What does a fractional Head of AI actually cost?
Short answer
There is no reliable published rate card for this role, and most numbers you see online come from a recruiter or a platform with something to sell. The real cost depends on the day rate, how many days a month you buy, and how long the arrangement runs. Work out your own figure from those inputs rather than trusting a headline number you cannot check.
Search for "fractional Head of AI day rate" and you will find plenty of numbers, but almost none of them point to a source you can verify. Most come from a recruiter, a coaching course, or a platform, and none of them show their working. Treat any figure you see quoted with the same caution you would apply to a stranger telling you what your house is worth.
The price is built from a small number of parts. There is the day rate or retainer itself, the number of days worked each month, and the length of the commitment. Multiply those together and you get the monthly cost. Everything else, including seniority, sector, and scope, feeds into that first number rather than sitting outside it.
Seniority and scarcity push the day rate up. Someone who has shipped production machine learning systems and can also talk to a board will cost more than someone who has only run pilots. Scope matters too. A purely advisory remit, reviewing plans and vetting vendors, tends to cost less than a remit that includes hands-on delivery and line management.
Sector matters as well. Work in a regulated area such as financial services or health tends to carry a premium, because the specialist needs to understand compliance as well as models. A general strategy remit in an unregulated business usually sits at the lower end of whatever range applies in that specialist's own market.
If you want a number you can defend, build it yourself rather than searching for one. Look at permanent salaries advertised for a similar seniority of AI leadership role in your sector. Divide that by roughly two hundred and twenty working days a year to get a rough daily equivalent, then adjust upward, because a fractional specialist is not getting holiday pay, sick pay, pension, or job security in return.
Then ask two or three candidates directly what they charge for the scope you have in mind. You will get a spread rather than a single answer. That spread is more useful than any headline figure, because it reflects your actual market rather than someone else's.
Watch for costs that sit outside the day rate. Onboarding time, notice periods, tooling access, and any fee charged by a recruiter or platform all add to the real monthly cost. Ask what is included before you compare two proposals on rate alone.
The honest summary is that this market is opaque. Nobody publishes a survey with enough respondents to trust, and the figures that do circulate are mostly vendor-supplied. Build your own number from the parts above, and be wary of anyone who gives you a single confident figure with no working shown.
Related questions
Is a fractional Head of AI cheaper than hiring full time?
It depends entirely on how many days you actually use. A low day count over a short engagement is usually cheaper in total than a full-time salary plus employment costs. A high day count over a long engagement can end up costing more per month than a permanent hire.
Do platforms or agencies add a fee on top of the day rate?
Many do, usually as a one-off introduction fee charged to the hiring company. On platforms structured this way the specialist is not charged anything, but you should ask exactly how the fee works before agreeing terms.
How many days a week does a fractional Head of AI typically work?
There is no fixed convention. It ranges from a few hours a week to several days, depending entirely on what the company needs and what it can afford. Anyone stating a standard figure is guessing.