I publish the number because hiding it wastes both of our time. If $5,000 a month is not in the budget, we should find that out in the first minute, not after a deck.

What are the two retainers?

What is included in the retainer?

The executive finance seat. Not a bookkeeper with a better title.

• Cash. A 13-week view you can run the company on. Not a trailing P&L.
• Forecast. A model tied to how you actually make money — jobs, contracts, or recurring revenue — not a spreadsheet theater piece.
• The pricing of decisions. Hire or not. Bid or walk. Make or buy. Draw or wait.
• Operating review. A monthly (20-hour: more often) session with numbers that match the general ledger.
• Packs. Owner, lender, surety, or board — when you need them, inside the hours.
• Systems judgment. What to fix in QuickBooks, NetSuite, or Costpoint. I do not become your IT department.

I come from E-1 to squadron commander, a $720M nuclear-wing budget and 140 people at Malmstrom, and a PE seat (Entech — two acquisitions, $9M; ARCOS — $158K procurement). That is the operator in the hours. It is not a product name.

What is not included?

This is the part most fractional shops bury. I will not.

• Bookkeeping. Stays with your CPA. AP, AR, payroll, bank recs, the monthly close production. I will tell you if the close is late or dirty. I will not take it over and then charge you to fix my own close.
• Tax prep and tax opinions. Your CPA. I will sit in the planning conversation.
• Audit opinions. I prepare the file. I do not sign it.
• Legal. Entity, 8(a) eligibility, contracts. I read them. I do not practice law.
• Software licenses. You buy QuickBooks, Costpoint, NetSuite. I tell you whether the chart of accounts will survive an SF 1408 or a surety.
• A full-time body in your office. I am in Cape Coral. I work US Central and Eastern. I am on the phone and in the file. I am not your controller sitting in the trailer.

How do the retainers compare to a full-time CFO?

Founders quote a salary. The number that hits the P&L is salary plus bonus plus benefits plus recruiting plus ramp. I am using published bands, not a number I made up in a pitch deck.

	GDFS 10-hour	GDFS 20-hour	Typical full-time CFO, all-in
Hours / month	10	20	~160–180 on payroll; far fewer on strategy
Monthly cost	$5,000	$7,500	Salary is not the all-in number
Annual cost	$60,000	$90,000	$210,000–$565,000+ at $5–25M revenue
Benefits, equity, recruiting	None	None	Inside the all-in band. Equity on top.
Bookkeeping	Stays with your CPA	Stays with your CPA	You still hire a controller or keep the CPA

Full-time column: Eightx, “Fractional CFO vs Full-Time CFO: 2026 Cost Guide.” US private-company all-in (base, bonus, benefits, recruiting amortized, onboarding) at $5M / $10M / $25M. Eightx writes for ecommerce. I do not. I cite the table because it is a published all-in band at this revenue scale, not because I cloned their model. Equity and severance are listed separately there.

Construction-specific: CFMA’s 2025 Executive Compensation Survey for Contractors puts CFO (Vice President) base in a typical overall range of $180,000–$270,000, average salary $228,101, average bonus $128,700 (CFMA, 2025 Construction Compensation Trends). That is cash compensation before benefits. It is not a fully-loaded all-in, and I will not pretend it is.

Revenue-by-revenue math, and when full-time actually wins: fractional CFO vs full-time.

What about project work — M&A, zero-base, systems?

Quoted after a 30-minute call. I do not publish fake ranges for work I have not scoped.

Typical project shapes, not prices:

• M&A. Buy-side diligence or sell-side cleanup. I have done this in the PE seat at Entech — two acquisitions, $9M of growth in the first year. That is a résumé fact, not a war story I will invent for the page.
• Zero-base review. Every dollar justified. At Malmstrom I ran the wing’s first one: $2.4M identified, an $80M budget defended, a $12M increase secured.
• Systems. Chart of accounts, job cost, indirect pools, SF 1408 readiness. Implementation is a project. Living in the system afterward is the retainer.

If the project is the whole engagement, we skip the retainer until the file is clean enough to be worth a monthly seat.

Who is this for?

$3–25M founder-led or PE-backed tech, defense contractors, and construction. US Central and Eastern. I work from Cape Coral. I have also sat in the finance seat for early-stage companies raising on SAFEs and first priced rounds — two of those clients have closed.

I am not a marketplace. I am not a 22-year-old with a template model. If you need a full-time hire tomorrow, I will tell you. If you need your CPA to keep doing the books, I will tell you that too — because they should.

Questions I get

What does a fractional CFO engagement cost?

10 hours / $5,000 or 20 hours / $7,500 per month. Annualized, that is $60,000 or $90,000. Project work for M&A, zero-base reviews, and systems is quoted after a 30-minute call.

What is included in the retainer?

The executive finance seat: cash, forecast, the pricing of decisions, operating reviews, and lender or owner packs when you need them. Hours are real hours. Unused hours do not bank forever; we design the month so the work fits.

What is not included?

Bookkeeping stays with your CPA. I do not take over AP, AR, payroll, or tax prep. I do not issue audit opinions. Legal work, entity elections, and software licenses are outside the retainer. Project work is quoted separately.

How does this compare to a full-time CFO?

The retainers are $60,000 or $90,000 a year, fully loaded. A published all-in band for a full-time CFO at $5–25M is $210,000–$565,000+ (Eightx, 2026), before equity. Construction CFOs in CFMA’s 2025 survey average $228,101 base plus $128,700 bonus. Full-time still wins in some cases — see the comparison page.

Ready to price the seat against your year?

Book 30 min. We look at the books, the calendar, and whether 10 hours, 20 hours, or a project is the honest fit. No lock-in required to have the conversation.

Book 30 min or call (616) 881-6777

Gabriel Denny — E-1 to squadron commander, nuclear-wing CFO, PE-backed operator.

Gabriel Denny Financial Services, LLC · 1718 NW 14th Terrace, Cape Coral, FL 33993 · (616) 881-6777 · gabe@gabrieldenny.com