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Fractional vs full-time: the cost of an empty seat.

The rate card is not the cost. A full-time senior CRM lead costs the salary, plus employer overhead, plus the months the seat stands empty while you recruit. Put your numbers in — the comparison comes out in writing, ready for the budget thread.

Presets:

Full-time, year one all-in

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Of that, the empty seat

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Fractional, 12 months

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Difference, year one

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All math runs in your browser — nothing is sent anywhere.
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The note for the budget thread.

Written from your numbers

Every figure updates as you change the inputs above. Copy it, paste it into the approval thread — the arithmetic travels with it.

Subject: CRM/lifecycle ownership — fractional vs a full-time hire Comparing the two ways to get a senior CRM owner, on our own numbers. Full-time hire, year one all-in: €225,333. That is €169,000 of salary plus employer overhead, and €56,333 for the 4 months the seat stands empty while we recruit — a real cost that never gets its own budget line. Fractional owner, twelve months: €78,000 at €6,500/month, working inside our stack in about two weeks rather than 4 months. Difference in year one: €147,333. The hire costs 2.9× the fractional year; the retainer is 35% of the all-in. What this leaves out mostly favours the hire being dearer still: onboarding ramp, management time, the risk the hire does not work out, and the exit cost when it does not. The honest counter-argument: if CRM work genuinely fills a senior person’s week, every week — hire. Run it on your own numbers: https://kyryllov.com/fractional-vs-hire-calculator.html?sal=130000&oh=30&m=4&r=6500

The presets use my public retainer prices. Swap the salary for the band you would actually offer — the note rewrites itself.

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How to read this.

  1. 01What it counts. Salary × (1 + overhead), plus the pro-rated cost of the months the seat stands empty — against twelve months of a flat retainer.
  2. 02What it leaves out — and it all favours the same side: onboarding ramp, management time, the risk the hire doesn’t work out, and the exit cost when it doesn’t.
  3. 03When the hire is the right answer. If CRM work genuinely fills a senior person’s week, every week — hire. I’ll say so on the first call.

The model itself has a track record: DOC.UA is a long-standing retainer client, and the Uber Eats engagement was a twelve-month embed — dates and referees are on the cases page. The presets use my public retainer prices; the salary defaults are round placeholders, not claims — put in yours.

The written version of this comparison — three ways to buy the work, with what each actually includes — lives on the diligence page, built to be forwarded to your CFO.

Questions this tool gets asked

What does a full-time senior CRM lead actually cost?
The salary is the visible half. Employer taxes and benefits add 20–40% depending on the country, and the 3–6 months of recruiting add the cost of the seat standing empty. The calculator counts all three — that's the number to compare against, not the base salary.
How much does a fractional CRM lead cost per month?
Mine are public: €2,500/month for Advisor — senior judgment, written verdicts, async-first — and €6,500/month for Embedded Architect, where one system is taken in hand and the work happens inside your stack. Three-month minimum, then month-to-month. The honest thing to compare those against is not a salary line but the all-in figure above.
What is a fractional CRM lead?
A senior operator who owns your CRM/lifecycle system on a fixed monthly scope — days per month, not a full-time seat. You get the judgment and the hands without the headcount, the ramp-up, or the exit cost.
When does a full-time hire beat fractional?
When CRM is your core function and the volume of work genuinely fills a week — every week. If the honest need is senior judgment plus a few hands-on days a month, a full-time senior will either be underused or drift into work you didn't hire them for.
What's included in the retainer number?
In my case: a written monthly scope, hands-on work inside your stack, decisions documented, no meter running — and leaving is deliberately easy, month-to-month after the third. The point of the calculator is that even the bigger retainer is usually a fraction of the all-in hire.

Read it like it’s your money — the diligence page →

How the retainer actually works →

Want the comparison for your actual situation?

Thirty minutes, an honest read on whether you need a hire, a fractional owner — or neither yet. If a hire is the right answer, that’s what I’ll tell you.

Book a 30-min fit call or read the diligence page first