Best Fractional CMO Agencies for Franchises (2026)

We analyzed who we believe are the top fractional CMOs for franchise systems, for franchisors and for multi-unit franchisees. Below is each firm's franchise experience, what it offers and what it costs, with Fractional CMOZ first.

What we found

• Six of the ten are built for franchising. HelloCMO, Big Rush Marketing, Apollo CMO, Michelle Hummel, Just Franchise Marketing and Visions2Images sell their fractional CMO offer to franchise brands. Alex the CMO works across industries, with franchising as her niche. Fifty & Five and CMOx work across industries and have franchise pages. Fractional CMOZ works in four industries, and its franchise and multi-location work is in home services and healthcare.
• Five publish a price. Fractional CMOZ, Big Rush Marketing, Alex the CMO, Fifty & Five and CMOx. Starting prices run $3,000 to $8,000 a month. Big Rush and CMOx top out at $15,000.
• Franchise development is a separate job. Selling new units and filling existing units are two funnels. HelloCMO and Michelle Hummel list franchise development marketing. Fifty & Five says its seat does not cover it. Ask which one a firm will own.
• Some lead only. Others also do the work. Big Rush Marketing runs digital advertising, and Visions2Images is a full-service agency. HelloCMO, Apollo CMO and Michelle Hummel direct your team and vendors. Fifty & Five prices production separately. Fractional CMOZ builds and leads a team when you need one.
• The firms worth hiring run an operating system for your business. In a franchise, that means one weekly rhythm for corporate and every location: a scorecard by location, decisions on budget and offers, and fixes that get assigned and checked. A fractional CMO without one is not the right fit. Ask each firm to show you its system.

The top 10 at a glance

Firm	Best for	Franchise experience	Location	Pricing
Fractional CMOZ	Franchise and multi-location home service and healthcare companies	1 to 11 locations and into franchising; flooring franchises in multiple states; an 8-location dental group	Remote, US and abroad	From $5,000/mo, month to month
HelloCMO	Emerging and established franchisors	Franchise-only consultancy; founder is a Certified Franchise Executive	Tampa, FL	Not published
Big Rush Marketing	Brands with 10 to 100+ locations	Founders have 10+ years in franchise advertising	St. Louis, MO	$3,000 to $15,000/mo, three tiers
Alex the CMO	Brand fund planning and franchisee programs	More than half of 12+ years in franchise leadership	Pittsburgh, PA	$8,000/mo for 25% of her time
Apollo CMO	Franchisors with a marketing team and no senior leader	13 years in franchising, 8 at the executive table	Not stated	Not published
Fifty & Five	Brand and local decision rules, reporting by location	A 10-year social program across 300+ restaurant locations	Orlando, FL	From $4,000/mo, month to month
CMOx	A CMO matched from a network	Analyzed the marketing clauses in 1,244 FDDs	Not stated	$3,000 to $15,000/mo
Michelle Hummel	Brands with 10 to 80 units	Franchise development and local store marketing standards	Not stated	Not published
Just Franchise Marketing	Franchisors at 10 to 20 units	Franchise-only offer; no leader named	Not stated	Not published
Visions2Images	Franchisors and franchisees that want an agency	Franchise marketing agency	Not stated	Not published

The top 10 fractional CMOs for franchises

1. Fractional CMOZ

Fractional CMOZ installs the Marketing Impact OS: inspect, ideate, implement and iterate across seven dimensions (strategy, data, funnel friction and CRO, process, people, technology and communication). In a franchise system, it runs one weekly rhythm for corporate and every location. When you need a fractional marketing team, we build it from a deep network of specialists in ads, SEO, CRO, email, design and marketing ops, and we lead it. Services scale up or down month to month. We work in four industries only: law firms, home service companies, healthcare practices and DTC brands. Our franchise and multi-location work is in home services and healthcare.

We helped a home service company grow from 1 location to 11 and into franchising. We took multiple flooring companies to multi-location franchises across multiple states. We organized marketing for a dental group across 8 locations in Michigan, Ohio and Minnesota, with very different budgets per location. Founder Zachary Ellison is the #1 lifetime-ranked fractional CMO on Upwork, with more than $500M in marketing spend managed over 15+ years.

What we offer

• Marketing Impact Academy: from $1,000 a month, to run it yourself
• Fractional CMO Advisory: $300 an hour or from $2,500 a month
• Marketing Impact Roadmap: from $10,000, about four weeks
• Roadmap + Installation: from $35,000, 90 days
• Fractional CMO Retainer: from $5,000 a month; starts with the Roadmap, Advisory and Academy included
• Fractional Marketing Team: from $6,500 a month
• Fractional Marketing Manager: priced on scope
• Board Member: quoted

Everything ongoing is month to month, with no setup fees. Every engagement starts with a 15-minute call or the free assessment.

2. HelloCMO

HelloCMO is a franchise marketing consultancy in Tampa that sells a fractional CMO to growing franchise brands, emerging and established. Founder Liane Caruso has 20+ years in marketing and franchising and holds the Certified Franchise Executive (CFE) credential. She ran an agency focused on local marketing programs for franchise brands, and launched HelloCMO after it was acquired. Engagements start with an audit of the brand fund, vendors and team structure, and the CMO directs your agencies and staff rather than running campaigns.

What they offer

• A marketing audit and a documented strategy and roadmap
• Alignment of franchise development and marketing teams
• Brand development, from design to positioning
• Team development, including hiring and outsourcing
• Mastermind groups and a network of 200+ franchise experts

3. Big Rush Marketing

Big Rush Marketing is a St. Louis digital advertising agency founded in 2016 by Clayton Clark and Jonathon Becker, who met at an agency serving franchise locations across the US and Canada. Its fractional CMO offer is built for franchise brands with 10 to 100+ locations and for multi-unit operators. Per its site, it helped a medical spa grow from 1 location in 2019 to 250+ by mid-2025. Because the agency also runs digital ads, leadership and ad management can sit with one firm.

What they offer

• Advisor: up to 6 hours of leadership meetings a month, a one-time marketing performance audit and a 90-day action plan
• Partner: oversight of ad budgets and spend, leadership of internal and outside teams, and up to 10 hours of strategy meetings a month
• Executive: budget ownership, vendor selection, marketing playbooks and a seat in board and leadership meetings
• Full-funnel strategy, measurement frameworks and reporting to executives

4. Alex the CMO

Alex the CMO is the practice of Alexandra Russo in Pittsburgh. She has 12+ years in strategic communications, more than half of it in franchise leadership, building brands, marketing teams and system-wide programs. Her listed work includes $1M+ annual marketing budgets that include franchise brand funds. She works across industries, and franchising is her niche. Most partnerships run 6 to 18 months.

What they offer

• Annual plans and budgets for corporate and franchisee teams, brand funds included
• Grand opening plans and community marketing playbooks for franchise networks
• Management of internal teams and agency partners, including hiring and training
• Lifecycle email and SMS, referral and loyalty programs
• A system-wide CRM rollout on GoHighLevel

5. Apollo CMO

Apollo CMO is the fractional CMO practice of Katherine LeBlanc, who lists 20 years in marketing, 13 in franchising and 8 at the executive table. It serves growing franchise brands that have a marketing person or small team but no senior marketing leader in leadership meetings. Smoothie King is among the brands shown on its site. The model is leadership: she joins your executive team and directs your marketing staff.

What they offer

• A marketing executive on the franchisor's leadership team
• A customer view on leadership decisions that are often made operations-first
• Direction for your in-house marketing team, measured on outcomes instead of activity
• Free articles on marketing strategy and building a franchise brand

6. Fifty & Five

Fifty & Five is an Orlando agency founded in 2008 by Lucas Vandenberg, with 222+ brands served, per its site. It sells a fractional CMO seat to multi-location and franchise brands and holds no more than three seats at a time. Its franchise work includes a 10-year social program for Blaze Pizza across 300+ locations. The seat covers strategy and oversight. Content production and ad management are priced separately, and franchise development is outside its scope.

What they offer

• A decision-rights map: which messages are brand-locked, which are local, and who approves and pays for local promotions
• A quarterly review of the national versus local budget split
• A content framework every location works inside
• Oversight of every agency against one plan, with reporting by location
• A monthly written brief and a 60 to 90 minute strategy session

7. CMOx

CMOx trains fractional CMOs, places them with companies and runs its own engagements. Founder Casey Slaughter Stanton leads it. Its franchise page covers work with franchisors and franchisees, with a marketing plan for each stage of a new location, from 30 days before opening to mature units. CMOx says it analyzed the marketing clauses in 1,244 franchise disclosure documents and publishes franchise marketing benchmarks from them.

What they offer

• Fractional CMOs matched from its network
• Location launch plans: pre-launch, the first 60 days, the first year and mature locations
• Local SEO, paid search, social and email programs for franchise locations
• Benchmarks of royalty, ad fund and local marketing terms by industry

8. Michelle Hummel

Michelle Hummel is a digital marketing strategist who sells fractional CMO services to franchise brands with 10 to 80 units. She names four problems she works on in that range: inconsistent lead flow, local brand drift, weak FDD marketing and no attribution. Engagements typically run 6 to 12 months. Her site links her to Web Strategy Plus, a digital marketing agency.

What they offer

• Franchise development marketing
• Local store marketing standards
• Agency and vendor oversight
• Team leadership and growth planning
• A 90-day start: audit and alignment, then foundation and quick wins, then systems and scale

9. Just Franchise Marketing

Just Franchise Marketing sells fractional CMO services built for franchise systems. It says most franchisors benefit at 10 to 20 units, or when brand consistency and returns slip. The work starts with an audit of brand standards, ad fund performance and lead-to-close ratios, followed by a marketing operations manual for franchisees. Its site names no leader.

What they offer

• A 12-month marketing roadmap
• Brand standards across every location
• Management of your SEO, PPC and PR agencies
• Tools and data that show franchisees what the national ad fund produces
• KPI dashboards that track the return on marketing spend

10. Visions2Images

Visions2Images is a franchise marketing agency led by owner Susie Liberatore, who lists 12 years in marketing. It works with franchisors, franchisees and franchise consultants, and its fractional CMO page is written for franchisors. Its focus is campaigns built for each location and a consistent brand across the system. The agency can also run the branding, website, video and digital marketing work.

What they offer

• A franchisor CMO: marketing strategy, brand management and budget management
• Digital marketing, PR and advertising campaigns
• Market research and sales support
• KPI tracking and reporting
• Branding, website, video and software development as separate services

How we picked

Each firm had to show a fractional CMO offer for franchise or multi-location brands on its own website. We then weighed franchise experience we could check, a named leader, published pricing and who does the work. Several firms that appear on other franchise lists show no franchise offer on their own sites, so we left them out. Every fact comes from the firm's own website. We wrote this list and put ourselves first; our results, prices and Upwork rank are public.

How to choose a fractional CMO for a franchise system

A franchise has two kinds of buyers, more than one marketing budget and advertising rules written into a legal document. Check each firm against these six points.

Franchisor or franchisee

A franchisor's CMO runs the brand: the brand fund, brand standards, franchise development and the playbook every location uses. A multi-unit franchisee's CMO runs local demand inside the brand's rules: the local marketing budget, co-op spend, Google Business Profiles and booked jobs or patients by location. Most firms on this list work for franchisors. Visions2Images and CMOx also name franchisees. Ask which side a firm has worked for, and at how many units.

Brand fund and local marketing

Many franchise agreements set two marketing budgets. Franchisees pay a percentage of sales into a brand fund the franchisor controls, and they must spend a minimum on local marketing in their own territory. Some systems add regional co-ops. A franchise CMO plans all of it together, so national and local spend aim at the same customers and the same numbers.

Example: 40 units average $900,000 in yearly sales. A 2% brand fund raises $720,000 a year. A 1% local requirement is $9,000 per unit, or $360,000 across the system. That is $1.08M a year under one plan. Use the rates in your own FDD.

The ad fund rules in your FDD

Item 11 of the franchise disclosure document, required by the FTC Franchise Rule, discloses how advertising money works. It covers:

• who pays into the ad fund, how much, and whether company-owned units pay on the same basis
• who administers the fund, whether it is audited, and whether franchisees can see its financial statements
• the share spent last fiscal year on production, media placement, administrative expenses and other uses
• the share used mainly to sell new franchises
• what happens to money not spent in the year
• whether there is a franchisee advertising council, and whether local or regional co-ops are required
• whether the franchisor must spend any amount on advertising in the franchisee's territory

Each of these limits what a CMO can do with the money. A franchise CMO reads Item 11 and the franchise agreement before building a plan, reports fund spending in the same categories, and keeps franchise sales marketing apart from consumer advertising. Your franchise attorney decides what the fund can pay for, including the CMO's own fee.

Attribution by location

System-wide averages hide the locations that lose money. Each location needs its own Google Business Profile, its own tracking numbers by channel, campaign tags that carry the location, and a location ID on every lead in the CRM, point of sale or practice software. Then report cost per booked job or booked patient for each location.

Example: ten locations average $180 per booked job. By location, the range is $95 to $410. The two locations at the top spend more than four times what the best one spends per booked job, so their budget, offer or phone handling gets fixed first.

Territory budgets

An equal split across territories overfunds some locations and starves others. Set each location's budget from its capacity, its market and a target cost per booked job or patient. Fractional CMOZ organized marketing for a dental group across 8 locations in Michigan, Ohio and Minnesota, each with a very different budget.

Example: Location A has room for 60 new patients a month and books them at $150 each, so it needs $9,000. Location B has room for 20 at the same cost, so it needs $3,000. Split the same $12,000 evenly and A books 40 and leaves chairs empty, while B pays for 40 patients with room for 20.

Franchise development and unit demand

Franchise development sells new units to prospective franchisees. Unit demand sells the product to customers. The buyers, funnels and numbers differ: cost per qualified franchise lead and signed agreement on one side, cost per booked job or patient on the other. Keep the budgets separate, because Item 11 reports the share of the ad fund used to sell franchises. Ask each firm which side it will own.

What a fractional CMO costs for a franchise

Five of the ten firms publish a price. Starting prices run $3,000 to $8,000 a month, and the highest published tier is $15,000.

Firm	Published price	Terms
Big Rush Marketing	$3,000 to $15,000/mo	Three tiers; up to 6 or 10 hours of meetings a month on the lower two
CMOx	$3,000 to $15,000/mo	Set by hours and scope
Fifty & Five	From $4,000/mo	Month to month, 30 days' notice
Fractional CMOZ	From $5,000/mo	Month to month, no setup fees
Alex the CMO	$8,000/mo	25% of her time; most partnerships run 6 to 18 months

Three things move the price for a franchise: the number of locations, whether the CMO also owns franchise development, and how much time goes to franchisees, from playbooks and webinars to one-on-one calls. Alex the CMO sets her rate partly on how much franchisee contact the work needs.

A full-time marketing manager's median pay was $166,790 in May 2025, per the Bureau of Labor Statistics. That is about $13,900 a month before benefits, payroll taxes and recruiting. A $5,000 retainer is $60,000 a year. The fractional CMO cost calculator runs the comparison with your own numbers.

Who pays

A franchisor can pay the CMO from corporate overhead, the brand fund or both. If the brand fund pays any part, that spending falls inside the Item 11 breakdown franchisees can see. Agree on the split with your franchise attorney before you sign. A multi-unit franchisee pays from its own budget.

Fractional CMO vs franchise marketing agency vs in-house

Franchise marketing agency. Runs channels for corporate, the locations or both: ads, local SEO, social and websites. Reports on its own work. Big Rush Marketing and Visions2Images are agencies that also sell a CMO.

Fractional CMO. Sets one plan across corporate and every location, plans the brand fund, directs every agency and reports results by location. Part time, $3,000 to $15,000 a month on this list.

In-house marketing leader. Full time, on your payroll, at a median of $166,790 a year for a marketing manager. Runs the work every day, and still needs a plan and someone senior to check it.

Firms on this list start at about 10 units: Big Rush Marketing serves brands with 10 to 100+ locations, Michelle Hummel works with 10 to 80 units, and Just Franchise Marketing points to 10 to 20. Other signs: you pay two or more marketing vendors and nobody directs them, franchisees ask what the brand fund produces, or new territories open faster than marketing can support them.

Questions to ask and red flags

Ten questions to ask

1. Which franchise systems have you led marketing for, at how many units, and for the franchisor or the franchisee?
2. Who will run my account, by name, and how many hours a month do I get?
3. Will you read our FDD and franchise agreement before you plan? How will you report brand fund spending to franchisees?
4. Will you own franchise development, unit demand or both?
5. Do you do the work, or direct my agencies and staff?
6. How will you track leads and revenue by location, and from which system?
7. How will you set budgets by territory?
8. What will franchisees get from you: playbooks, templates, training or calls?
9. What is the starting price, the first term and the notice period?
10. Who owns the ad accounts, tracking numbers, business profiles and websites? The answer should be the brand or the franchisee.

Five red flags

1. Reports show system-wide averages, never results by location.
2. A plan arrives before anyone has read your FDD or franchise agreement.
3. Brand fund money and franchise sales marketing sit in one budget.
4. Ad accounts, business profiles or tracking numbers are in the firm's name.
5. A contract you can't leave after the first term.

When a fractional CMO is too early

A fractional CMO is too early when you have a handful of units, no brand fund or vendors to direct, and nobody on the team to carry out a plan. Start with the Marketing Impact Academy from $1,000 a month: every template, monthly training and answers within 48 hours. Bring in a CMO once there is spend to manage.

The free assessment scores your marketing on seven dimensions in a few minutes.