Professional Services
Service businesses deserve service-native finance.
We're a service business ourselves. From utilization rates to project margins and capacity planning, we've worked with hundreds of firms where these factors determine whether growth compounds or just creates chaos.
Business services & media firms we’ve partnered with
Why founders in business services build with Propeller
Managing cash flow means staying ahead of the gap between billing clients and getting paid. Growing your team increases what you can deliver, but pricing determines profitability. Finance teams without service experience don't always connect these dots.
Our teams have scaled firms across marketing, insurance, travel, and non-profits. We take care of budgeting, cash flow, and multi-entity accounting while you focus on clients and business development.
How our embedded teams support business services & media firms.
Budgeting, cash management, and strategic guidance built for services-based business models.
Cash management
Move beyond basic bookkeeping
We build budgeting and forecasting infrastructure that gives you clear direction on growth and resource planning.
Cash management
Improve cash flow
Stabilize cash flow and extend runway with forecasting that anticipates your needs before gaps appear.
Strategy
Navigate complex transactions
Pursuing M&A? Managing multiple entities across borders? We guide you through complexities and help you structure smarter financial goals.
Strategy
Connect with industry experts
Lean on the Propeller team and our network to access industry-relevant expertise, knowledge, and practical guidance.
Strategy
Grow and scale with confidence
Get direction and support when growing your team, evolving services, or adjusting pricing strategy. Make moves with clarity instead of uncertainty.
Strategy
Prepare for what's ahead
We bring insights from hundreds of service businesses. You'll know what to expect and how to prepare for challenges or opportunities before they arrive.
Built for business services & media firms.
Eighteen years of financial infrastructure for the brands that built this industry.
134
Clients served
$3B
Capital raised
37
Client exits
$11B
Enterprise value created
"I'd never sold a company before. I didn't know where to start. I've seen colleagues and competitors go through acquisitions who did not have a great experience. Fortunately, with Propeller, I felt supported strategically, tactically, and emotionally."
Lynn Graham
Founder, Beekeeper Marketing
Beekeeper Marketing • Successful exit
This Service Business was Ready for Fractional CFO Strategy and Guidance
Ready to build something remarkable?
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1,500+
Clients served
18+
Years of experience
26
Unicorns partnered with
$100B+
Enterprise value created
$29B
Raised by clients
230+
Exits
1,500+
Clients served
18+
Years of experience
26
Unicorns partnered with
$100B+
Enterprise value created
$29B
Raised by clients
230+
Exits
FAQs
Questions your board will ask.
A fractional CFO is one person, part-time, with no team behind them. Propeller's embedded teams put a full finance function — CFO, FP&A, controllership, and accounting support — inside your company, working in your weekly rhythms and board prep from day one.
Fractional relationships reset when the person's calendar fills up or they move on; embedded teams are built to scale with you from seed to exit. The distinction isn't semantic, it's structural: you're not renting hours, you're building institutional memory that compounds.
AI can accelerate bookkeeping, but it can't yet run it unsupervised: when it comes to finance, 95% accuracy still isn’t good enough. Propeller's teams use finance-grade AI to handle data aggregation and pattern recognition, but every output is validated by people who know your business well enough to catch what the algorithm misses. The result is bookkeeping that's faster because of AI and accurate because of human judgment, not one or the other.
Context is what lets a finance team anticipate a problem instead of just reporting it after the fact. A CFO who's been in the room for your last three board meetings will catch a cash flow issue before it becomes a crisis; a new hire reading last quarter's reports won't. Propeller's embedded model is built around this: the longer we work inside a company, the more we understand its business logic, its decision patterns, and its blind spots — which is why context, not headcount, is the real asset.
The moment you ask this question you likely need more than a single hire can provide. Propeller provides an embeded CFO, FP&A, controllership, and accounting support working together, typically running 20-35% less expensive than a full-time CFO hire alone. Instead of choosing between "not yet" and "one very expensive person," you get the full function at the stage where you actually need it, and years before a solo hire would make financial sense.
Propeller works with venture- and growth-stage companies from seed through exit, typically in the $5M–$300M+ revenue range, with teams that flex up or down as you scale. Engagements run month-to-month rather than requiring a fixed minimum term, so the team you start with at Series A isn't the team you're stuck with at Series C.
