Business Mentor Costs: How to Find One Your Startup Can Actually Afford

If you’ve spent any time in the startup world, you’ve probably heard you need a mentor.

But, since good things often come with a price, you’re probably wondering about the cost.

Not to worry. Here, we’re covering all the different price points involved in finding a mentor and what you can expect from each type of mentoring.

Free and Local Mentors

Cost: $, Low to Free

Pros:

• Free to minimal cost
• Mentors can provide a local perspective
• Usually less stiff and formal than other mentorship formats

Cons:

• Diversity in mentor industries and skill sets may be limited (unless you’re in a major metro area)
• Mentors may only have advice for local businesses rather than online ones
• Advice can sometimes skew old-school

You’d be amazed at how many resources your local area offers for either free or minimal cost. It’s usually just a matter of finding them.

Coworking spaces and local networking groups are often the best place to start looking for a mentor. Larger and more established groups may even have formal mentorship programs available.

Even without formal programs, attend enough events and you’ll be exposed to local business leaders in your area with plenty of experience.

Now, if you’re in the United States, you may be able to find opportunities through your local Chamber of Commerce as well. Usually, CoCs will partner with an organization like SBA or SCORE to provide consistent mentoring sessions.

But events outside of these sponsored mentorship programs can also land you a great business mentor. It’s simply a matter of finding a business leader you admire, then doing the appropriate networking and relationship building.

You can expect this type of mentorship to be more relaxed than more formal programs. That also means there’s not a set curriculum to follow and you’ll have to put in the work to get the most out of your mentor’s expertise.

However, if you find your local area doesn’t have a bustling business community, you can always turn to accelerators.

Accelerators

Cost: $-$$$$, Varies widely and depends if you factor equity/funding in as a “cost”

Pros:

• Mentors are carefully vetted and usually experts in their fields
• Accelerators usually match startups to mentors, short-cutting making the ask for mentorship
• Mentors have a wide variety of experience and backgrounds

Cons:

• Huge investment of time and resources, even in cases you’re not paying a program fee
• Acceptance rates for some accelerators are extremely low
• Mentorship may not be very personalized in some programs

For those considering accelerators already, this is a natural option for finding a business mentor. Most programs have mentor matching (or at least mentorship rotations) built into their structure, so it’s an easy way to chat with a variety of mentors.

Plus, because accelerators vet their mentors carefully, you can rest assured you’re getting the best advice available.

However, accelerators do come with the inherent drawback of requiring a lot of time, effort, and resources to complete, so this isn’t the simplest path to finding a mentor.

But don’t let that deter you. If you’re interested in the accelerator route, check out the stories of founders who have been through a variety of programs successfully.

If you’re not quite up to trekking the accelerator trail, though, there’s always the online route.

Mentorship Platforms

Cost: $-$$$. Varies, though not as much as accelerators. Usually between low to medium-high.

Pros:

• Mentorship platforms provide the widest variety of mentor backgrounds
• These platforms also allow the fastest access to mentors
• Access to targeted, personalized advice

Cons:

• Pricing varies wildly
• Mentor vetting not standardized
• Mentor motivations are sometimes murky

If you need access to a business mentor ASAP, a mentorship platform may be your best choice. It’s faster than local or accelerator options, but can be less expensive than a consultant (more on that in a minute). Examples include Mentorcruise, Mentorcam, Intro.co and, of course, here at GrowthMentor.

Because platforms are designed to match mentors and mentees, you should have an easy time finding an industry- and experience-matched mentor who can help with your challenges.

Unfortunately, the cost here is a wildcard. At GrowthMentor, our plan tiers are $99 and $199 and mentors are encouraged to charge “startup-friendly rates” if they’re going to charge an extra fee. However, other platforms let mentors set their prices and those costs often upwards of $100 per session, if not more than $300 per session.

Plus, since mentor vetting isn’t standardized across platforms, you’ll need to research a platform’s vetting process. Don’t join one until you’re sure that the mentors on the platform are the real deal.

But, that’s why we have an extensive mentor vetting process here at GrowthMentor. While we have over 600 mentors, you can rest assured that every one has real experience. And we’re one of the few platforms to vet for soft skills, because while experience and expertise are great, nobody wants a mentor with the “bedside manner” of a dead fish.

To us, the choice is clear: for access to the most variety of pre-vetted mentors without an insane price tag, you should join GrowthMentor.

Now, we have one more option on the list that we would be remiss not to mention, and that’s consultants.

Consultants

Cost: $$$-$$$$, Usually medium to high, but can vary wildly between consultants

Pros:

• A good choice for startups needing a “done for you” approach
• On occasion leads to fractional or full-time hiring relationships
• Often produce more immediate results than mentors

Cons:

• Not for long-term relationships (unless you intend to pay long-term)
• More focused on getting things done than upskilling you
• Expensive, and may not be truly vetted

For the overwhelmed founder, consultants may be a viable alternative to a business mentor. While the focus of these relationships is less on teaching you how to run your business better and more about the consultant executing on projects, it can still lead to some of the same learning and skill benefits as mentorship.

You can find any number of consultants through either LinkedIn searches or platforms like Catalant.

However, as you might already expect, consultants can be incredibly expensive, even more so than some of the more costly online mentorship platforms.

Not to mention this arena unfortunately attracts scam artists, as there’s no one guaranteed way to vet a consultant’s experience or expertise. So if you pick this route, we recommend either choosing a platform that pre-vets its consultants or to finding a consultant trusted by someone in your network.

Finding a business mentor is ultimately a matter of finding the route that is the best fit and most cost-effective for your startup.

So which one will you try first? Let us know in the comments!