A fractional CTO is a department, not a hire.
Jacob owns the decisions. A standing bench of developers, frontend, and operations does the building. One number to call, one invoice, no hiring.
- 20 years in publishing
- One partner, one invoice
- Four departments on the bench
- Your tech stack is held together with tape, and the only person who understood it left.
- You inherited a developer, and everything they touched went with them.
- You're refereeing technology decisions nobody on your staff is equipped to make.
You do not need another tool. You need someone whose job is this.
What that looks like on a normal week.
You bring the problem once. Jacob takes the build-or-buy call, writes it up in plain English, and hands it to whoever on the bench should own it — developer, frontend, operations, or content. You approve the direction and get the result. Nobody asks you to open a ticket, chase a contractor, or learn what a staging environment is.
Four disciplines on call, one point of contact, one invoice.
Five pieces. Take all five, or take one.
The full engagement bundles all of them. Each also stands on its own — which is how most smaller publishers start, and how anyone who inherited a site from a previous shop usually gets us in the door. Buy the piece that hurts, add the rest when it earns its keep.
Strategy
CTO-level leadership
The roadmap, the build-or-buy calls, and the honest read on what not to do yet. Available on its own as an advisory retainer.
From $5,000/mo
Book a callThe team
Developers, frontend, operations
A standing bench rather than one contractor you have to manage. Available on its own for a defined project or a block of hours.
From $250/hr
Meet the teamHosting
Hosting and maintenance
Our own hardware, updates, backups, and a Slack channel with the people who run your server. The most common standalone starting point, and migration is on us.
From $300/mo · $300–$750 by publisher size
See hostingAI
AI enablement
We work down your own findings, in order, and tell you where AI does not belong. Starts with the free analysis whether or not you ever buy anything else.
Analysis free · work quoted from what it finds
See the analysisTools
Custom tools
Products built inside engagements when buying one would have been worse. Licensable on their own once they exist.
From $250 per tool
See the toolsThe ranges are there so you can sanity-check the order of magnitude. The real number depends on what you are running now — thirty minutes on a call and we will give you one.
I've sat in your chair — twenty years in web development, spent inside publishing.
I know what a Tuesday looks like when the paper has to ship and the CMS picks that morning to break. That is why CopperPress is built the way it is: I am on your side of the table, not behind a ticket queue, and there are people behind me so that being on your side of the table still means the work ships. Vacations, sick days, and resignations are our problem to cover, not yours.
One partner, on your team, with a bench behind them.
Sometimes the answer is fifteen lines of code.
A regional news publisher's paywall depended on a human copying payment data between systems by hand, every day. Failed payments never reconciled. Readers ended up with years of free access.
We took the human out of the middle. Checkout now flags the subscription automatically, and access re-validates against their circulation system in the background daily. Enormous time saved, the error rate collapsed, and the revenue leak closed.
And not a line of it needed AI.
- Automation isn't always AI. Knowing which tool the problem actually calls for is the expertise.
- We will tell you plainly when technology is not the answer.
- We're not reselling software, and we don't get paid if you buy any.
"Jacob Fogg and CopperPress have been a tremendous resource as BizWest explores practical applications of AI across our organization. Jacob doesn't just talk about what's possible — he helps build solutions that save real time."
Chris Wood is the publisher at BizWest Media. This is the piece of work he is talking about — the one that used to eat a week and a half of his team's year.
The annual chart rebuild — BizWest Media
BizWest Media
BizWest Media rebuilt its annual economic-profile charts by hand every year — 40 to 60 hours of importing, formatting, and reformatting the same data, every year, forever.
What we built
A brand-styled chart system driven by plain-English prompts. The rebuild now takes 4.5 hours — reproducible next year, and the year after that.
Publishers we work with
Compare it to what you're already spending on people.
$200K+
a year for a full-time CTO.
$8–10K
a month is what many publishers already pay a full-time developer for band-aids. When that one person underdelivers or leaves, everything they touched goes with them.
This isn't a new cost. It's reallocating money already leaving the building.
Full engagements from
$5,000/mo
- Less than the salary of one senior hire, and it covers the whole bench rather than one person.
- Hosting, AI enablement, and any tools we build are inside the number, not billed on top.
Every engagement is shaped to the publisher. "From" is the floor, not the menu.
The full engagement, or the piece that hurts.
Same people, same standards, same phone number. The only difference is how much of it you take at once — and nothing in the standalone column changes price when you move to the full engagement, because it is already inside the number.
Everything, one invoice
The full engagement
$5,000/mo
Shaped to the publisher. "From" is the floor, not the menu.
The whole department: the decisions, the bench that acts on them, and the infrastructure underneath. Nothing on this list gets billed on top.
- CTO-level strategy, roadmap, and build-or-buy calls
- The bench — development, frontend, operations, content
- Hosting and site maintenance included
- AI enablement, starting with the free analysis included
- Tools we build for you inside the engagement included
- One point of contact and one invoice
Buy the piece that hurts
Standalone packages
$300/mo
The entry point. Every other piece is priced on its own below.
How most smaller publishers start, and how anyone who inherited a site from a previous shop usually gets us in the door. Add the rest when it earns its keep.
- Hosting and maintenance from $300/mo
- The free AI analysis Free
- AI implementation, quoted from your findings on a call
- Strategy-only advisory retainer on a call
- The bench, per project or block of hours on a call
- A tool licence on its own on a call
The rows marked "on a call" are the ones we will not guess at in public — they depend on what you are running now. Thirty minutes and you get the real number for the one you care about.
Most publishers don't start at the top.
They start where they are and grow into the rest as it earns its keep.
- 01 The free analysis $0 Every publisher's first step.
- 02 Hosting from $300/mo Handled, affordably, by people who answer.
- 03 AI partnership starts with the same free analysis We work down your own findings, in order.
- 04 Full CTO engagement from $5,000/mo The whole department, once it's earned its keep.
It costs nothing, and it's where the right-sized answer comes from.
Let us look at what you are actually running.
Thirty minutes, no deck, no obligation. You will get a straight read either way.
Rather see the work first? The free AI analysis costs nothing — start there