What is a fractional CTO?

A fractional CTO is an experienced technology leader who works with your company part-time, providing strategic leadership and hands-on expertise without the cost of a full-time executive. It's how many of our clients start with us, including non-technical companies and SMBs that would never hire a full-time CTO and often have no C-suite at all.

Do I need a separate Chief AI Officer (CAIO)?

Usually not. For the vast majority of companies, one AI-capable technology leader covers both the technology and the AI, and a separate CAIO is typically overhead. AI depth is built into what we do, not sold as a separate role or line item.

How much does a fractional CTO cost?

The first step is free: a 30-minute conversation and a short written rough map of where AI pays off in your business. A first fixed-scope win runs $2,500 to $5,000 for one or two days of focused work. Custom projects are fixed price by complexity: $2,000 small, $5,000 medium, $13,000 large, or $21,000 extra large. Each client has one coaching engagement, sized to the named people it supports: $400 per named team member per month, with a four-person minimum ($1,600). One 60-minute weekly huddle per six named members, rounded up. The one-to-four coaching engagement includes one standing hour each week plus as-needed support where you already work. Pricing is all-in (AI compute is our cost, never a meter), one month to start then month to month, and your exact number comes in writing before you commit. Equity is optional: clients who share our values can trade up to 15% of the fee for equity of equal value, and the client always keeps full ownership and IP of their product.

Can a non-technical company work with a fractional CTO?

Yes. AI is forcing every company to become a technology company, and most of the businesses we help would never hire a full-time CTO, many don't have a C-suite at all, just a president or an owner. We bring founding-level technology leadership to companies of any kind, at any stage, whether you're modernizing a traditional business or scaling a startup.

AI services, compared

What does AI help actually buy?

The invoice unit tells you more than the category name. Courses sell seats. Workshops sell events. Advisors sell access. Our coaching engagement reserves capacity inside the work.

Book a 30-min intro call See every service

Start with duration

Short programs solve a defined job. Long-term coaching carries the work.

Courses, workshops, and adoption packages are useful when the job has an end. They sit beside the market comparison because they buy a different duration, not because they are cheaper versions of an ongoing relationship.

One course

Courseware

$675 to $1,295 per seat

Global Knowledge ($675)Learning Tree ($895)Pragmatic Institute ($1,295)

Teach a defined tool or role-specific method.

One to three days

Team workshop

$2,500/day (Data Trainers) or $3,000 for three days (Apex)

Data Trainers ($2,500/day, up to 10 students)Apex Digital Solutions ($3,000, 3-day workshop)

Give a room a shared starting point and practical exercises. Distinct provider scopes: Data Trainers offers a per-day workshop for up to ten students, while Apex Digital Solutions provides a fixed three-day Copilot adoption workshop.

A fixed project

Adoption package

$5,000 to $15,000

Cisilion starter ($5,000)Cisilion extended ($10,000)MindWorks readiness ($15,000)

Prepare and launch a structured tool rollout.

The ongoing market

Compare relationships to relationships.

These ongoing offers were verified from public provider pages in September 2026. Compare commitment, working context, and what happens between scheduled sessions.

Offer

Public price

Working relationship

Best fit

Annual champion program

£19,250 to £45,500

GBP per year, by participant band

365Tribe rate card

Training, business scenarios, adoption reporting, and on-demand expert support.

Commitment:: Annual subscription.
Context:: A managed Copilot adoption program for internal champions.
Between sessions:: Expert help and reporting continue through the subscription.

A large organization wants a formal champion network around Microsoft Copilot.

Private operator coaching

$8,500

four months, one person

Jonathan Stark

Private coaching, biweekly calls, assignments, and direct async access.

Commitment:: Four-month program, paid in advance.
Context:: The coach carries one owner's business and decisions.
Between sessions:: Slack, email, and phone access between calls.

One owner wants a sustained private coaching relationship.

Technical advisory

$2,500 to $10,000

per month

TrailMark Shawn Livermore Kompella Oshri Cohen

Senior judgment on strategy, architecture, vendors, and priorities.

Commitment:: Monthly retainers; provider commitments vary.
Context:: The advisor carries the relationship between decisions.
Between sessions:: Scheduled sessions plus whatever async access the retainer defines.

Leadership can execute but wants an experienced decision partner.

Managed Copilot operations

$5,000

per month

Smartbridge

Ongoing Copilot Studio maintenance, optimization, reporting, and governance advice.

Commitment:: Monthly managed service.
Context:: The service stays attached to an existing Copilot deployment.
Between sessions:: Maintenance and optimization continue instead of ending at launch.

A company already runs Copilot Studio and needs operational support.

TBC coaching engagement

Our model

$400/person, $1,600 minimum

per month, by named team size

Reserved coaching capacity inside the work, with the team using it.

Commitment:: One month to start, then month to month with 30 days' notice.
Context:: A Collective member and client-tuned agent carry it across the relationship.
Between sessions:: Same-day answers in your channel on business days, plus one standing hour each week for the one-to-four engagement.

A team needs an ongoing partner while real workflows are being changed and used.

The capability matrix

What the collective provides versus other models.

Price tells you what leaves your account. The delivery matrix tells you what actually happens on Monday morning when an employee gets stuck or a workflow breaks.

Capability / Dimension	The Bushido Collective	Fractional Advisory	Workshops / Bootcamps	Enterprise SIs	Internal DIY
Workspace presence	Direct in your existing Teams or Slack workspace	Scheduled video calls only (Zoom/Meet)	Classroom or external LMS portal	Ticketing system and steering committee	None (isolated trial and error)
Response turnaround	Same business day in-channel	Next scheduled call (1 to 2 weeks)	Ends when the workshop ends	SLA ticket queue (days or weeks)	Unguided online search
Company context	Client-tuned agent and partner preserve institutional memory	Advisor notepad across calls	Generic mock datasets	Billable onboarding per consultant	Fragmented across individual staff
Technical diagnostics	Direct review of prompt transcripts, tool calls, and model errors	High-level strategic guidance only	Standard lab exercises	Billed under custom consulting SOWs	Trial, error, and abandoned tools
Security and governance	Triage on identity, access scopes, and compliance before launch	High-level policy discussion	General security awareness	Heavy formal audit engagements	Unmonitored shadow AI risk
Target audience	The operational doers: admins, billing, ops leads, champions	Executive leadership (C-suite/VP)	Anyone in the enrolled room	Project sponsors and IT leadership	Individual employees on their own
Software build path	Clean unbundling into a fixed-price project when code is needed	Client must find and manage developers	None	Heavy custom SOWs ($50k to $150k+)	Fragile, unmaintained scripts
Pricing discipline	Flat monthly commitment, all-in compute, no meters	Monthly retainers or hourly rates ($200 to $500/hr)	Per-seat or per-day fees ($495 to $3,000)	Retainers from $25k/mo or time-and-materials	License fees plus lost employee payroll
Accountability	Monthly report in client business numbers (revenue, margin, hours back)	Call agendas and meeting notes	Attendance certificate	Governance decks and milestone approvals	Subjective employee feedback

The coaching charter

What we can and will provide. And what we will not do.

Clear boundaries protect the relationship. We state what we commit to, and we are equally explicit about what we refuse to do.

What we can and will provide

Daily unblocking in your workspace

Designated champions get fast technical answers and guidance in the channel they already use.

Forensic session reviews

We inspect actual tool calls, prompt transcripts, and failure states when a workflow stalls.

Connector and security triage

We evaluate permissions, identity boundaries, and data access before a tool touches company systems.

A persistent client-tuned agent

An instance configured with your tools, schema, and past decisions so institutional memory accumulates.

Monthly evidence reporting

Every month reports what changed in your numbers: revenue generated, margin protected, or hours returned.

Direct path to engineering

Workflows that exceed prompt-based solutions escalate cleanly into a fixed-price custom project.

What we will not do

No hourly billing or question meters

We do not sell time. The monthly commitment covers the engagement completely.

No junior staff or subcontracting

You work directly with experienced founding-level technology operators.

No generic slide decks

We do not deliver theoretical binders. Coaching happens on real, live business tasks.

No hidden software development

We do not slip custom software development into coaching. Production software is scoped cleanly into a fixed-price project.

No labor-hour or token reports

We never report how many hours we spent or how many tokens were burned. We report business outcomes.

No shelfware guarantees

If a tool or workflow is not providing value to your team, we tell you to turn it off.

Cross-industry operations

Built for operational teams, not just software companies.

The teams that gain the most from AI coaching are not software engineers. They are the people running facilities, managing dispatch, preparing filings, intake coordinators, and billing specialists.

Multi-location operations

Branches, facilities, franchises, logistics hubs

Standardizing scheduling, intake, reporting, and operational handoffs across distributed locations.

Professional services

Accounting, legal ops, architecture, consulting

Accelerating document drafting, research synthesis, client reporting, and billable workflow efficiency.

IT and Managed Service Providers

MSPs, internal IT departments, technical service firms

Automating ticket triage, script review, vendor evaluation, and building client-facing AI capabilities.

Logistics and field dispatch

Route dispatch, inventory, fleet operations, field teams

Eliminating manual coordination, automating dispatch exceptions, and connecting mobile field notes.

Back-office administration

Intake, billing, customer operations, reporting

Removing repetitive data re-entry, reconciling spreadsheets, and catching operational errors early.

Regulated and compliance-heavy operations

Healthcare operations, financial services, data-sensitive firms

Enforcing BAA boundaries, access controls, auditability, and preventing sensitive data leaks.

Inside one coaching engagement

The month between meetings is the product.

From $1,600

One coaching engagement, sized to the supported team

A course can teach the tool. A workshop can align the room. A coaching engagement stays attached when a real workflow breaks, a connector asks for too much access, or the team needs a second set of eyes before the work reaches a customer.

Your channel

We work in the Slack or Teams channel your people already have open.

Answers while the decision is live

Questions raised on business days get a same-day answer in the channel.

Real workflows

Bring the work in front of you. We review the process, the prompt, the agent, and the result.

Connector judgment

We assess whether a connector fits the system, access model, and risk before it joins the workflow.

Context that carries

A client-tuned agent carries your tools, vocabulary, constraints, and prior decisions across the relationship.

A monthly receipt

The report names what moved and measures the result in revenue, margin, or hours back.

When coaching reveals the need for a build

Where coaching stops: software engineering.

Coaching covers prompts, guidance, review, and workflow habits. When your team reaches the limit of what commercial AI interfaces can do and needs a custom connector, an automated database pipeline, or a dedicated internal portal, that that work becomes a scoped custom project.

Explore custom projects ($2,000 to $21,000)

One rate, four examples

The people with access set the coaching rate.

Team size means named people who can ask us for help in the shared channel. It does not mean total company headcount. A 400-person company coaching five named team members pays the team size, not a rate set by its headcount.

Minimum

4 named people

$1,600/mo

One weekly huddle, plus as-needed support in the shared channel.

Six-person team

6 named people

$2,400/mo

One weekly huddle, plus as-needed support in the shared channel.

Twelve-person team

12 named people

$4,800/mo

Two weekly huddles, plus as-needed support in the shared channel.

Twenty-four-person team

24 named people

$9,600/mo

Four weekly huddles, plus as-needed support in the shared channel.

Every client pays $400 per named team member each month, with a four-person minimum. Dedicated huddle time scales at one weekly hour per six named members, rounded up. Broad employee instruction remains a separate adoption program.

Receipts

Public prices, linked at the source.

Prices and scopes change. These are advertised offers observed on September 10, 2026, grouped by the thing each provider sells. Brand names belong to their owners.

Ongoing365Tribe£19,250 to £45,500 annual champion program OngoingJonathan Stark$8,500 for four months of private coaching OngoingSmartbridge$5,000 monthly managed Copilot service CoursewareGlobal Knowledge$675 for a one-day Copilot course CoursewareLearning Tree$895 for a one-day Copilot course CoursewarePragmatic Institute$1,295 for AI for Product Managers WorkshopData Trainers$2,500 per day for up to ten students WorkshopApex Digital Solutions$3,000 for a three-day Copilot adoption workshop AdoptionCisilion$5,000 champion starter AdoptionCisilion$10,000 extended program AdoptionMindWorks$15,000 readiness and champions program AdvisoryTrailMark Technology Partners$2,500 monthly advisory; $6,500 embedded partner AdvisoryShawn Livermore$6,000 monthly advisory AdvisoryKompella Technologies$8,000 monthly advisory AdvisoryOshri Cohen$10,000 monthly advisory

Start with the work

Bring us one workflow. We will tell you which kind of help it deserves.

The rough map is free: one conversation, one written assessment, and an honest answer about whether coaching, building, or neither earns its keep.

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