When should a mobile games studio hire a CFO?

• Hiring a CFO is less about revenue milestones and more about complexity and capability gaps.
• Many studios hit their first finance inflection point at $2M–$5M when UA and reporting demands increase.
• Done well, finance becomes a competitive advantage, not just a reporting function.

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Martin Macmillan is the founder of the Mobile Finance Collective and this article was first published as part of The Capital Stack newsletter.

Many founders keep finance “good enough” for as long as possible. Spreadsheets, accountants, maybe a part-time CFO. But at some point, the business outgrows your skillset and decisions start to suffer.

Recently, I ran a poll among mobile gaming finance leaders asking: “At what level of annual revenues should a mobile gaming studio hire its first full-time CFO?”

We received 106 responses, and the results clustered around $15M annually – the point where “strategic finance” becomes critical. But nearly a third voted for $5M, when “UA is getting complex,” and others argued for earlier or later.

Here’s the thing: the answer isn’t really about a revenue number. It’s about complexity, stage, and what you actually need from a finance function. Before we can answer “when,” we need to answer “what.”

What is a CFO, really?

“CFO” has become a financial catch-all term that obscures what companies actually need. In practice, the title is extremely broad and covers a wide spectrum:

• Bookkeeper / Accounts
  Processing invoices, reconciling accounts, recording transactions. Critical but mechanical.

• Finance Manager / Controller
  Monthly closes, management accounts, basic P&L reporting. Reactive, but brings discipline.

• Head of Finance / FP&A
  Forecasting, budgeting, board reporting, building financial models. Forward-looking and analytical.

• Strategic CFO
  Partner to the CEO on strategy, capital structure, M&A, organizational design. In gaming, fluent in UA unit economics and live ops monetization.

When founders say “we need a CFO,” they often mean very different things: clean up bookkeeping, proper investor reporting, help forecasting UA spend, or strategic partnership on capital allocation. These require different people with different skill sets at different price points.

The first step is asking: What do we actually need our finance function to do right now-and six months from now?

The evolution: What you need at each stage

< $500K annually. Bookkeeper plus external accountant. Founder remains de facto CFO. Don’t waste capital on finance infrastructure yet.

$500K–$2M. Part-time finance manager for monthly close and clean management accounts. Brings operational discipline and frees the founder from admin.

$2M–$5M (The first critical juncture) Full-time Head of Finance, or part-time strategic CFO plus finance manager. VC-backed companies typically need more here – investor reporting alone can justify it. External IP deals with royalty obligations increase complexity significantly.

$5M–$15M (The UA complexity inflection) Gaming-specific finance expertise becomes essential. This is where traditional CFOs from other sectors often struggle. You need someone who understands the significance of Day 7 retention, can model cohort economics, blended ROAS optimization, and forecast when 60% of revenue comes from ad monetization with high variance in user behavior.

$15M+ Full CFO suite. Strategic CFO plus controller or Head of Finance, potentially dedicated FP&A. Finance becomes a strategic enabler, not just a reporting function.

Key triggers that accelerate the need include: raised institutional funding, external IP deals, significant UA scale-up, international expansion, or M&A conversations.

Part-time vs full-time

Hire a full-time CFO too early and they’ll be bored in days, producing beautiful models for scenarios that don’t matter yet. Wait too long and you’re asking someone to join a company making $5M per month with zero structure and a digital shoebox of receipts.

How do you get it right?

The optimal hybrid scenario I often see working well is an experienced CFO operating a few days per month at a strategic level, paired with a full-time Head of Finance handling day-to-day operations. This provides strategic horsepower without paying for full-time availability you don’t yet need, while giving mentorship to the finance lead. Studios run this model successfully well into the $20M+ range.

Fractional CFOs – often former senior operators from large gaming companies – can be particularly effective in the $2M–$10M range. Someone who has seen the movie before can set up the finance function properly and operate strategically a few days per week. It is critical to hire someone who understands the space, particularly around UA, to avoid expensive disappointment.

Remote hiring expands the talent pool significantly, with one caveat: ensure you have appropriate local statutory expertise. Cohort economics and UA forecasting are global; compliance is not.

User acquisition: Where generic finance hits a wall

Let me be direct: this is where most CFOs from outside gaming struggle.

UA finance in mobile gaming is genuinely different. The mental models don’t transfer cleanly, the math is different, and the pace is relentless.

Traditional CFOs think: We spent X on marketing, generated Y in revenue, here’s our CAC payback.

Gaming CFOs think: Day 0–365 cohort curves, blended ROAS across channels, LTV projections with confidence intervals, and how a 2% change in Day 7 retention affects three-month-old cohorts.

A common scenario: you’re spending $750K per month on UA and debating an increase to $1.2M. To answer this properly, you need to understand which channels are truly performing, how increased spend affects blended ROAS beyond your efficient frontier, how ad monetization revenue shifts with seasonal eCPM fluctuations, and what happens if cohorts underperform LTV assumptions by 10–30%.

A traditional CFO can build a model. An experienced gaming CFO understands which assumptions are fragile and can articulate the trade-offs clearly enough to support informed decisions.

The loneliness of the role: You’re often the only person who deeply understands the financial dynamics. Everyone looks to you for answers – CEO on UA spend, product team on monetization drivers, board on forecast confidence. If you haven’t done this before, it’s a steep learning curve with high stakes. This is why having a peer network in gaming finance is so valuable. 

Think pattern recognition from others who’ve seen similar situations, calibration on whether your thinking is sound, and just being able to discuss challenges with people who understand.

When you need gaming-specific expertise: If UA spend exceeds $100K/month and is growing, you need someone with gaming experience or who can learn extremely quickly. What doesn’t work: assuming general finance competence will suffice and your CFO will “figure it out.” You’ll make expensive mistakes during that learning curve.

Practical guidance – For founders

Audit your current capability honestly. Do you have clean books? Reliable reporting? Forward visibility? Strategic insight? Map gaps to specific problems to solve – not titles.

Red flags you’ve outgrown your setup:

• Board meetings are stressful because materials are rushed

• UA decisions are driven by gut feel

• Month-end close takes two weeks

• You cannot answer basic questions about payback by channel

• Your finance person is drowning with no time for analysis

Match capability to need. Ignore titles. Someone who was Head of Finance at a $50M gaming studio may be more valuable than a CFO from a $3M SaaS startup. Look for people who have operated one stage ahead of where you are now.

For finance professionals

Mobile gaming finance particularly when modeling UA, cohort economics and monetization is genuinely different from other sectors. The expertise is highly valued but requires investment to learn. Your peer network is your competitive advantage. Show your work, not just titles – such as cohort models you’ve built, forecasting frameworks you’ve implemented, decisions you’ve influenced. This is how you establish credibility with potential employers.

Conclusion

The question “when should we hire a CFO?” is the wrong question.

The right questions are:

• What does our finance function need to deliver?

• What capability gap are we trying to fill?

• What is the most efficient way to get that capability?

Revenue milestones are proxies for complexity. A studio hitting $15M with simple, organic growth has different needs from one hitting $5M with aggressive multi-channel UA and complex licensing. Map your needs to capability required, not arbitrary thresholds.

Done well, finance becomes a genuine enabler of better decision-making – visibility on whether you can afford increased UA spend, understanding which features drive monetisation, stress-testing assumptions so you’re not blindsided, giving your board confidence you’re running a tight ship.

Get the right finance capability at the right time – not too early, not too late, and at the right level of seniority and time commitment – and finance becomes a competitive advantage. Get it wrong, and you are flying blind at exactly the moment you need clarity most.