A fractional CTO is a department, not a hire.
CTO-level leadership without the full-time cost — and behind it, the people who do the work. Strategy from Jacob, delivery from a real bench.
- 20 years in publishing
- 17 inside business journals
- 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.
One partner, on your team, with a bench behind them.
CTO-level leadership without the full-time cost — and behind it, developers, frontend, operations, and content. Strategy from Jacob, delivery from a real team. A team doesn't vanish, go on vacation, or quit.
For less than one full-time hire, you get the whole department.
Everything on this site, together.
Strategy
CTO-level leadership
The roadmap, the build-or-buy calls, and the honest read on what not to do yet.
Book a callThe team
Developers, frontend, operations
A real bench that does the work — not a single contractor you have to manage.
Meet the teamHosting
Infrastructure included
Our own hardware, maintenance, and support — folded into the engagement.
See hostingAI
AI enablement
We work down your own findings, in order, and tell you where AI does not belong.
See the analysisTools
Custom tools
Products built inside engagements when buying one would have been worse.
See the toolsI've sat in your chair — twenty years in web development, seventeen inside business journals.
I know what a Tuesday looks like when the paper has to ship and the CMS picks that morning to break. That's why CopperPress works the way it does: I'm not handing you a ticket queue, I'm on your team, and behind me is a bench that does the work. You're gaining a department, not a contractor.
A team does not vanish, go on vacation, or quit.
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.
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.
"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."
20 yrs
inside publishing
17 yrs
inside business journals
4 depts.
on the bench: dev, frontend, ops, content
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
- For less than one full-time hire: CTO-level leadership, developers, frontend, operations.
- Plus the hosting, the AI enablement, and the tools — everything else on this site, together.
Every engagement is shaped to the publisher. "From" is the floor, not the menu.
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 $250/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