If you’ve ever Googled ‘do I need an OBM,’ ‘what’s a fractional COO,’ or ‘should I hire a Director of Operations‘ you’ve probably noticed that every answer you get is written by someone selling one of those things. The OBM’s website says you need an OBM. The Director of Operations’ website says you need a Director of Ops. The fractional COO’s website says you need a fractional COO. Everybody’s right about their own service. Nobody’s helping you figure out what actually fits.

I can talk about this differently because I’ve been on multiple sides of it. I was the full-time COO at Forte Labs, building systems for a fully distributed team through two major book launches. I now run a fractional operations company where I work with multiple founders simultaneously. I’ve also seen dozens of clients come to me after spending $6,000 to $10,000 a month on an OBM and wondering why their operations still feel messy. And I train virtual assistants through a certification program specifically designed to close the gap between task execution and strategic operations partner.

So here’s what I’ve learned about these roles, not from a branding perspective, but from actually doing the work.

What each role actually does

Let me cut through the marketing language and describe what happens in practice.

An operations manager is an employee. They run your day-to-day operations within systems that already exist. They manage workflows, coordinate your team, handle project execution, and keep things moving. They work inside the machine. They don’t typically design the machine or decide what the machine should look like.

A good operations manager is incredibly valuable, but only once you have operational infrastructure for them to manage. Without that infrastructure, you’re paying someone to improvise, and that gets expensive fast.

A fractional COO is a strategic partner, usually a contractor or consultant, who works with multiple companies simultaneously. They diagnose what’s broken in your operations, design the systems and infrastructure your business needs, build or oversee the build, and provide ongoing strategic guidance. They work on the machine, not just in it. They bring experience across multiple businesses, which means they’ve seen your specific problems before and know what works.

The “fractional” part means you get executive-level operational thinking without paying a $150K to $250K full-time salary. Most fractional COOs work on retainer, anywhere from $4,000 to $15,000 per month depending on scope.

An OBM, Online Business Manager, is where things get complicated.

The OBM problem

I want to be direct about this because I think the lack of clarity is costing people money.

The OBM title was created by the online business world. It’s not a role that exists in traditional business, and there’s no standard definition, no required credential, no agreed-upon scope of work. What an “OBM” actually does varies wildly depending on who you hire. Some OBMs function like project managers. Some function like virtual assistants with a fancier title. Some genuinely operate at a strategic level and earn every dollar. There’s no way to tell from the title alone.

You’ll also see ‘Director of Operations’ or ‘DOO’ used interchangeably with OBM in the online space. In a traditional company, a Director of Operations is a senior leadership role with a specific scope. In the online business world, it’s often just another title for the same loosely defined role, same ambiguity, different branding. For the rest of this post, when I say OBM, I’m including DOO and any other variation of ‘online operations person with an executive-sounding title.

Here’s what I see in practice: OBMs are typically priced between $5,000 and $10,000 per month (these figures reflect U.S. market rates, your region may vary). That’s $60,000 to $120,000 per year. For context, that’s the salary range of a mid-level operations director at a traditional company, someone with years of management experience and a track record of building teams and systems from the ground up.

Some OBMs absolutely deliver at that level. But many don’t, and the problem is that there’s no reliable way to evaluate the difference before you’ve already spent the money. The OBM certification programs that do exist are typically short, focused on online business tools and project management, and don’t teach the kind of diagnostic thinking or systems architecture that operations leadership actually requires.

I’m not saying every OBM is overpriced. I’m saying the title itself tells you almost nothing about what you’re getting, and at $60K to $120K per year, that ambiguity is an expensive gamble.

What most founders actually need (and it’s probably not what you think)

Here’s the pattern I see after 20 years of doing this work.

Most founders between about $300K and $3M in revenue don’t need a full-time operations leader of any kind. They need two things:

First, they need operational infrastructure. A real system for how work flows through their business — not just a project management tool, but documented processes, clear ownership, decision-making frameworks, and a centralized place where the state of the business is visible without asking the founder. This is architecture work. It’s what a fractional COO or a skilled systems consultant does. It’s a design project, not an ongoing role.

Second, they need a trained operator to run that infrastructure. Someone 15 to 20 hours a week who manages projects, coordinates the team, keeps content publishing on schedule, runs the CRM, and handles the operational rhythm of the business. This person doesn’t need to be a $10K/month OBM. They need to be well-trained, they need good systems to work within, and they need clear decision authority so they’re not pinging you with every question.

Put those two pieces together and you’ve got an operational backbone that costs a fraction of what most people spend on an OBM, and actually works better, because the system doesn’t depend on one expensive person holding everything in their head.

This is actually why I built the SCVA certification. I kept seeing the same gap: founders didn’t need a $10K/month OBM, but they needed more than a VA who waits for a task list. They needed someone trained in diagnostic thinking, proactive communication, and running operations systems. That middle ground is where most small businesses live, and almost nobody was serving it.

A real comparison: what you get at each level

I’ll make this concrete.

A $25–35/hour virtual assistant will execute tasks you assign. They’ll manage your inbox, schedule posts, update spreadsheets, handle customer service. They work from your instructions. When the instructions aren’t clear or the situation isn’t covered, they come back to you. That’s appropriate — it’s what the role is designed for.

A trained operator (like an SCVA) at $40–60/hour does everything above but also sees problems before they become emergencies, manages project timelines proactively, runs your systems without being told, communicates status before you have to ask, and can handle judgment calls within defined authority. They work 15 to 20 hours across one to three clients because they’re efficient enough to manage multiple operations simultaneously.

An OBM at $5,000–10,000/month should be doing everything above plus strategic planning, team management, and acting as your operational right hand. Some do. Many end up functioning as a project manager with an executive price tag. The problem isn’t the person, it’s that the role is undefined, so expectations rarely match reality.

A fractional COO at $4,000–15,000/month diagnoses your operations, designs your systems, builds your infrastructure, trains your team, and provides ongoing strategic guidance. They work across multiple businesses, which gives them pattern recognition that a single-company hire can’t match. They’re not running your day-to-day — they’re building the systems so your day-to-day runs without you.

How to figure out which one you actually need

Skip the titles for a minute. Answer these questions honestly:

Do you have operational systems in place? If no — if your business runs on whatever’s in your head, Slack messages, and your memory — you need someone to build that infrastructure first. That’s fractional COO work or a systems intensive. Hiring an OBM or operations manager to run systems that don’t exist yet is a waste of money.

Do you have someone to run the day-to-day? If you have systems but nobody manning them, you need an operator. A well-trained VA or SCVA at 15 to 20 hours a week will cost you a fraction of an OBM and do the job well — if your systems are solid. If your systems aren’t solid, see above.

Are you making strategic operational decisions alone? If you have systems and a team but you’re still the only one thinking about operational strategy — capacity planning, scaling, process improvement, team development — that’s where a fractional COO adds value. You need someone who’s done this before and can see what you can’t because you’re too close to it.

Are you above $3M and growing fast? Now you might actually need a full-time operations leader. Below that, fractional and part-time support almost always makes more sense financially.

The bottom line

The operations support industry has a naming problem. Titles are used for marketing, not clarity. And when you’re spending $60K to $120K a year based on a title, that lack of clarity costs real money.

Instead of shopping by title, shop by problem. Know what’s actually broken in your operations. Know whether you need someone to build infrastructure, run infrastructure, or provide strategic guidance. Then hire accordingly.

If you’re not sure which category you fall into, that’s a good place to start. An Operations Strategy Session is a 60-minute diagnostic conversation with me where we figure out exactly where your operations are breaking down and what the right next step is, whether that’s working with me, training your existing team, or something else entirely.

Stop hiring by title. Start hiring by problem.