No bloated retainers. No equity drain. No agency markup. Just direct access to founder-led engineers and fractional CTOs who co-own your outcomes.
High-level technical direction without execution. Ideal for founders who have engineers but need a senior thought partner.
Fully embedded in your team — Slack, standups, code reviews, and hiring. The most popular engagement for Seed-stage startups.
Fractional CTO leadership combined with one or two founding engineers who ship production code. Strategy and execution from one team.
We never ask for company equity. You're paying for expertise, not giving up ownership.
No 3–6 month recruiting process. We can be embedded in your team within 2 weeks of contract.
$2,500 trial credited to your first month. If it's not right, part ways with no obligation.
One-time, fixed-scope setup of the context layer your Claude Code, ChatGPT, Hermes or Grok agents are missing — persona files per role, read-only inboxes, sanitised data, transcripts — plus the human-in-the-loop pipeline two people use to support 40,000+ Pocket Clear users. No subscription, no per-seat fee.
from $1,000
Best for: Freelancers and small businesses — one persona, one inbox
One persona’s context layer, one inbox, one agent, one flow — triage, tally, urgent flags, drafts. Hardened, with a runbook. Live in 2–3 days.
See what's included →from $10,000
Best for: Startups with a team, a user database, and a repo
Company context layer for up to six personas, sanitised DB view, transcripts, Claude Code or ChatGPT in the repo, sales outreach tuning, content radar. Security review included. Live in 2 weeks.
See what's included →No. We don't take equity. We're paid for our time and expertise, not a slice of your company. A full-time CTO typically demands 0.5%–3% equity on top of salary. We have zero equity requirement.
We ask for a 3-month minimum commitment to ensure we can deliver meaningful value. Most engagements run 6–18 months. There's no long-term lock-in after the initial period — monthly after that.
Yes. We offer a 2-week paid trial at $2,500 (credited toward your first month). You'll get one strategy session, an architecture review, and Slack access. If it's not the right fit, you part ways after 2 weeks with no obligation.
We bill additional hours at $350–$450/hr (depending on the type of work). We always flag when we're approaching the hours boundary so you can decide whether to extend.
Yes. Many engagements start with the Strategic Advisory tier and scale up to the CTO + Founding Engineer Pod as the startup grows. We can typically onboard additional engineers within 2 weeks.
A full-time CTO at Seed stage costs $280,000–$380,000/year in salary + 1–3% equity + benefits + 3–6 months recruiting time. Our most expensive engagement ($35K/month) is $420K/year — comparable on cash, but with zero equity, no recruiting, and no risk of a mis-hire. Use our cost calculator to see the exact comparison for your stage.
Book a free 30-minute call. We'll review your situation and put together a custom engagement proposal.
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