What does a fractional CFO cost in Sarasota?
Between $2,500 and $10,000 a month, in four partnerships, on a thirty-day notice and with no long-term contract. Where a business lands on that ladder depends on what is in front of it – one hire to weigh, or a hire, a price change and a lease all moving in the same quarter – and the first conversation ends with a plain number rather than a range.
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Four partnerships, each with its price.
Each partnership includes everything in the one before it, and Kristina Walls holds the seat at every level. Revenue is a guide to where a business usually lands; what places it is how many decisions are in motion and how much of her attention they need.
Bedrock
Seeing the business clearly enough to decide.
Cornerstone
Growth that converts into profit and cash.
Keystone
Financial strategy as a way of managing the company.
Capstone
Decisions that shape the future value of the company.
The decisions in front of the business, not the size of its ledger.
Take the worked example on the Sarasota page: $312k of cash today, a floor of one month's payroll at $120k, and a low point of $148k in week nine, when quarterly tax, the insurance renewal and payroll all land in the same week. A $40k piece of equipment is waiting. Buy it outright now and week nine falls $12k under the floor; finance it and week nine holds; buy it in week thirteen and it clears with $81k to spare. That is one decision, seen nine weeks early, and it is what a monthly rhythm at Bedrock or Cornerstone is for.
Further up the ladder the decisions change shape. At Keystone the business is deciding whether to add a location or enter a new market, how much of its growth to finance rather than fund itself, which of several initiatives gets investment and which loses it, and how its department leaders are measured – several decisions in motion at once, each needing the run again and someone in the room when it is taken. At Capstone it is an acquisition, a transaction or an exit, and the seat becomes a weekly one. The size of the ledger does not move the number, and the state of the books does not either; keeping them right is the 's job.
Bookkeeper. A professional responsible for recording a business's financial transactions. Full entry → Forecast. A forward view of what the numbers will do, built from what the business knows now – work already won, work likely to be won, costs already committed, and the timing of both. Full entry →Kristina puts it this way on camera: “Affording something isn't really a cash question, it's a plan question. The forecast tells you whether the money will be there. Only the budget tells you whether spending it was what the year was for.”
A partnership, not an hourly rate.
Hours measure effort. They say nothing about what the effort produced for the person paying for it, and an owner billed by the hour learns to ration the seat: they hesitate before they call, and they wait until the problem is expensive before they raise it. Priced as a partnership, they use it, and the work compounds because nobody is counting the meter. James wrote the long version in What your price funds.
Where the published guides sit, and why this ladder opens below them.
Search the question and the first page is largely recruiter guides. The one written for Sarasota puts a at $5,000 to $16,000 a month for one to three days a week, or $180 to $405 an hour, against a national benchmark of $6,000 to $18,000. That is a seat sold by the day, in a company large enough to need someone in the building every week.
Fractional CFO. A chief financial officer's seat, held without the full-time cost. Full entry →A business between $1M and $20M needs a decision partner with a standing rhythm, which is why Bedrock starts at $2,500, below where those guides begin, and why Capstone – weekly strategy, a transaction or an inflection point ahead – is priced like the seat they describe.
The cost of the empty seat.
Kristina, on running a business from the bank balance: “Watching the account means you find out at the moment you can no longer do anything about it – you learn about the tight week during the tight week. Every option worth having needs notice. Slowing a hire, chasing receivables, drawing on a facility, asking a supplier for terms, moving a purchase back three weeks. All of those work if you can see them coming. None of them work on the day.”
A full-time would see them coming, at a salary in the low-to-mid six figures before benefits or a recruiter's fee, which is why an owner-led business between $1M and $20M almost never has one. Fractional is the share of that seat the business needs. On the numbers side, the first thirty days of an engagement have usually turned up savings worth more than the monthly fee.
CFO (Chief Financial Officer). A senior executive responsible for managing a company's financial actions – financial planning, risk management, record-keeping, and financial reporting. Full entry →Is there a long-term contract?
No. Every partnership runs on a thirty-day notice, at every level. The notice is deliberate: it keeps us accountable to the same standard we hold the business to.
Can a business start at Bedrock and move up?
Yes. Each partnership includes everything in the one before it, so the seat grows as the decisions in front of the business do. When the work has outgrown the rhythm, we say so.
Is bookkeeping included?
No. The seat sits above the bookkeeper and the CPA rather than replacing either, and we are happy to work alongside the ones you already have. A fractional controller is a different seat again, and where that is what a business actually needs, we say so.
What does a fractional CFO cost per hour?
We do not price by the hour. Hours measure effort, not what the effort produces, and a seat sold by the hour teaches an owner to ration it. The hourly figures published for Sarasota, roughly $180 to $405, describe a day-rate arrangement in a larger company.
A plain number at the end of the first conversation.
The first conversation is fifty minutes on your business, with the person who would hold the seat. You leave it with a plain read: what we would look at first, which partnership fits, and whether this is the right fit at all. If it is not, we will say so and point you to someone better suited.
Talk to Us Sarasota, Florida · (941) 231-1971
Last updated 21 October 2026.