Straight answers
A fractional CMO is a senior marketing leader who works with a company part-time, typically one to three days a week on a business-to-business contract, and owns the marketing plan without a full-time hire. Extra Medium is a US studio that works with UK companies: you get senior leadership plus a working studio behind it, run on a fixed weekly cadence across the time zones, and in the room in London when it matters. Engagements are priced in writing before work begins.
London has the deepest bench of growing companies in the UK, and the densest demand for fractional marketing leadership. Scale-ups, fintech and SaaS firms and PE-backed companies share the same shape: real revenue, real spend, investors asking harder questions, and marketing that has outgrown the founder and the first hires without yet justifying a full-time chief marketing officer. The fractional model fits that gap exactly. Senior judgment, a plan the board can interrogate, and a team directed against numbers, bought by the day or the week instead of as a permanent package.
Published UK figures put fractional CMO day rates typically between £750 and £1,400, with London’s senior specialists at £1,000 to £2,500. Monthly retainers run from £3,000 to £15,000 depending on days and remit. Set that against a full-time London CMO at £120,000 to £150,000 base, around £180,000 as a package, before recruitment costs and the months a search takes. Engagements are business-to-business contracts, commonly structured outside IR35, with no permanent headcount added. Extra Medium prices the same way: days and scope agreed up front, the figure in writing before work begins.
The honest question is the time zone, and cadence is the answer. Engagements run on fixed days each week, with live meetings scheduled in the overlap, London’s afternoon and Virginia’s morning, and decisions, documents and reporting moving asynchronously in between. Nothing waits a day for a signature or a steer. When the work needs a person in the room, a launch, a board session, a planning week, we are in London for it. It fits scale-ups and PE-backed firms that need senior marketing ownership now. It starts with a free conversation, then the engagement shape and price in writing.
No. Extra Medium is a US studio headquartered in Virginia Beach, and London is on our site because we work with UK companies. There is no staffed London office. What you get is senior, founder-led marketing leadership plus a working studio, run on a fixed weekly cadence across the time zones, with London trips for the moments that need a person in the room.
Published UK ranges put day rates typically at £750 to £1,400, with London senior specialists at £1,000 to £2,500, and monthly retainers from £3,000 to £15,000. Extra Medium prices each engagement on days per week and scope, business to business. After a free first conversation, the exact figure is in writing before any work begins.
Engagements run on fixed days with a set weekly rhythm. Live meetings sit in the overlap window, London afternoon and Virginia morning. Between them, plans, documents and reporting move asynchronously, so work is waiting for you at the start of your day rather than the end of it. The cadence is agreed up front, and it does not drift.
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Don’t know exactly what you need? Good. That’s our job. Tell us where the business is headed and we’ll tell you honestly whether we can help — and if we can’t, who might.
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