAO charges
Fractional CMO
$15–25K
a month, for two to three days a week
In Switzerland: CHF 18–28K
Senior marketing leadership inside your team for three to nine months. It ends with a handover: the system written down and someone on your side trained to run it.
How fractional leadership worksRevenue Diagnostic
$15,000
fixed, for four weeks
In Switzerland: CHF 18,000
Where revenue is leaking and what each fix is worth, in a written report with the data behind every finding. Up to three revenue channels; larger scopes run at the same weekly rate.
What the diagnostic coversFixed-fee projects
$3,750–6,250
a week, for the weeks the project runs
In Switzerland: CHF 4,500–7,000
Channel strategy, retention, stack and AI work at the same rate as the retainer. Each service page shows its range, and the fee is fixed before work starts.
See the services
Why the price sits where it does
A senior fractional CMO in the US charges $12,000 to $25,000 a month (Optionality Lab, 2026). In Switzerland, interim executives bill CHF 2,000 to 3,500 a day (butterflymanager), which puts two days a week at roughly CHF 17,000 to 30,000 a month. DETGAAO's prices sit at the top of the senior range and not above it.
The top of the range pays for twenty years of running digital P&L inside consumer brands, and for the person on the call being the person who does the work. Everything else follows from that one rate. A fixed-fee project costs the same per week as the retainer, and the diagnostic is four weeks at the low end. There is no hourly billing and no percentage of ad spend.
What a full-time CMO costs
Every other option gets priced against the full-time hire, so start there.
In Zürich, a chief marketing officer earns a median of about CHF 220,000 in total pay, with the middle half between CHF 142,500 and 308,750 (Glassdoor, 2026). Employer contributions for social insurance and the pension fund add 13 to 19 percent (AX Fiduciaire), so a median CMO costs the company about CHF 250,000 to 260,000 a year before any bonus.
In the United States, the average base salary is about $374,000, and 80 percent of CMOs earn between $300,000 and $457,000 (Salary.com, 2026). Glassdoor's self-reported total pay is about $317,000 (Glassdoor, 2026), and PayScale's median base is $192,000 (PayScale). The gap between those numbers is company stage. A Series A CMO and a Fortune 1000 CMO share a title and do different jobs.
In Singapore, a head of marketing averages S$220,000, rising to S$280,000 with 15 or more years of experience (Morgan McKinley Salary Guide 2026).
Then come the costs that never appear on the offer letter. A retained executive search costs about a third of the hire's first-year pay (Heidrick & Struggles, 2024 annual report), around CHF 73,000 for a median Zürich CMO. And between a quarter and nearly half of leadership hires are judged to have failed within two years, depending on the study (McKinsey's review of the research). When the hire is wrong, you pay for the search twice.
What fractional costs
A fractional CMO is a senior operator you engage for one to three days a week, for a defined scope and a defined end.
Across the US market, most charge $8,000 to $22,000 a month. Established operators sit at $12,000 to $15,000 for two to three days a week, and day rates run from $1,500 to $3,500 (Fractionus, 2026). Operators with 20 or more years or an in-house CMO background charge $12,000 to $25,000 (Optionality Lab, 2026). Surveys that count every fractional marketer, junior ones included, come out lower, which is why the figures quoted online vary so much.
Switzerland has no survey of fractional marketing rates. The closest reference is interim management. The average Swiss interim day rate was €1,712 in 2024 (AIMP market study 2025), and one Swiss interim firm lists executives at CHF 2,000 to 2,500 a day and top executives at CHF 2,500 to 3,500 (butterflymanager).
Six months of a DETGAAO engagement at two to three days a week cost CHF 108–168K in Zürich. Six months of a median Zürich CMO cost about CHF 125,000 to 130,000 in pay and employer contributions, plus a search fee of around CHF 73,000, and in month seven the salary continues whether the problem that justified the hire still exists or not. In the US, the same six months of DETGAAO cost $90–150K, against about $187,000 in base salary alone for an average CMO.
What an agency retainer costs
Agency retainers start far lower. In Databox's survey of agencies, 38 percent charge $1,001 to $2,500 a month, 22 percent charge $2,501 to $5,000, and fewer than 10 percent charge $10,001 to $15,000 (Databox). None of that includes ad spend, tools or setup.
The number matters less than what it buys. An agency sells hands: production, media buying, reporting. It executes a plan without owning it, and it has little reason to tell you the plan is wrong, because the retainer depends on the scope of work continuing. If nobody inside the company owns the plan, the retainer buys activity. I have sat on the client side of that invoice and watched the dashboards go up while the revenue didn't.
Three options, one table
| Situation | Full-time CMO | Fractional CMO | Agency |
|---|---|---|---|
| Under 5 million in revenue | Too early: the role doesn't exist yet | Usually too early. From 2 million, a diagnostic can pay for itself | Only with someone inside who owns the plan |
| 5 to 50 million, one part of the revenue system broken | Only if a team is already there to run it | Yes: fixed scope, fixed end | Alongside, once the plan exists |
| 50 million and up, marketing is a permanent function with a team | Yes | As the interim during the search | Yes, for volume |
| Any size, plan and owner in place, you need more output | No | No | Yes |
Two things the table can't show. The fractional route only works if the operator leaves: an engagement with no end is a part-time CMO at a full-time day rate, the worst of both. And an agency is a good purchase when the plan is right, and an expensive way to find out that it isn't.
When you shouldn't hire any of us
- Nobody inside will own the numbers afterwards. A fractional engagement ends in a handover. With no one to hand over to, the work evaporates the week the engagement ends. Fix that first, usually with a hire well below CMO level.
- The problem is product or pricing, not marketing. A diagnostic finds this more often than anyone likes. Marketing can make a broken offer fail faster. It can't make it work.
- You want a name on the website for investors. Hire a full-time one. A fractional CMO is a mechanism, not a badge.
- You aren't going to change anything. If the findings will be filed rather than acted on, save the money.
The arithmetic that matters isn't the day rate. It's the cost of the engagement against the value of the one broken thing it fixes. If that ratio isn't obvious after the first conversation, the Revenue Diagnostic exists to make it obvious.
Questions about pricing
- What does DETGAAO charge?
- A fractional CMO engagement costs $15–25K a month for two to three days a week (CHF 18–28K in Switzerland). The Revenue Diagnostic is $15,000, fixed, for four weeks (CHF 18,000 in Switzerland). Fixed-fee projects are priced at the same rate, $3,750–6,250 a week, for the weeks they run. There is no hourly billing and no percentage of ad spend.
- How much does a fractional CMO cost in Switzerland?
- Switzerland has no published survey of fractional marketing rates, so the reference is interim management. Swiss interim executives bill CHF 2,000 to 3,500 a day, which puts two days a week at roughly CHF 17,000 to 30,000 a month. DETGAAO charges CHF 18–28K a month for two to three days a week.
- How much does a fractional CMO cost in the US?
- Most fractional CMOs in the US charge $8,000 to $22,000 a month. Operators with 20 or more years or an in-house CMO background charge $12,000 to $25,000 for two to three days a week. DETGAAO charges $15–25K a month.
- How does a fractional CMO compare with a full-time CMO on cost?
- Six months of a fractional engagement at two to three days a week cost CHF 108–168K in Zürich. Six months of a median Zürich CMO cost about CHF 125,000 to 130,000 in pay and employer contributions, plus a search fee of around a third of first-year pay, and the salary continues after month six. The full-time hire is the right answer once marketing is a permanent function with a team to run; before that, you pay a permanent price for a temporary problem.
- What does a marketing agency retainer cost?
- In Databox's survey, 38 percent of agencies charge $1,001 to $2,500 a month, 22 percent charge $2,501 to $5,000, and fewer than 10 percent charge $10,001 to $15,000, before ad spend and tools. An agency sells production, media and reporting against a plan somebody else owns. If nobody inside the company owns the plan, the retainer buys activity, not results.
- When does hiring a fractional CMO make sense, and when not?
- It makes sense when one part of the revenue system is broken or missing, the scope can be written down, and somebody inside will own the numbers after the handover. It doesn't when nobody will own them, when the problem is product or pricing rather than marketing, or when what you want is a name on the website for investors. Below about 5 million in revenue the founder usually does this work; above 50 million with a marketing team, hire full-time and use fractional as the interim during the search.
Want a number for your own case?