The day rate is dead. Fractional is kaput. Welcome to outcomes.
Fractional consulting is a broken model
The same disruption that’s killing seat-basis in SaaS has hit consulting just as hard. AI has made knowledge abundant and commoditised intelligence. Any model built on headcount, time or information asymmetry is the walking dead.
Your customers won't pay for bums on seats. Neither should you.
I ran a consultancy from 2011 to 2014 on day rates and retainers. It worked then.
The next 11 years I spent inside a high-growth B2B SaaS business. Part of a team that scaled from £10m to £200m and delivered a £1.1bn private equity exit. Along the way we rebuilt commercial models, launched new products, integrated acquisitions and figured out what it actually takes to scale a software business.
Coming back to consultancy in 2026, the idea of replicating the past is a nonsense. The world has moved on. Retainer, fractional and day rate sound as legacy as support and maintenance.
So this practice works differently
Defined deliverables. Fixed prices. Delivered outcomes. You know exactly what you're commissioning before we start and exactly what you'll have when we finish.
That's not just a commercial preference. It's the only model that makes sense today.
The delivery model uses The Marketing Eight: eight specialist marketing functions, built on AI and orchestrated by an expert human in the loop. That’s why a day rate makes no sense (think about it).
Every engagement is scoped and priced before we start. No surprises, no scope creep, no open-ended commitments. See exactly how it works on the pricing page.