What a middle office actually costs

Almost nobody in fund operations publishes a price, which suits everyone except the emerging manager trying to budget a launch. Here is what the options actually cost, with published figures where the vendor publishes one.

What you'd otherwise doCostLive inIndependently recomputes your NAVGenerates your ODD evidence
Enterprise fund-ops platform$180,000 to $200,000 / yr12 to 18 monthsYesPartly
Venture-funded AI fund-ops entrants~$175,000 / yr3 weeksYesPartly
Shadow accounting software on its ownfrom $35,899 / yrProjectYesNo
One middle-office hire£70,000+ salary3 to 6 monthsManually, once a monthBy hand, when asked
FCA compliance platforms£495 to £1,495 / moDaysNo, not one numberCompliance records only
MOBO£2,500 / month48 hoursEvery class, every dayRegenerated every cycle

Published list prices where the vendor publishes one. Category figures from a 2026 buyer's guide for emerging-manager operations platforms and from press reporting of recently funded entrants. Checked 11 August 2026.

The hire is the comparison that matters

Most emerging managers are not choosing between platforms. They are choosing between a platform and a person. The person costs £70,000 or more before employer costs, takes months to find, and produces the verification once a month by hand, because no individual re-runs forty-nine controls every thirty minutes or regenerates an evidence pack on every cycle. The platform costs £30,000 a year at the founding rate and does exactly that. The honest version of the trade-off is that the person can also make coffee and answer investor calls, and the platform cannot. Everything the platform does, though, it does continuously and leaves evidence of.

Implementation time is a cost nobody prices

The enterprise benchmark of twelve to eighteen months of implementation is not just a delay, it is a year of paying for the old process alongside the new one. MOBO onboards from the emails your providers already send: one forwarded sample per provider, ten minutes from your IT, and your own numbers on screen in 48 hours.

And nothing is invoiced until it works

Pricing in this category usually transfers the implementation risk to the buyer. We invert it. Nothing is invoiced until your fund's controls are actually armed and running against your own data. Calibration is free, however long it takes, and there is no trial clock to run out. If it never arms, you never pay. The founding rate of £2,500 a month is held for 24 months for the first ten funds, with no commitment attached: leave on a month's notice whenever you like. The rate is locked, you aren't.

More from MOBO

Shadow NAV: what it is, and what running one actually takes AR oversight: the evidence a principal actually needs The questions allocator ODD actually asks
Walk the live demo, no call, no login