Most firms buy consulting the way they buy software: they pick the vendor with the best pitch deck. That approach wastes budget and rarely changes anything. We built this guide so you can compare advisory models on the criteria that matter before you sign a single engagement letter.
Scroll down to see how retained advisory, project-based consulting, fractional leadership, and diagnostic-only engagements stack up across cost, speed, depth, and long-term value.
"We spent fourteen months with a Big Four firm and came out with a slide deck we never opened again. Integrity showed us a comparison framework in the first meeting, and we chose a model that actually moved our margin."— Finance director, Dublin SaaS company (68 employees)
This table reflects pricing and delivery patterns we see across the Irish mid-market. Your numbers will vary, but the relative differences hold.
| Criterion | Retained advisory | Project-based | Fractional leadership | Diagnostic only |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Typical monthly cost | €3,500 – €8,000 | €12,000 – €45,000 (total) | €4,500 – €9,000 | €6,000 – €15,000 (one-off) |
| Engagement length | 6 – 18 months rolling | 8 – 16 weeks fixed | 3 – 12 months | 2 – 5 weeks |
| Depth of involvement | ✔ Deep | ◐ Medium | ✔ Deep | — Surface |
| Suits companies with | Ongoing strategic gaps | A defined transformation goal | Missing senior capability | Uncertainty about root cause |
| Implementation support | ✔ Yes | ✔ Yes | ✔ Yes | — Report only |
| Risk of scope creep | ◐ Moderate | ✔ Low (fixed scope) | ◐ Moderate | ✔ Low |
| Best for team size | 30 – 250 | Any | 15 – 120 | Any |
| Our recommendation | Companies scaling through a second growth phase | Firms with a board mandate and deadline | Organisations that need a COO or CFO brain without the full-time cost | Founders unsure where the bottleneck sits |
A Leinster-based freight company had been paying two separate agencies for overlapping work. Our retained engagement identified the duplication in week three. Over nine months we consolidated vendor contracts and rebuilt their procurement workflow. The net saving across the first year was €220,000.
Three Dublin hotels under one holding company were losing money on F&B. We ran a twelve-week project: renegotiated supplier terms, restructured shift rotas, and introduced weekly P&L reviews at unit level. F&B moved from a 4% loss to a 9% margin within one quarter.
A Galway medtech startup needed financial leadership for a Series A raise but could not justify a full-time CFO. Our fractional engagement covered investor modelling, cash-flow forecasting, and board reporting for seven months. They closed a €4.2m round.
Start with the question, not the answer. If your company can describe the problem in a single sentence, a project-based engagement will probably work. If the problem keeps shifting, you need retained advisory or fractional leadership.
Budget matters less than you think. A €6,000 diagnostic that identifies the real issue often saves €40,000 in misdirected project fees. We have turned away clients who wanted a six-month retainer when a two-week diagnostic would have solved their question.
Team readiness is the hidden variable. Consulting fails when the internal team cannot absorb recommendations. Before we scope any engagement, we run a short readiness conversation: who owns the outcome, what decisions can they make without escalation, and how quickly can they test a change? If those answers are unclear, we start with a readiness sprint instead.
Timeline pressure changes the model. Regulatory deadlines, investor milestones, or board reviews compress the decision. When time is short, project-based work with weekly deliverables beats a retainer that ramps slowly.
We focus on operational and financial consulting for Irish mid-market companies. We do not do brand strategy, IT implementation, or recruitment. Here is where we go deep.
Process mapping, bottleneck analysis, workflow redesign. We work on the factory floor, in the warehouse, and inside your ERP, not just in the boardroom.
Three-statement models, scenario planning, cash-flow stress tests. Built in Excel or Google Sheets so your team can maintain them after we leave.
Board pack design, committee structures, regulatory gap analysis. Particularly relevant for companies preparing for investment or acquisition due diligence.
Contract review, RFP design, supplier negotiation support. We have renegotiated over €3m in vendor contracts across 19 engagements since 2021.
Pricing strategy, market-entry planning, partnership evaluation. Focused on companies between €2m and €25m in revenue looking to scale without losing margin.
We talk through your situation and tell you honestly whether we can help. About one in four conversations ends with us recommending a different firm or approach. That is fine.
If there is a fit, we send a one-page scope: what we will do, what you will do, what it costs, and what success looks like. No sixty-page proposals.
We request access to the systems and people we need. Interviews are short: 25 minutes each. We read your existing reports before asking questions others have already answered.
Depending on the model, this is weekly advisory calls, on-site project sprints, or embedded fractional leadership. We send a written update every Friday, regardless of format.
Every engagement ends with a transfer document: what changed, what to watch, and what to do next. We do not create dependency. Our goal is to make ourselves unnecessary.
Reduced pick-to-ship time from 4.2 hours to 1.8 hours for a Dublin e-commerce fulfilment centre. The changes required zero capital expenditure; we reorganised bin locations and adjusted shift overlap by 45 minutes.
A professional services firm had been pricing by the hour for twelve years. We modelled value-based pricing across their six service lines, tested two options with existing clients, and rolled out the new structure in eight weeks. Average deal size rose 31%.
Tell us what you are working on. We will respond within one business day with an honest assessment of whether we can help and which engagement model might fit.
If you prefer to talk first, call us directly or send an email.
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