Alternative · Strategy Consulting

An alternative to McKinsey
for the calls you make this week

For most strategy calls, the practical alternative to McKinsey is a board you can convene tonight. SynthBoard seats opposed experts on your question and hands back a memo you can take to your partners — or to McKinsey.

Start free See how it works

In short

No. McKinsey brings senior-partner judgment, primary research, implementation and the weight of a brand-name recommendation. SynthBoard is best used before an engagement to sharpen the brief, or instead of one for decisions that do not warrant the cost and timeline.

Last reviewed October 1, 2026

An example

One ask, start to finish.
What comes back is a memo.

How a board takes a call like this: her read, who sits, what they ask first, then the call — with how sure they are, who disagreed and the first step.

Strategy Consulting

Example · Board of 3

Should we expand into the EMEA market or double down on North America first?

Chief of staff

This one needs a board: The Strategist, The CFO and The Investor. The Strategist maps competitive dynamics and strategic options across multi-year horizons. Each researches alone first, then they react to one another — and on a decision, two of them take opposed sides.

The StrategistCompetitive Expert
The CFOFinancial Controller
The InvestorVC Partner

Asked first

Has a competitor already made this move?

Yes, one hasNot that I knowWe’d be first

The board’s call

Sequence EMEA entry through a UK beachhead in Q3, after closing the mid-market pricing gap in North America.

Mid-market pricing leak in NA is a higher-ROI fix than premature EMEA expansion. UK localisation cost is one-fifth of a full DACH launch and de-risks the playbook.

Confidence78 · High

The Investor disagreed

“FX exposure is currently unhedged — Finance flagged this”

First step Defer DACH until repeatable unit economics in the UK clear two quarters.this week

Board of 3 · up to 135 credits on the card · an example, not a recorded run

Other asks people bring here

Several asks in one message become several rooms, each with its expert and its own price on the card. Keep or drop any, then convene them together.

Is our SaaS pricing leaving money on the table at the mid-market segment? — The CFO, up to 85 credits
Which two of these four product bets should we kill to fund the winner? — The Investor, up to 85 credits
What is the steel-man case against the M&A target our board is excited about? — The Skeptic, up to 85 credits

What you get

What she handles.
On this kind of call.

Strategy frameworks, argued on your facts

Porter, 7S, scenario planning, market sizing. Each expert researches alone, then reacts once to the others, so you see where they split — not just the deck.

- UK localisation cost is one-fifth of a full DACH launch…From the memo
- Hire a regional GM before the wire, not after — most…From the memo
The call: Sequence EMEA entry through a UK beachhead in Q3…You decided
The Investor: FX exposure is currently unhedged — Finance…The dissent
Mid-market pricing leak in NA is a higher-ROI fix than premature…From the memoStill true?KeepNot quiteKeptShe uses it from here on

A partner-grade lineup, proposed for you

Your Chief of Staff proposes who sits — The Strategist, The CFO, The Investor, The Skeptic — from 24 named experts. Name one and they take a seat. No engagement letter.

A memo with the call and the dissent

The board’s call, the conditions it holds under, who disagreed and why, and a first move with a date you can bring to your team on Monday.

Why SynthBoard

Why SynthBoard for this.
Not one voice. A board.

Minutes, not quarters

A McKinsey workstream typically runs 8–16 weeks. A board lands in about 6–10 minutes, and the card shows the time before anything runs.

A priced card, not a six-figure SOW

A board shows its price on the card before it runs — up to 135 credits for a 3-seat board on Free — and a board never bills above its card. A strategy engagement at a top-tier firm typically clears $250k–$2M.

Disagreement by design

On a decision, at least two experts are assigned opposed positions. The dissent stays on the memo — who, why, and what would change the call.

The next framing, the same evening

An engagement gives you one swing. Here, a sharper framing is simply another board, priced on its own card before it runs.

Who sits

The experts for this call.
Each one holds a position.

Your Chief of Staff proposes who sits for the call, and every board is built with someone whose job is to argue against the obvious answer. Name an expert and they take a seat; tell her who you want on your board and they sit by default. How many seats a board has depends on your plan.

Competitive Expert

The Strategist

Don’t ask whether it’s good. Ask what your competitor does the day after you ship it.

The Strategist Competitive Expert

Best on: Positioning, entering a market, pricing against a rival.
Won’t let you: Plan a move as if nobody will answer it.

Try asking The Strategist

Start with

The StrategistOpen on every plan, Free included

Pick an expert

Hover, tap or tab throughSwipe, then tap one

GPT
Claude
Gemini
Grok

Seats are spread across model families: GPT, Claude, Gemini, Grok and more.

In their words

A great strategy deck is structured disagreement that resolved. The deck is the residue. SynthBoard keeps the disagreement on the memo, where you can read it.

The Strategist Competitive ExpertThe Strategist on what a McKinsey deliverable actually is

Questions

Fair questions.
Straight answers.

What people ask before they bring this call to a board.

Does SynthBoard replace McKinsey?

When should I use SynthBoard instead of a strategy consultant?

When you need the answer this week and the decision is real but not worth six figures. You get structurally opposed input instead of one polished voice. Many founders bring most strategic calls to a board and keep consultants for the few that need named-partner accountability.

When is McKinsey still the right call?

For board-mandated transformations, regulated-industry strategy resets, and any decision where the brand of the recommendation is half the value. Also when the work needs dozens of interviews with your customers and competitors — SynthBoard’s experts research, but they cannot run those interviews.

How does the price compare?

A board costs credits, not a retainer. Free to start — 150 credits every month + 250 to start. Talking to your Chief of Staff costs nothing. A board shows its price on the card before it runs — up to 135 credits for a 3-seat board on Free — and a board never bills above its card. Paid plans are $20, $50 or $99 a month (1 credit = $0.01 USD). A McKinsey strategy engagement typically starts at $250k and scales into the millions.

What does SynthBoard NOT do that McKinsey does?

No on-site interviews with your team or customers, no proprietary benchmark database, no implementation team in your office, no senior-partner reputation behind the call, no change management. SynthBoard is a thinking instrument, not a delivery firm — and its experts are AI, so they can be wrong.

Can I use SynthBoard to prepare for a McKinsey engagement?

Yes. Run a board before the kickoff: it sharpens your brief, surfaces the questions the partners will probe, and gives you a baseline to compare their recommendation against. A board’s memo shares as a page anyone can read without an account.

SynthBoard (synthboard.ai) is one place for your business, your life, and every hard call. Your Chief of Staff keeps what you tell her on file, and 24 named experts on different AI models take the calls — one expert for a consult, a board with opposed seats for the hard ones — and hand back a memo with the call, the dissent and the first move. How it works.