How do you start a fractional CMO firm business in 2027?

Startup costs: Low — $2K-$6K. LinkedIn Premium/Sales Nav ($80-$160/mo), HubSpot or Attio ($0-$500/mo), basic analytics access (GA4, Mixpanel free tiers), laptop, LLC. Most of the spend is your own brand presence — content, headshots, podcast equipment if you go that route.

LLC / contracts / insurance: LLC standard. E&O insurance $1K-$3K/yr. Engagement letter must define: in-scope channels, max hours/mo, who owns vendor relationships you bring in, kill-fee if client cancels mid-quarter (typically 50% of the next month). Non-compete with current clients is reasonable; non-compete across the whole industry is not — clients will push back.

Customer acquisition: Founder-CEO referrals are 70%+ of pipeline. LinkedIn thought leadership (frameworks, teardowns, post-mortems) is the second channel. Speaking at SaaStr, MarketingProfs, or vertical-specific events. Cold outbound mostly fails at the $5K-$15K/mo retainer level — you have to be known, not discovered.

Revenue model: Retainer $5K-$15K/mo per client (typically 10-25 hrs/mo). Project fees for brand repositioning, ICP rework, GTM resets ($15K-$60K). 3-6 active clients is the sustainable max solo.

Year-1 reality: $90K-$250K if you come in with a network and 1-2 anchor clients from day one. Cold-start fractional CMOs typically take 6-9 months to fill a book. The 2027 market is crowded — every laid-off VP Marketing is calling themselves fractional. Differentiation: vertical depth (PLG SaaS, healthcare services, DTC ecom) or function depth (paid + lifecycle, brand + PR, demand-gen ops).

Honest: clients buy your judgment, not your hours. If you can't ship a 90-day plan in the first call, you'll get fired by month 4.