Compare
Five ways to run your back end. One decision.
You are at $50K to $1M+ a month. Delivery still runs through you, and the fix on the table is one of five: a head of client success, an online business manager, a fractional COO, more coaches, or a fulfillment partner. The costs below are sourced, every alternative is linked, and the pages are refreshed every 60 days.
Do you want delivery run, or advised?
Three of the five advise, install or add hours. One adds calls. One operates the client success team, owns the numbers weekly and builds the next offers, with part of its fee tied to what stays.
Side by side
What each option costs, and what it gets you.
Seven rows that matter more than the headline number. Scroll sideways on a phone.
| Side by side | Head of client success | Online business manager | Fractional COO | More coaches | Fulfillment partnerScale With Fulfillment |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Who does the work | One leader. The team is hired later, by them. | The manager, inside the hours you buy. | You and your team, to their design. | Each new coach, on calls. | Our team. Client success managers hired, trained and managed by us. |
| Runs it or advises | Runs it, once the team exists. | Runs the tasks you set each week. | Advises and installs, then hands over. | Runs calls. Nothing else changes. | Runs it. The SOPs and dashboards are yours. |
| Cost | $95,500 to $145,500 a year in the US, $167,500 at the top. About $1,100 a month offshore, before your time to manage. | $55 to $75 an hour. $1,100 to $1,500 for 20 hours a month, $2,000 to $2,800 for 40. | $2,500 audit, then $5,000 to $12,500 a month on 3 to 6 month minimums. | Varies. Rises with every client you add. | Base fee plus a share tied to what we retain and resell. Set per engagement after the free 45-minute audit. |
| Time to running | Months, not weeks. The hire builds the team first. | Varies. As fast as you can brief it. | Six months to hand-over, then you run it. | Varies. One hire at a time. | Running by day 30. Week 1 audit, weeks 2 to 4 build. |
| Owns the numbers weekly | Depends on the hire. | If you ask for it. | You, after the hand-over. | Nobody. Drop-off is unchanged, often worse. | Yes. One number per system, every week. |
| Builds the next offers | Usually not in scope. | Not typical. | Varies. The public scope is finance, hiring and delivery workflows. | No. | Yes. Renewals, upsells, downsells, continuity. |
| Paid on results | No. Salary, whether retention moves or not. | No. Hours. | No. Retainer. | No. Paid per coach. | Part of the fee is tied to retained and resold revenue. |
Salary figures are ZipRecruiter's Head of Customer Success title. Hourly and fractional figures are single public rate cards, an anchor rather than a survey. Sources are listed on each comparison page below.
Which one, when
If this is you, then this is the call.
The revenue bands are the two ways we work. The other two cards are what we tell coaching businesses in the audit when the problem is not in delivery.
Our model does not fit below $30K a month, and a fixed-fee installation is more sensible than a partner whose fee is tied to results.
We guide you and your team through the same five systems, with our playbooks and weekly calls. Same method, your hands.
Clients drift after the first calls, refunds creep up, you cannot state your client success rate. We build it and run it: the team, the data, the journey, the offers.
If the mess is in scheduling, tools and launches rather than in retention, tracking or resells, hours will cost less and fix more.
Cash flow, hiring across the company, vendor contracts, finance. That is company operations, and it is a design job before it is a running job.
And another coach? When the client success function already exists and the coaches you have are at capacity with healthy numbers. Hire coaches into a system, not instead of one.
The list
Who runs client success and fulfillment for coaching businesses, ranked on stated criteria.
Fulfillment partner versus
What each alternative costs, what it gets you, and when it is the right call.
A US head of client success costs $95,500 to $167,500 a year before benefits, then needs months to hire and train a team.
An online business manager (OBM) is a generalist you buy by the hour, typically $55 to $75 an hour in 20 to 40 hour monthly packages, and you direct the work.
A fractional COO for coaches typically charges $5,000 to $12,500 a month on a 3 to 6 month minimum, installs operating systems and hands them over for you to run.
Hiring more coaches raises capacity by copying the founder's manual effort, and the economics thin out as you go: one $33M fitness business went from 4 to 40 reps and watched CAC to LTV collapse to 2 to 1.
Public prices in this lane run from $2,000 to $12,500 a month on retainer, 30% revenue share for Skool community management, and 3 to 8% of managed revenue for SaaS-style client success outsourcing.
The free 45-minute audit names the three biggest leaks in your delivery. If they are operational, we say so and you should hire hours. If they are in retention, tracking or resells, that is the work we do.
