Founders comparing a fractional CMO to a full-time marketing hire almost always compare the wrong numbers: monthly retainer versus base salary. The number that actually moves the decision is the one that never shows up on an invoice: equity.
The grant founders underweight
A seed-stage marketing hire typically comes with an equity grant somewhere between 0.1 and 1.5 percent. That range sounds small next to a founder's own stake, which is exactly why it gets underpriced in the decision.
A worked example
If your company might realistically be worth $50 million in five years, giving up 1 percent equity today is a $500,000 decision, paid in full regardless of how the hire performs after year one. Compare that to a fractional CMO retainer at $10,000 a month for six months, a fixed $60,000 cost with a clean exit if the engagement doesn't work out. The full-time hire can easily be the more expensive option even though the invoice looks smaller.
Vesting and departure risk
A standard four-year vesting schedule with a one-year cliff means a marketing hire who leaves at month eleven walks away with nothing, but one who leaves at month thirteen keeps a meaningful chunk of that grant for work you may no longer be able to point to. Model both outcomes before you sign the offer letter, not after someone gives notice.
When the equity cost is worth it anyway
Equity dilution is worth it when the hire is building something that compounds without you: a repeatable channel, a content engine, a demand-gen motion that keeps producing after the person who built it moves on. It is a worse trade when you're really just buying 40 hours a week of execution against a plan a fractional CMO could specify in a fraction of the time and none of the dilution.
A simple checklist before you price this in dilution terms
Model your company's plausible exit value, multiply by the proposed equity percentage, and put that dollar figure next to the retainer alternative before you compare base salaries at all. Most founders are shocked by how the ranking flips once the equity line is priced honestly instead of treated as a rounding error.