A full-time CIO costs $200K+ a year. Most mid-sized businesses don't need full-time CIO output — they need 4-12 hours a month of executive-level technology thinking: IT roadmap, vendor scorecards, budget planning, risk policy, board-level reporting. That's what our vCIO service delivers.
The vCIO is the person who answers the question "what should we do about technology to win in our market over the next 3 years?" — and then makes sure the answer actually gets executed.
12-24 month plan covering infrastructure refresh, software lifecycle, security investments, compliance milestones, and strategic projects. Aligned to your business plan, not to vendor sales cycles. Updated every quarter.
Annual vendor scorecards. Contract review and negotiation. Renewal planning. Consolidation opportunities. Reference checks before any major vendor commitment. We sit on your side of the table, not the vendor's.
Annual IT budget built bottom-up against your business plan. Capital vs. operating expense framing. License optimization (most clients save 15-30% on their first license audit). Refresh budgeting for hardware lifecycle. Variance reporting against actuals.
Cybersecurity posture assessment. Compliance status (HIPAA, PCI, CMMC, SOC 2, FTC Safeguards). Vendor risk reviews. Business continuity and disaster recovery planning. Incident response playbooks. The risk-policy work that protects you from the headline you don't want.
90-minute structured meeting with leadership every quarter. Written deliverable: where you are, where you should be, what we did last quarter, what we're doing next quarter, what decisions need leadership input. Action items tracked between meetings.
Reports in the format your leadership actually consumes — not engineer-speak. Risk dashboards, compliance status, budget variance, project status, vendor scorecards. Ready for board meetings, investor due diligence, M&A discovery.
vCIO isn't "we'll fix your printer" — that's managed IT. It isn't "we'll respond to your tickets" — that's helpdesk. It isn't "we'll sell you a server" — that's hardware procurement.
It's the work above and to the side of all of those: making sure the right decisions get made, the right vendors get hired, and the right risks get managed — before you need a tactical response.
Virtual Chief Information Officer. Executive-level IT leadership without the executive-level salary. We bring strategic technology thinking to your business — IT roadmaps, vendor management, budget planning, risk assessment, technology strategy — typically 4-12 hours/month depending on company size. The work that a $200K full-time CIO would do, scaled to what you actually need.
Companies in the 25-300 employee range typically benefit most. Too small for a full-time CIO, too big to make IT decisions ad-hoc. Industries with regulatory pressure (healthcare, finance, defense) and growth-stage companies preparing for M&A or capital raises see the highest ROI from vCIO engagement.
Documented technology assessment of where you are vs. where you should be, with a prioritized roadmap for the next quarter. Topics: security posture, infrastructure health, software lifecycle, license optimization, vendor scorecard, budget vs. actual, compliance status, and strategic recommendations. Format: 90-minute meeting with leadership, written deliverable, action items tracked through the next quarter.
No — augment. Most clients with an internal IT manager keep them. The vCIO handles strategic + executive layer: budgeting, vendor selection, risk policy, board-level reporting. The IT manager handles operational execution. The two roles complement, they don't compete.
Engagement-based. Typical pricing: $1,500-$4,500/month depending on scope, company size, and meeting cadence. Often paired with managed IT services where the vCIO time is included as part of a larger package. We size it to what you actually need — no padding.
Most MSPs sell "strategic consulting" as a marketing line and deliver a quarterly sales pitch. Real vCIO work means written deliverables, documented decisions, and accountability to outcomes. You should be able to point to specific decisions the vCIO drove and measure the ROI of each. If you can't, you don't have a vCIO — you have a friendly salesperson with a fancy title.