Transparent by design.
Most boutique advisory firms hide their fee structure. We publish ours. How an engagement is priced says as much about how a firm operates as the work itself, and the right buyer wants to understand both before the SOW.
How an engagement is priced.
Fixed weekly fee, scoped window.
Engagements are scoped against a defined window with a fixed weekly fee for every week we are on the work. Predictable for the buyer, accountable for us.
Conditional criteria in every SOW.
Every engagement carries written acceptance criteria. Quantitative where the work admits it, with named qualitative factors where it does not. We commit to the bar before we start.
The first week is free.
Discovery starts at zero risk. The first week of any Tier 01 engagement carries no fee. If the work warrants going further, weeks two onward are scoped and priced. If it does not, both sides walk away clean.
Senior judgment on completion.
Specialization carries discretion. When acceptance requires professional judgment, that judgment is ours. Earned in the SOW, transparent through delivery, documented at close.
Four engagement shapes.
Senior practitioners only, a fixed weekly fee against a scoped window, and a free first week of discovery. Sized by duration and senior footprint. The tiers are illustrative, not prescriptive. Real engagements live where the problem requires them to.
Discovery & Strategic Diagnostic.
What's included
- Focused diagnostic of a specific program, function, or transaction
- Stakeholder interviews and document review
- Written assessment with prioritized recommendations
- Draft SOW for follow-on delivery, if warranted
When this fits. The buyer wants a senior read before committing to a full engagement. If the diagnostic is enough, both sides walk away clean. If it warrants more, weeks two and three build from a shared foundation, and we will tell you when week one is the right place to stop.
No Client Portal. Discovery is short and senior to senior.
Focused Practice Engagement.
What's included
- Defined scope within a single practice area
- A working operating model, IMO standup, diligence package, or PMO redesign
- Weekly executive cadence with documented decisions
- Written close-out with operating model, reporting, and handoff
- Client Portal included for the life of the engagement
When this fits. Most engagements live here. A program launching, stalling, or integrating that needs senior delivery on a focused scope with a clear acceptance bar. The band reflects complexity, the named practitioner's seniority, and the duration window.
Multi-Practice Transformation.
What's included
- Scope spanning multiple practice areas, run as one program
- Embedded delivery with multi-workstream coordination
- Standing executive sponsor cadence and board-grade reporting
- Phased SOW with stage-gate reviews and named workstream leads
- Client Portal included as the shared workspace across the program
When this fits. A large program where the operating model itself is the deliverable. Multi-year transformations, complex M&A integrations, PE platform engagements. Each is scoped in phases, every phase a distinct SOW with its own acceptance criteria and window.
Fee structure
Because these engagements are large, phased, and measured at every stage gate, Tier 03 is where we structure the fee around the work, not just the calendar. Alongside a conventional scoped fee, we will consider:
Milestone-based billing. Fees tied to the acceptance of defined stage-gate deliverables, so you pay against progress you can see.
Performance-linked structures. A portion of the fee tied to a pre-agreed, measurable, attributable outcome, where the engagement supports a clean metric.
We offer these because we stand behind what we deliver, and on a transformation of this scale the right structure should share both the discipline and the stakes. The specific shape is set per engagement.
Senior Counsel Retainer.
What's included
- Standing access to a named senior practitioner
- Defined response-time commitment, typically same business day
- Monthly executive call plus ad-hoc strategic counsel
- Carve-out provisions for specific deliverables, separately scoped
When this fits. An executive sponsor wants senior counsel on standing call without committing to embedded delivery. Common for boards, audit committees, CISOs, and PE operating partners who want a sounding board across a portfolio.
No Client Portal. Standing advisory is a relationship, not a program.
Where the weekly fee sits.
Our pricing sits in the senior-led boutique band. Below is where the weekly fee falls against the segments that compete for similar work. Bands are drawn from public market data and industry analysis, blended across firms within each segment.
The position is deliberate. Our buyers do not want Big Four staffing leverage, but they need more than a single independent can carry on a multi-stakeholder program. The senior-only model trades a higher per-practitioner cost for a lower total cost, because the work is done by people who have done it before.
The retainer, against fractional.
The Senior Counsel Retainer is priced monthly, so it sits outside the weekly view. Benchmarked against the fractional-executive market it competes with:
Our retainer falls within the typical fractional band, but the model is different by design. A fractional executive is a part-time operator carrying delivery. Standing Advisory is on-call senior counsel to boards and PE, priced for the caliber of the named practitioner rather than embedded hours.
Methodology and sources+
Bands reflect typical mid-market enterprise engagements, blended across firms and engagement types. Public rate cards anchor the lower end of each band; industry analysis of private engagement economics anchors the upper end. Source data was last reviewed May 2026. Bands are descriptive, not prescriptive. Actual pricing varies by firm, geography, sector, scope complexity, and negotiated terms.
- Tier 1 strategy (MBB): US GSA Multiple Award Schedule rate cards; McKinsey and BCG public filings; Slideworks, 2026.
- Big Four advisory: Deloitte and Accenture GSA / UK Crown Commercial Service G-Cloud rate cards; Consultancy.org.
- National-tier boutiques: UK G-Cloud rate cards; revenue-per-consultant analysis across AlixPartners, FTI, BRG, and Alvarez & Marsal.
- Independent senior consultants: ConsultFees, 2026; Fractionus, 2026.
- Standing advisory / fractional: Fractionus, 2026; Schmidt Consulting Group, 2026.
Industry fees are also under downward pressure as AI compresses delivery, with the largest firms moving toward outcome-based pricing.
Written upfront.
Every SOW carries conditional acceptance criteria, the bar that defines when the engagement is complete.
Quantitative, where the work admits it.
Financial tracking implemented, IMO standing up, integration milestones tracked, governance cadence operating, all in writing.
Qualitative, where it requires judgment.
When a turnaround is stabilized, a transformation ready for handoff, or a diligence sufficient for the IC, those factors are named with the conditions we deem them met. The SOW collaboration earns the right to make that call.
Extension triggers, named upfront.
Material scope changes, undiscovered dependencies, or executive decisions that shift the bar. Extensions are priced at the same weekly fee against a new window, with written agreement before work continues.
First conversation to close.
The contracting sequence is consistent across tiers. The level of detail in each step scales with engagement size; the sequence does not.
Initial conversation.
Free, 45 to 60 minutes on the situation, constraint, success measure, and timing. By the end, both sides know whether a real engagement is plausible.
Discovery.
For larger engagements, a short discovery produces a written diagnostic and a fully scoped SOW. The first week is free, weeks two and three carry the Tier 01 fee. For smaller engagements, discovery folds into the work itself.
SOW collaboration.
The SOW is shaped jointly. Scope, named practitioners, fee, window, acceptance criteria, scope-change triggers, and pass-throughs, all written before signature. This step takes real time, and we treat it as part of engagement quality.
Delivery.
Weekly fee billed monthly in arrears, Net-30. Weekly executive cadence, with status, decisions, risk, and budget tracked transparently. No surprise invoices.
Close-out.
A written close-out documenting acceptance against the criteria, the operating model handed over, and a clear reflection on what worked and what did not. The reflection is yours, and it is how the framework keeps improving.
Billed at cost.
The weekly fee covers senior practitioner time, all firm overhead, all routine engagement materials, and the working operating model we deliver. The following are billed at cost as pass-through expenses, with prior approval, itemized on each invoice.
- Travel and lodging when on-site presence is required, booked at reasonable business-class standard, no markup
- Third-party tooling licensed specifically for the engagement, where the buyer requires named platforms
- Specialist subcontractors retained for narrowly defined scope outside our practice areas, with prior written approval and clear deliverable accountability
No technology fees. No research surcharge. No partner-time billing splits. The weekly fee is the weekly fee.
The weekly fee bands above are real ranges that hold against the work we do and the market we operate in. Specific pricing for a specific engagement always comes after discovery, because a real number requires a real understanding of the scope, the timeline, the named practitioners, and the accountability we are taking on. Anything published here is a starting point for a conversation, never a substitute for the SOW itself, where the commitments live.
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