Fractional CFO companies
Fractional CFO Companies: How to Tell Them Apart
The fractional CFO market has splintered into segments that barely compete with each other. A firm built for venture-backed startups and a firm built for a 12 million dollar manufacturer are not two versions of the same service. This is a plain look at the main firms, what each one is actually built for, and the questions worth asking before you sign anything.
weAudit is not a fractional CFO firm and has no relationship with any company named here. Nobody paid to be included, nothing is ranked, and every description comes from what each firm publishes about itself.
Before the list
Six things that separate one fractional CFO firm from another
Most comparison pages rank firms as though they were competing for the same job. They are not. These are the differences that decide whether a firm fits.
1
Stage and funding
A firm built around venture rounds thinks in runway, burn and board decks. A firm built around owner-led companies thinks in cash flow, banking relationships and succession. Both are right for their client and wrong for the other one.
2
Who actually does the work
Some firms place one seasoned CFO with you. Others give you a CFO backed by a bench of accountants and analysts. Ask how many hours are the CFO’s own and how many belong to the team behind them.
3
Scope of the stack
A pure CFO engagement leaves your bookkeeping where it is. A finance-as-a-service engagement replaces the whole back office, accounting through reporting. The second is a bigger change and a bigger bill.
4
How it is priced
Published monthly tiers, hourly billing, or a custom quote after a scoping call. Each one tells you something about how the firm expects the relationship to run and how easy it is to leave.
5
On-site or remote
Some firms are built on being in the room with an owner every week. Others are fully remote by design and serve clients anywhere. Neither is better, but a mismatch here shows up fast.
6
Event experience
If a raise, a sale, an audit or an IPO is coming, the question is not whether the firm does finance. It is whether the specific person assigned to you has been through that event before.
The firms
Nine fractional CFO firms and what each one is built for
Listed alphabetically. Every detail below is what the firm states publicly about itself, current as of August 2026. Verify anything that matters before you sign, because service lines and pricing change.
Burkland
Venture-backed startups from pre-seed through exit, run out of San Francisco, with more than 800 startups served. Financial modeling, fundraising support, board reporting, runway and venture debt. One of the few firms that publishes tiers, starting at 1,600, 2,500 and 4,200 dollars a month.
Consero Global
Austin based, aimed at middle-market and growth-stage companies that have outgrown their finance function. Sells finance as a service rather than a CFO alone, on its own SIMPL platform, and pitches a complete finance operation in 90 days or less.
CRI CFO Hub
A division of Carr, Riggs and Ingram, with seven US offices including San Diego, Los Angeles, Austin, New York and Washington DC. Mid-market and growth-stage work, plus government contractor accounting and DCAA compliance, which most fractional firms do not touch.
FLG Partners
Silicon Valley roots and the heaviest event experience on this list: IPO planning, M and A, restructuring and board directorships. States it has assisted in raising over 6 billion dollars in growth financing, IPO and M and A transactions since January 2021.
FocusCFO
Owner-led companies roughly between 2 and 30 million dollars in revenue. The model is an embedded part-time CFO who sits inside the leadership team, working through foundation, health, growth and eventually exit readiness rather than a single project.
Graphite Financial
Miami based and built for VC-backed startups in SaaS, AI, ecommerce, health tech and fintech. Sells one team covering accounting, FP and A, tax, payroll and HR, with clients selecting the pieces they need as they grow.
NOW CFO
Utah based with more than 20 US locations and over 300 professionals, covering fractional CFOs, controllers and staff accountants, plus permanent placement. Bills hourly and states there are no long-term contract requirements, which suits project work.
Preferred CFO
Headquartered in Salem, Utah, serving the US and Canada. Aimed at companies hitting financial complexity, rapid growth or cash flow strain, or preparing for investor and lender conversations. Scope and pricing are quoted per engagement rather than published.
The CFO Centre
Founded in 2001 and operating in 18 countries with more than 750 CFOs, which makes it the largest network here. Serves small and midsize businesses typically starting around 1 million dollars in revenue, matching each client with a local CFO.
Cost
What a fractional CFO actually costs
Very few firms publish a number, which makes the market hard to read. Burkland is the clearest example on this list, with tiers starting at 1,600, 2,500 and 4,200 dollars a month and an annual range it describes as roughly 19,000 to 50,000 dollars. NOW CFO bills hourly and states there is no long-term contract. Most of the rest quote after a scoping call.
The recruiting firm KORE1 puts the broader market at 175 to 400 dollars an hour, or 8,000 to 18,000 dollars a month. Treat that as a range rather than a benchmark, because the number moves with scope: a CFO alone costs one thing, a CFO plus a bookkeeping and reporting stack costs another.
The comparison most firms invite is against a full-time CFO salary. That is the right comparison only if you would otherwise have hired one. If you would not have, the honest comparison is against what the finance function costs you today, including the errors nobody is catching.
Diligence
Questions worth asking before you sign
Who specifically is assigned to us, and how many hours a month are theirs rather than the team’s
What happens to the engagement if that person leaves the firm
Have they done our specific event before: the raise, the sale, the first audit, the ERP change
What is in scope, what is billed separately, and what quietly requires our own bookkeeper to do the work
What is the notice period, and what does the exit look like on paper
Does the firm earn anything from vendors, lenders, software or payment providers it recommends
Which reports arrive every month without us asking, and by which day
In the first 90 days, what does this firm consider a win
The inherited line item
The cost nearly every new CFO inherits and nobody audits
Whichever firm gets hired, one line on the P and L tends to survive the review: merchant card processing. It looks small, it looks fixed, and reading the statement requires knowing how interchange qualification works rather than how accounting works.
Interchange is 80 to 90 percent of what card acceptance costs, and the card networks change more than 200 rules and rates twice a year, every April and every October. An account priced correctly three years ago is not priced correctly today. weAudit finds savings on about 99 percent of the audits it runs, and average client savings run about 40 percent.
That is the work weAudit does, and the only thing it does. If you are a fractional CFO looking for a fast, documented win inside a client’s first quarter, here is how that engagement works, or read what a processing audit covers.
Common questions
Fractional CFO firms, briefly answered
What is the difference between a fractional CFO and an outsourced controller?
A controller owns the accuracy of the numbers, month-end close and the books. A CFO owns what the numbers mean: forecasting, capital, pricing, banking relationships and the plan. Several firms on this list sell both, which is why scope questions matter more than titles.
Are fractional CFO firms and marketplaces the same thing?
No. A firm assigns you someone from its own bench and stands behind the work. A marketplace introduces you to an independent contractor and steps back. The rate can look similar and the accountability does not.
How long does a fractional CFO engagement usually run?
It depends on why they were hired. Event-driven work such as a raise or a sale ends with the event. Owner-led engagements often run for years, scaling hours up and down, which is what firms mean by an embedded model.
Is weAudit a fractional CFO firm?
No. weAudit audits credit card processing costs and recovers overbilling, and it works alongside fractional CFOs rather than competing with them. It has no financial relationship with any firm on this page.
Send us one statement
One recent merchant processing statement is enough to tell you what a client is really paying, what is recoverable, and what the account should cost. The first audit is free and there is nothing to sign.
Want to talk?
- Call us today 800-672-1292
- Book a free consultation
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