There are 3 prices in this market and they buy genuinely different things: a template someone filled in, a model built for your business, and a model built to be interrogated. Only the third one survives a diligence call, and the gap between the second and the third is smaller than the gap between the first and the second.
The market range
A 3-statement financial model built by an advisory firm generally runs between $2,000 and $15,000. Freelance marketplaces go lower, occasionally under $1,000. Investment-bank-adjacent boutiques go higher.
Ours start at $1,250, delivered in 14 business days, with a partner reviewing it before it leaves.
| Price | What you get | Where it fails |
|---|---|---|
| Under $1,000 | A template with your numbers typed in | Drivers are not yours; nothing is traceable |
| $1,250 to $4,000 | Driver-based 3 statements, tied and checked, one scenario set | Rarely; this is enough for most raises |
| $4,000 to $9,000 | The above with multi-entity, multi-currency or complex revenue recognition | Rarely, if the scope was set honestly |
| $9,000 to $15,000+ | Transaction models, LBO structures, covenant testing, integration cases | Overkill for a seed raise |
What actually changes the price
- How revenue is earned. Transactional is the cheapest to model. Subscription with cohorts, usage-based billing, milestone recognition and percentage-of-completion each add real work.
- Entity and currency count. Consolidation logic is not a bolt-on.
- Whether historic actuals are reliable. A model is built on top of a starting balance sheet. If that balance sheet is contested, the model work stops until it is not.
- Who is going to read it. An internal planning model and a model that will be sent to an investor data room are the same arithmetic with different amounts of documentation, error checking and presentation.
A cheap model is not one with fewer tabs. It is one where nobody can tell you why a number is what it is.
What a cheap model leaves out
The savings almost always come from the same 4 places, and each one is exactly what gets tested first:
- Bottom-up revenue. Templates take a growth percentage. Investors ask what has to happen for that percentage to occur.
- Headcount linked to the plan. If revenue triples and headcount does not, nobody has thought about delivery.
- Error checks. A balance sheet that does not balance, a cash flow that does not tie to the bank line, a circularity resolved with a hardcoded plug.
- An assumption log. Every input dated and sourced. Without it, nobody, including you, can defend the file in 6 months.
What a model is worth relative to what it protects
The model is the cheapest document in a raise and the one every other document reads from. The deck quotes it. The valuation applies a multiple to it. The data room contains it. A weak model does not fail on its own; it fails everything downstream of it.
When we rebuild a model bottom-up, the runway date typically moves earlier by 2 to 3 months. Finding that before you set a fundraising timetable is worth considerably more than the fee.
What to ask before you commission one
- Who builds it, and does anyone senior review it before I see it?
- Will revenue be built from drivers I recognise from running the business?
- What error checks are in the file, and where are they visible?
- What happens when I want to change an assumption in 3 months? Can I, or do I come back to you?
The last question matters most. A model you cannot maintain is a report with a spreadsheet extension.
One check on the model you already have
Search the file for numbers typed inside formulas. Every one is a decision somebody made and did not record. If there are more than a handful, the file cannot be defended, whatever it cost.