Most comparisons of full-time versus fractional technology leadership quote a salary and stop there. Employer benefit costs run about 30 percent of total compensation, and they are not optional. This works the number from published federal data, shows every step, and lets you change any assumption you disagree with.
We will email you the figures above worked out in full, with every source cited, so you can put it in front of a board or a CFO without rebuilding it. Nothing above is hidden behind this. No obligation, and no sales sequence.
We will send the written breakdown shortly. If you want these numbers argued against your actual situation, the AI-Readiness Diagnostic is the next step.
A cost model is not a business case. These are the things the arithmetic above does not capture, in both directions.
Recruiting fees, equity, bonus, payroll taxes above the BLS benefit average, office and equipment, and the cost of a bad hire in a role this senior. All of these push the full-time figure higher than what is shown.
The BLS benefit share is an all-industry private sector average. Executive packages usually carry a heavier load than the average worker, so 30.1 percent is a conservative input, not an aggressive one.
A fractional executive is not a full-time one at a discount. If you need someone in the building every day, running a large internal team, carrying a P and L, or owning a multi-year transformation end to end, hire full-time. The cost gap is real and it is still the wrong trade.
Fractional works when the need is executive judgment and accountability rather than executive hours. If you are unsure which you have, that is a conversation, not a calculator.
Engagements start with a fixed-fee AI-Readiness Diagnostic, then a monthly retainer or a scoped project. Most clients are organizations of 100 to 2,000 people with a board, an auditor or a regulator who will eventually ask how the system decided.
This is not the right fit if you are looking for a proof of concept, a chatbot, or the cheapest way to say you are doing AI. The work here is the control environment around AI, and it is worth paying for only when someone is going to have to sign for it.
The national median base salary for the federal occupation covering technology leadership, Computer and Information Systems Managers, is $175,140 as of May 2025. Adding employer benefit costs at the published rate brings it to roughly $250,558 a year. The mean rather than the median puts base at $192,160 and the loaded figure at about $274,907.
Because BLS quotes benefits as a share of total compensation, not as a markup on wages. For private industry workers, wages are 69.9 percent of the total and benefits are the remaining 30.1 percent. So the total is base divided by one minus that share. Treating 30.1 percent as a markup on salary understates the real cost by roughly twenty thousand dollars.
Recruiting fees, equity, bonus, payroll taxes above the BLS average, office and equipment, and the cost of a bad hire in a role this senior. Every one of these pushes the full-time number higher than what is shown here.
No. Scope sets the price, not a rate card, so a published number would be misleading. This page takes whatever figure you are already considering, from any provider, and shows the difference against the full-time cost.
If AI is what is driving this, the AI Policy Check reads your written policy against the framework your auditor will use, in your browser, in about a minute.