A fractional CFO in Australia typically costs somewhere between $1,500 and $3,000 a day, or roughly $4,000 to $12,000 a month once you land on a retainer for one to four days a week. Some experienced operators running a fundraise or a turnaround charge more than that. Some doing steady month-end reporting for a smaller business charge less. Every number in this article is a typical market range, not a quote, so treat it as a starting point for a conversation, not a rate card.
I run a community of fractional executives, CFOs included, and I've watched enough of these deals get negotiated to see the pattern. Founders usually walk in expecting a discount off a full-time salary. Good fractional CFOs price off the value they deliver and the days they actually work, not off what a junior finance hire would cost on a pro-rata basis. Here's how the pricing actually breaks down.
How fractional CFOs actually price their work
Three models dominate. A CFO with a few years of fractional work under their belt will steer you toward whichever one matches the shape of the engagement, not whichever sounds cheapest on paper.
Day rate. You pay for days worked, nothing more. This suits founders who aren't sure yet how much CFO time they'll need, or a CFO doing a short, defined piece of work like due diligence prep or an audit.
Monthly retainer. A fixed number of days a month (usually one to four) at an agreed monthly fee. This is the most common structure once the relationship settles, because both sides want predictability. You're not surprised by the invoice and they're not chasing a purchase order every fortnight.
Project or fixed fee. Priced against a defined outcome, a capital raise, a due diligence process, building out a finance function from scratch. Less common for ongoing CFO work, but it shows up for discrete pieces with a clear start and end.
What are the typical rate ranges?
These are market ranges I see across the FEC community and my own client work, not a rate card for any one person. Location, industry, and the CFO's specific background (someone who's been CFO of a scaled, funded business versus someone stepping up from Financial Controller) all move these numbers around.
| Pricing model | Typical range (AUD) |
|---|---|
| Day rate | $1,500 to $3,000+ per day |
| Monthly retainer, 1 to 2 days a week | $4,000 to $8,000 per month |
| Monthly retainer, 3 to 4 days a week | $8,000 to $15,000+ per month |
| Project or fixed fee | Varies, often the day rate multiplied by estimated days plus a premium for a defined deliverable |
A worked example. A Series A SaaS business bringing in a fractional CFO for two days a week to run reporting, cash flow and prep for the next raise might sit around $2,200 a day, so roughly $17,600 a month. A pre-revenue startup wanting one day a fortnight of oversight and a set of management accounts might sit closer to $1,600 a day, so around $3,200 a month. Same title, very different scope, very different price.
What actually moves the price?
Six things, in rough order of how much they matter.
- Stage of the company. Pre-seed and early revenue businesses pay less than a company scaling past $20 million in revenue with more complexity to manage.
- Complexity. Multiple entities, international operations, a messy cap table, or an M&A process all push the rate up because the risk of getting it wrong goes up too.
- Fundraising involvement. Raise support is investor-facing, deliverable-heavy work. It commands a premium over standard month-end and reporting duties.
- Days committed per month. More days locked in on a retainer usually earns a better effective rate, the same logic as any retainer negotiation.
- Urgency and the state of the mess. Fixing a broken finance function costs more than maintaining a healthy one. Turnaround work is priced like turnaround work.
- Track record. Someone who's been CFO through a scale-up and an exit charges more than someone doing their first fractional engagement, same as it would for a full-time hire.
How does this compare to a full-time CFO?
A full-time CFO in Australia typically commands a base salary somewhere in the $200,000 to $350,000+ range depending on company size and stage, before you add superannuation (11.5%), payroll tax, leave loading, any bonus or equity, and the usual laptop-and-benefits line items. All-in cost for a full-time CFO typically runs at 1.3 to 1.4 times the base salary, so a $250,000 base often lands closer to $330,000 to $350,000 all-in once the business pays for everything that comes with the seat.
Compare that to a fractional CFO on two days a week, roughly eight to nine days a month, at say $2,000 a day. That's somewhere around $16,000 to $18,000 a month, or $190,000 to $220,000 a year. Less than the full-time all-in cost, for someone who's often more senior than a business that size could otherwise afford to hire full-time.
The maths only works in the founder's favour if you genuinely need two or three days a week of CFO-level thinking, not five. If you actually need five days a week of finance leadership, a full-time hire, or a fractional CFO helping you build toward one, starts to make more sense. That's a stage question, not just a cost question. This is the full breakdown of fractional versus full-time cost if you want to run the numbers properly for your business.
What are you actually paying for?
Not admin. A fractional CFO worth the day rate is usually doing some combination of: cash flow management and runway forecasting, board and investor reporting, financial modelling and scenario planning, systems and process (the finance stack, not just the numbers), building and managing a finance team as the business grows, and being the person the bank or the investors actually trust in the room. If your candidate is quoting a rate but can't point to which of those they're doing for you, that's worth asking about before you sign anything.
Ramp-up matters here too. The first month or two of a fractional CFO engagement is usually heavier, getting across the numbers, fixing whatever reporting gaps exist, meeting the bank and the board. Some fractional CFOs price that period at the same day rate, some build in a slightly higher rate for the first month and settle into the retainer once the function is running properly. Either is fair. What's not fair is being quoted a steady-state rate for month one and finding out the real workload was double that.
The honest caveat
Every number in this article is a typical range pulled from what I see across a community of practising fractional executives, not a quote for your specific business. Rates move with the person, the industry, the state of your books, and how badly you need the problem solved this month versus next quarter. If you want to understand the role itself before you get into pricing, start with what a fractional CFO actually does. If you're on the other side of the table figuring out what to charge, here's how to price your own fractional engagement.
If you're trying to hire one, or you're a CFO trying to work out if your own rate is in the right band, the Fractional Exec Community is where those conversations actually happen, with people doing the work right now, not theorising about it.