Compare Your Options
A fractional AI advisor
or an in-house hire?
At some point a leader decides the company needs someone who owns AI. The question is whether that someone needs a desk. A fractional advisor gives you the senior judgment every month, scoped to what the month needs. A hire gives you forty hours a week of someone who has to be managed, and paid, whether the month needs them or not.
Both are right for different companies, and the honest section below says which is which.
Side by Side
How they stack up
Hiring figures are typical fully loaded ranges, not quotes. Advisory is scoped on a discovery call.
Figures for the alternative are typical ranges, not quotes. Your numbers will differ, and we would rather you check them than take ours.
When to Pick Which
Which one fits your situation?
Six situations we hear on discovery calls, and the honest call for each.
You need 20 to 40 hours of AI work every week, forever
Hire
If there is a full-time job's worth of ongoing build and maintenance, hire for it. A fractional advisor can help you write the job description and interview, which is a common way these engagements end, and a good one.
You need senior judgment, not forty hours
Fractional advisory
Most companies at this stage need a few hours a month of the right decisions and someone to build in scoped blocks when it is time. That is exactly what advisory is.
You have never hired senior tech talent before
Fractional advisory first
A wrong senior hire is expensive in money and in a year of momentum. Advisory lets you learn what the role actually needs to be before you write the offer.
Your AI work touches data that cannot leave the building
Hire, or advisory with your IT in the room
If regulatory or contractual rules mean the hands-on work has to stay inside your organization, hire. Advisory can still set the strategy and governance, with your own people doing the hands-on work.
You want results while you figure out the long-term answer
Fractional advisory
Advisory starts in weeks and produces a roadmap and first wins while the hiring question stays open. Many clients hire later with a much clearer picture, and keep advisory for the strategy.
You already have an AI owner
Neither, probably
If someone on your team already owns AI, you likely need workshops to spread what they know, not a second strategist. We will tell you that on the discovery call.
The Honest Answer
Where the hire wins
If there is a full-time job's worth of ongoing work, a hire is cheaper per hour and more available than any advisor, and someone who sits in your meetings every day knows things an outside voice never will. The same is true when a regulator or a client contract requires the hands-on work to stay inside your organization.
Where the hire loses is at the beginning, when the company does not yet know what the role should be, and in the middle, when one person is asked to be strategist, builder, and trainer at once. Advisory is built for exactly those two moments, and a good advisory engagement often ends by helping you make the hire well.
Run Your Own Numbers
What would the first pilot give back?
Advisory is only worth it if the work it points at pays off. Run one task through the calculator and see what a realistic pilot returns before you decide how to staff it.
Questions
The questions behind the question
Why is there no monthly figure on this page?
Because advisory is scoped to your month, and a single number would be wrong for most companies. We set it together on a discovery call, after you have seen how we work, usually through an audit or a workshop. It is sized to cost a fraction of a part-time hire.
Can advisory include building things?
Yes, in scoped 10-hour blocks at $1,750 each, with a written deliverable stating what exists at the end. Advisory is the standing judgment; implementation blocks are the hands-on build when something needs it.
Do you ever recommend hiring instead?
Often. If the discovery call shows a full-time job's worth of ongoing work, we say so, and helping you define and fill the role is a perfectly good engagement.
A senior AI voice in the room every month, without the desk.
See how advisory works, what a month looks like, and how implementation blocks fit around it.
See How Advisory WorksWant to talk it through first? Book a free 30-minute discovery call.