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Fractional marketing director: hire a fractional VP of marketing or fractional head of marketing

The fractional market has split in two, and most pricing pages have not caught up. A fractional CMO is bought for judgment: positioning, budget allocation, what the company should stop doing. A fractional marketing director, sometimes posted as a fractional VP of marketing or fractional head of marketing, is bought for execution: the strategy already exists on a slide somewhere and nobody senior is running the week. The second role is cheaper, more common, and the one most companies under $20 million in revenue actually need.

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The short answer

A fractional marketing director is a senior marketing leader you hire part time, usually one to three days a week, to own execution rather than advise from the sidelines. In the United States the going rate is roughly $4,000 to $8,000 a month for a typical engagement, with light advisory scopes starting near $2,000 and embedded leadership reaching $15,000 or more. Hourly work sits in a $150 to $500 span, with $200 to $350 covering most senior operators, and day rates run about $1,500 to $3,500. The comparable full-time hire costs $110,000 to $185,000 in base salary before benefits, and 2026 published averages put a US marketing director near $125,000 on Indeed and $137,000 on Glassdoor.

Typical US salary

$110,000 to $185,000 full time, or $4,000 to $8,000 a month fractional

Typical agency fee on that

$21,000 to $35,000

A 30-day post here

$199

What it costs

Every way to fill this role, priced

Honest ranges for the United States. Agency percentages are the industry-standard bands, and the right answer depends on how hard your role is to fill.

Option Typical cost (USD) Speed Best for
Fractional marketing director (retainer) $4,000 to $8,000 per month for a typical scope, $2,000 to $15,000 across the full range Days to start You need someone senior running marketing one to three days a week
Fractional CMO $5,000 to $20,000 per month, most engagements $8,000 to $15,000 Days to start Strategy, positioning or budget allocation is the unresolved problem
Fractional work priced hourly or by the day $150 to $500 per hour, $200 to $350 typical; day rates $1,500 to $3,500 Days A defined project: a launch, a rebuild, covering a leave
Full-time marketing director $110,000 to $185,000 base, plus benefits and payroll tax 6 to 12 weeks to fill Marketing is a permanent core function with a team to lead
Recruitment agency to fill the full-time role Typically 15% to 25% of first-year base, so $21,000 to $35,000 on a $140,000 director 3 to 8 weeks A confidential search, or you have no bandwidth to screen
Post the role on MarketerJob $199 for a 30-day post Live the same day Hiring the fractional or full-time leader directly, with no percentage fee

Salary and fee ranges are typical US figures for 2026 and vary by market, seniority and company stage.

Why post here

A board built only for marketing roles

Execution leadership, not another advisor

A director-level fractional runs the week: the calendar, the channel owners, the numbers in the Monday meeting. You are buying someone who does the job, not someone who reviews it once a month.

Roughly half the cost of the CMO tier

Most fractional marketing director engagements land at $4,000 to $8,000 a month against $8,000 to $15,000 for a fractional CMO. For a company that already knows its strategy, the extra spend buys very little.

A flat $199, not a percentage

A contingency recruiter filling a $140,000 director role typically bills $21,000 to $35,000. A 30-day post on a marketing-only board is $199, and you keep control of the process.

How it works

From posting to a signed offer

01

Decide which tier you are buying

If nobody can agree on positioning or where the budget goes, you want CMO-level judgment. If the plan exists and execution is drifting, you want a director. Buying the wrong tier is the most expensive mistake here.

02

Post the scope, hours and retainer band

Write the role as days per week and outcomes owned, then post it for $199. Stating the band up front removes the two-week discovery dance about money and gets you serious applicants faster.

03

Trial the first 30 days on a defined deliverable

Agree one measurable output for month one: a working reporting stack, a hiring plan, a launch shipped. Fractional engagements that start with a deliverable rather than a discovery phase are the ones that renew.

How to evaluate

What to look for in a fractional marketing director

The awkward part is hiring one. Fractional leaders are rarely on the big job boards, and the people who market themselves hardest are not always the people who have run a marketing team. MarketerJob is a board for marketing roles and nothing else, so a fractional or part-time leadership post here lands in front of senior marketers who filter by role rather than everyone with a resume. A 30-day post is $199, not a percentage of anything, and the pay or retainer band shows on the card so the applicants have already accepted your number.

  • They have carried a number, not just a plan: pipeline, revenue, qualified leads, retention
  • Direct experience managing marketers, agencies and freelancers, with named examples
  • A clear account of the first 30 days, and what they would refuse to do in that window
  • Comfort in your actual stack: CRM, analytics, attribution, whatever runs your reporting
  • A realistic view of how many clients they carry, since three is very different from eight
  • A written scope with hours, deliverables and an exit: vague retainers are where these go wrong
How posting works
Your listing How the role appears on the board
Remote
YC

Fractional Marketing Director

Your company · Remote (US)

Senior FRACTIONAL MARKETING DIRECTOR
$5k to $9k per month posted today

Candidates see the salary band before they apply, so the people in your inbox have already accepted the number.

Good questions

Questions employers ask

A fractional marketing director is an experienced marketing leader who works for your company part time, typically one to three days a week, on a monthly retainer instead of a salary. They own execution: the team, the channels, the calendar and the reporting. Commitments commonly run 8 to 40 hours a month for advisory scopes and more for embedded roles.
Most US engagements run $4,000 to $8,000 a month, with light advisory scopes starting around $2,000 and embedded leadership reaching $15,000 or more. Priced by time, the market sits in a $150 to $500 hourly span with $200 to $350 covering most senior operators, and day rates of about $1,500 to $3,500.
They run marketing day to day at a senior level: setting the quarterly plan against an agreed strategy, managing the marketers and agencies, owning the channel mix and budget, and reporting results to the founder or board. Unlike a consultant, they sit inside your meetings and are accountable for the numbers rather than for the recommendation.
A fractional CMO works at board level on strategy, positioning, budget allocation and how the marketing organization should be built. A fractional marketing director works one layer down, delivering an agreed strategy and managing the day to day output. The CMO tier costs more, roughly $8,000 to $15,000 a month against $4,000 to $8,000, so buy the CMO when the strategy itself is the open question.
It is worth it when you need senior judgment on a schedule you cannot fill with a full-time hire, or when you would otherwise promote someone into a job they have never done. Against a $110,000 to $185,000 full-time director plus benefits, a $6,000 monthly retainer is cheaper for as long as the scope stays part time. It stops being worth it once the work reliably fills five days a week.
Write the role as days per week plus the outcomes it owns, publish the retainer band, and post it where senior marketers actually look rather than relying on a referral chain. Then interview for carried numbers and for how many other clients the person holds. A 30-day post on a marketing-only job board costs $199, against $21,000 to $35,000 for a recruiter on the equivalent full-time search.

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