Estimator
What is waiting actually costing you?
A rough, honest model. It weighs the price of a fractional CFO against two things owners rarely put a number on: your own time lost to finance firefighting, and the margin that quietly leaks out of decisions made without a forward view. Adjust every input to your own reality.
Roughly, this year.
Cash juggling, ad-hoc spreadsheets, chasing numbers, admin.
Your best estimate of the value of an hour spent on growth instead.
Monthly. Typical range is $3k–$10k+ depending on scope.
Illustrative: unclear unit economics, mispricing, and slow decisions, as a share of revenue.
Estimated annual comparison
Estimated annual value gap
$56,200
Rough estimate of what waiting costs you each year, beyond the price of the engagement.
- Owner time on finance
- $83,200
- Estimated margin drag
- $45,000
- = Total cost of waiting
- $128,200
This is an illustrative model, not a guarantee or an appraisal. It's meant to make the trade-off visible using your own assumptions — adjust them freely. The margin-drag figure in particular is a rough proxy for the value of clearer decisions, and will vary widely by business.
How to read this
This estimator is deliberately conservative and deliberately simple. It's not an appraisal — it's a way to make an invisible trade-off visible. Two numbers do most of the work:
- Your time. The hours you spend each week wrangling cash and numbers, valued at what an hour of your attention on growth is actually worth. For most owners this is the larger figure — and the most under-counted.
- Decision drag. A rough proxy for the margin left on the table when pricing, unit economics, and big decisions happen without a model. We default it low on purpose; your real number could be higher.
If the model says it's early for you, take that seriously — that's a legitimate and common answer. If it says the gap is large, the readiness assessment will tell you whether the rest of your situation agrees. And the cost guide breaks down what actually drives the retainer figure.
Put real numbers to it
Your situation is more than one estimate.
The readiness assessment weighs ten signals — not just cost — to place your $1M–$5M business in one of four stages, with specific next steps.