One ladder, starting with an AI visibility audit.
Every engagement begins with the Machine Score, a scored AI visibility audit, because scoping a machine by conversation is guesswork. It doubles as an AEO audit: the same five layers decide whether answer engines can find, read, and cite you. After that you choose how big the machine gets. No hourly invoices, no scoping calls, cancel with 30 days notice.
Start with the Machine Score
The front door. Retainers are not sold cold.
- Your operation graded 0 to 5 across the five layers of a working machine
- A ranked roadmap: what to automate first, second, third, and what each is worth
- One working build from the catalog, installed on your data, yours to keep
- A recorded walkthrough you can hand to your team or your board
$1,000 books it. The balance is due only after your automation is demonstrably running. Fully credited toward your first retainer month if you start within 60 days, so it costs nothing if we continue.
Not sure it's worth $2,500 yet? Score yourself free first. It's the same five layers, self-reported.
Score Session
Ninety minutes on a recorded call. Two of the five layers scored live, with the top three fixes delivered before we hang up. Credits in full toward a Machine Score within 30 days. This is the smaller door, not the main one.
Machine Room
The installed fleet, kept alive and growing. This is where the machine runs and keeps getting bigger.
- Every delivered build maintained, monitored, and fixed when platforms shift
- One new catalog build every month
- The monthly numbers report: what moved, what did not, what is next
- An annual re-score against your original Machine Score
Machine Room Plus
Everything in Machine Room, running faster, with a senior operator steering it.
- Two builds every month
- A monthly strategy call
- Closed-loop revenue reporting as a standing artifact
- Quarterly re-score, and first claim on the build queue
Fractional Head of Growth
Everything in Machine Room Plus, plus I own the growth number. Weekly leadership presence, hiring and vendor input, board-ready reporting. Capped at two concurrent seats permanently, because this rung spends the one thing that does not scale, which is attention.
The full-time version of this role has a market price now.
The closest full-time equivalent to a retainer here is a forward deployed hire: someone technical who builds inside your accounts instead of shipping you a deliverable from the outside. That profile is now priced in two places, and both are worth knowing before you compare.
- On the engineering side, Recruiting from Scratch puts the 2026 median at $183,000 across 1.9 million job postings, with total compensation between $350,000 and $550,000 at mid to senior levels.
- On the marketing side, Second Talent lists a forward deployed marketer at $130,000 to $175,000 senior and $175,000 to $230,000 and up at the head level, which is the honest comparison for this rung.
Those are their figures, not mine, and I have not replicated either sampling. Against both bands, the Fractional Head of Growth rung is $120,000 a year with no equity, no recruiting cycle, no ramp, and no severance. It is also fewer hours than a full-time hire, and I would rather say so than pretend otherwise. What it buys is access to a profile that is scarce on the engineering side and barely exists as a hiring category on the growth side, which is why most companies rent it before they can hire it.
Terms that apply to every retainer
- 90-day minimum, then month to month with 30 days written notice. Systems need a quarter to prove themselves, and shorter engagements make both sides look bad.
- The Machine Score is the front door. If you want a retainer without a Score, you get a Score first, credited, so it costs you nothing extra. It keeps the engagement scoped by evidence instead of hope.
- Builds are catalog builds at catalog scope. Custom work beyond the catalog is scoped and priced separately in writing, and it is rare on purpose.
- You own everything. Builds live in your accounts, running costs sit on your cards, handoff docs stay current. If you leave, you keep a working machine.
- Unused builds do not bank. A month's build not used is gone, because capacity is real. The monthly report flags an unused build before the month ends so it never happens quietly.