Part-time technical leadership

Fractional CTO for startups, 8 to 32 hours a month

A Lead-level technology leader with 9+ years of experience, for 8, 16 or 32 hours a month. They own architecture, hiring standards, security and investor due diligence.

Choose a CTO plan Book a scoping call

Monthly plans. Change plan at the start of any month.

Fig. 01Fractional CTO

  • 72hfree hold
  • 4working days to start
  • 48hshortlist
  • 9practices
In short

A Lead-level technology leader owns your architecture, hiring bar and investor due diligence, for the hours your stage needs.

Fractional CTO for startups is a Remote Pro Ai plan that gives you a Lead-level technology leader with 9+ years of experience for 8, 16 or 32 hours a month. The CTO owns architecture decisions, hiring standards, security posture and investor technical due diligence, and holds the first working session within 4 working days of sign-up.

3 fractional CTO plans: 8, 16 or 32 hours

Pick the plan by the decisions you face this quarter, not by job title. Hours are logged in Client OS against named topics, so you always see where the time went.

PlanBest forA typical monthResponse time
8 h · AdvisorNon-technical founders, pre-seed2 working sessions, architecture review, 1 vendor or hire reviewNext working day
16 h · OperatorSeed teams of 2–⁠6 engineersWeekly session, sprint and code-quality review, hiring loops, security backlogSame working day
32 h · Acting CTOPre-Series A, raising or scalingOwns roadmap and architecture, leads the team, runs due diligence, joins investor calls4 working hours

Who it is for

  • Non-technical founders who need someone to own technology decisions.
  • Seed teams whose engineers need a senior reviewer and a hiring bar.
  • Companies preparing for a round, an enterprise pilot or a security review.

Unused plan hours roll over for one month.

What your fractional CTO owns

Architecture
a decision log for stack, hosting, data and integration choices.
Delivery
sprint health, code-review standards and a definition of done.
Hiring
role scorecards, interview loops and final technical interviews.
Security
a prioritised backlog covering secrets, access, backups and incident response.
Vendors
review of agency quotes, SaaS contracts and cloud spend.
Compliance
data maps for PDPL or GDPR and customer security questionnaires.
Board and investors
technology updates and due-diligence answers.

How it starts

Day 1
choose a plan and describe your stage in the Scope Agent.
Days 1–⁠2
we match 2 CTO profiles to your sector and stack.
Day 3
30-minute intro calls; you pick your CTO.
Day 4
first session and a written 30-day plan.

Fractional CTO profiles matched to your sector

Every Remote Pro Ai fractional CTO is a Lead-level engineer with 9+ years of experience who has run teams in production. We match on sector, stack and stage. Named profiles, with CV and references, appear after the click-through NDA.

Fintech and payments
PCI scope, SAMA CSF exposure, ledger and wallet design.
AI products
LLM and RAG architecture, evaluation, cost control, EU AI Act readiness.
Marketplaces and mobile
2-sided platforms, Flutter or React Native, payments and logistics.
B2B SaaS
multi-tenant design, SSO, enterprise security reviews, SOC 2 readiness.
Health tech
HL7 and FHIR integrations, privacy by design, sensitive-data hosting.
Games
engine choice, live services, build security and publisher milestones.
GovTech and regulated data
Nafath or UAE Pass, NCA ECC-2:2024 and data residency.

Technical due diligence, prepared before investors ask

Seed and Series A investors increasingly run technical due diligence. Your fractional CTO prepares the evidence pack in advance, so diligence takes days, not weeks, and surprises do not move your valuation.

  • Architecture diagram and decision log, in plain language for non-engineers.
  • Security posture summary with open risks and remediation dates.
  • Technical-debt register with cost to fix and business impact.
  • Scalability plan: what breaks at 10× users and what it costs.
  • Cloud cost model per active user, with a 12-month forecast.
  • IP chain of title: contributor assignments and repository ownership.
  • Open-source licence scan and software bill of materials.
  • Engineering hiring plan tied to the roadmap and the round.

Fractional CTO for startups: pricing

Plans cost from USD 1,140 a month for 8 hours, USD 2,160 for 16 hours and USD 4,100 for 32 hours, quoted in your currency in the Scope Agent. The minimum term is 1 month, then the plan renews monthly with 30 days’ notice. Extra hours are billed at the plan rate only after you approve them. Verified startups receive −10% for the first 3 months.

  • What shapes your quotation

    • Plan size: 8, 16 or 32 hours a month.
    • Sector depth: regulated fintech, health or government work needs specialist CTOs.
    • Language: Arabic-speaking CTO for board or regulator meetings.
    • Onsite days in Riyadh, Al-Khobar or Dubai, if you need them.

  • Guarantee

    • Replace your CTO for any reason: a replacement starts within 4 working days; the full handover completes in under 14 days.
    • First working session within 4 working days of sign-up.
    • All documents and decision logs are your property on payment.

  • Results

    Our fractional CTOs come from the same Lead-level pool that runs regulated builds such as Case B-02, an Arabic GenAI assistant for a Saudi insurer that cut average handling time by 52%.

Frequently asked questions

Book a scoping call

20 minutes with a solutions architect. No sales script.

A fractional CTO is a senior technology leader who works for your company part-time, owning the decisions a full-time CTO would own. At Remote Pro Ai the role is held by a Lead-level engineer with 9+ years of experience, on a monthly plan of 8, 16 or 32 hours, with every hour logged against a named topic.

Most non-technical founders start with the 8-hour Advisor plan to review architecture, agency quotes and the first hires. Move to 16 hours when you have 2 or more engineers to lead, and to 32 hours when you are raising, preparing due diligence or scaling past 6 engineers. You can change plans at the start of any month.

Yes, within the plan hours, but that is rarely the best use of senior time. The CTO usually reviews code, sets standards and unblocks the team. If you need hands-on build capacity, combine the plan with a Dedicated Pod or a Launch Pod, and the CTO leads those engineers directly.

Yes. Many founders use the 32-hour plan as a bridge: the fractional CTO defines the role, runs the search loop and onboards the permanent hire. The decision log, diagrams and due-diligence pack transfer with the role, so your new CTO starts from documented context rather than tribal knowledge.

Yes. On the 16-hour and 32-hour plans, investor calls, board technology updates and due-diligence sessions are part of the role. The CTO represents your technology choices as your adviser and is bound by the same confidentiality terms as every Remote Pro Ai engineer, set out in your contract before the first session.

Every fractional CTO works under the mutual confidentiality terms in your Remote Pro Ai contract and an individual confidentiality undertaking. They work in your tools and accounts, not ours. Strategy documents, code reviews and investor materials are assigned to your company on payment, and access is removed on your instruction at the end of the plan.

Start today

4 working days

Your team can be working within 4 working days of signature.