Fractional CTO Services
Technology leadership without the full-time hire.
Fractional CTO services means everything a senior technology leader delivers: audits, architecture decisions, shipped systems, developer oversight, investor documentation. At £2k to £5k per month instead of £180k to £250k per year.
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What fractional CTO services include
Fractional CTO services refer to the full technology leadership function delivered on a part-time or ongoing fractional basis. At twohundred.ai every engagement covers the same core scope, calibrated by tier. The work below happens across all three tiers at different volumes.
Technology audit
Week one of every engagement. We map your full stack: what tools you are paying for, what each one does, where they overlap, what is missing, what is creating bottlenecks. Most audits find £800 to £2,500 per month in redundant SaaS before we have built anything. The audit output is a prioritised list of the three highest-impact systems to build next, ranked by revenue impact divided by build time.
System design and architecture
We make the build-versus-buy call, select the architecture, and own the technical specification. No options documents with twelve alternatives. One clear recommendation with the reasoning. Then we build it. Typical decisions: whether to build a custom WhatsApp integration or use a third-party connector, whether your booking flow needs a full rebuild or a three-day fix, whether your data infrastructure needs a warehouse or just a cleaned CRM.
AI system implementation
AI systems are the highest-leverage layer of the technology stack for most SMEs right now. We build WhatsApp qualifiers that handle cold inquiries in English, Arabic, or the language your customers use. We build Gmail-side AI responders that draft replies in under 60 seconds. We build CRM enrichment pipelines that take a cold contact and fill in the purchase signals before your sales team sees it. AI-referred customers convert at 14.2 percent versus Google's 2.8 percent.
Developer team oversight
If you already have developers, we sit above them as the technical lead. We review architecture before it goes to build, catch the decisions that create six months of debt in a single sprint, and ensure the developer is building the right thing in the right order. We also structure the team for the next growth stage, whether that is a first hire, a second developer, or an offshore extension.
Investor-ready technical documentation
Pre-raise clients need their technical story to hold up under diligence. We produce architecture documentation, security posture summaries, scalability analysis, and the technical sections of investor decks. We also sit in investor calls as the technical lead and answer the questions that trip up non-technical founders.
SaaS cost rationalisation
The average 12-person SME pays for 23 software subscriptions worth £3,000 to £5,000 per month. Half of them overlap. We evaluate the overlap, pick the winners, negotiate the exits where possible, and integrate the remaining tools into a single data layer. Most businesses find this covers the fractional CTO fee within the first quarter.
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Service tiers and pricing
- —Full technology audit in month one
- —One shipped system per quarter inside your existing stack
- —Monthly working session on technology direction
- —Telegram or Slack availability for urgent decisions
- —Two shipped systems per quarter
- —Weekly working sessions on technology and roadmap
- —Full ownership of the technology roadmap
- —Competitor technology monitoring
- —Investor documentation on request
- —Continuous shipping across all priority systems
- —Embedded as functional CTO in your team
- —All technology decisions, vendor calls, engineering reviews
- —Capped at three clients per quarter
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How fractional CTO differs from consulting
Technology consulting produces a report. Fractional CTO services produce running code. That is the entire distinction. A technology consultant audits your stack, writes up the findings, presents the recommendations, and their engagement ends. A fractional CTO owns the technology layer continuously, makes the decisions in real time, and is accountable for the shipped result.
The confusion comes because many people calling themselves fractional CTOs behave like consultants. They produce roadmaps and strategy documents and charge £5k for a PDF. At twohundred.ai the deliverable is always working code inside the tools you already run. Not a slide deck. Not a technical audit that sits in Drive. A system that is live on Monday morning.
The broader technology leadership picture is in the fractional CTO overview. If your primary need is AI systems specifically, the AI strategy consultant page covers that scope.
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Frequently asked questions
What services does a fractional CTO provide?
Fractional CTO services cover the full technology leadership layer of an SME. At twohundred.ai that means a technology audit in month one, build-versus-buy decisions, architecture selection and implementation, AI system builds inside your existing stack, SaaS cost rationalisation, developer team structure and hiring guidance, and investor-ready technical documentation on request. The core deliverable in every engagement is shipped code running inside the tools you already use, not a strategy document.
How is fractional CTO different from technology consulting?
Technology consulting typically produces a report and walks away. Fractional CTO services mean the consultant stays embedded, owns the technology decisions, and ships the outcomes themselves. At twohundred.ai the fractional CTO writes the code, integrates the systems, and is accountable for the deployed result. Consulting is advice. Fractional CTO is execution.
What's included in the Foundation tier at £2k per month?
Foundation includes: a full technology audit in month one covering your stack, costs, development bottlenecks, and highest-pain workflows; one working system shipped inside your existing CRM, WhatsApp, email, or booking infrastructure per quarter; a monthly working session on technology direction and decision-making; and standing availability on Telegram or Slack for urgent technology decisions throughout the month.
Can a fractional CTO manage our existing developer?
Yes. One of the most common uses of fractional CTO services is providing architectural oversight and delivery management for a business that already has one or two developers but no senior technical leadership. The fractional CTO sets the architecture, reviews the work, makes the build-versus-buy calls, and ensures the developer is building the right thing in the right way. Many clients move to this model when their first developer hire starts shipping features that do not fit together.
Do you work with businesses outside the UK?
We work globally and bill in GBP. Dubai is our home market and where most of our client case studies sit, giving us practical experience across hospitality, real estate, and clinic operators across the GCC. We have shipped work for clients in London, Manchester, Singapore, and the US in the last 12 months. Calls run over Zoom or Telegram. Time zones are manageable as long as there is two to three hours of overlap per day.
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Related reading
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