Retainer
A recurring fee that either reserves a slice of your calendar or buys a fixed monthly scope, instead of re-selling every project.
See it
What it is
A retainer is a recurring fee that buys one of two very different things, and picking the wrong one is where retainers go bad. An access or capacity retainer reserves a slice of your calendar: the client pays to be able to call on you, whether or not they use the hours. A deliverables retainer buys a fixed monthly output, like four blog posts or one campaign refresh, and the hours are your problem.
Reach for one when a client's needs are continuous but unpredictable, and when you would rather stop re-selling the same relationship every six weeks. Retainers smooth cash flow, make capacity planning possible, and are the main way solo operators escape feast-and-famine. Price them on the value of standing availability, not on a discounted hourly rate, or you have simply sold a bulk discount.
Gotcha: rollover hours. Let unused hours accumulate and the retainer becomes a bank account the client can drain in one brutal month, which kills the capacity guarantee you were being paid for. Use expire-monthly terms, or cap rollover at one month, and write the inclusions and exclusions down. 'Whatever you need' is a retainer that ends in resentment.
Ask AI for it
Write a monthly retainer agreement for the service described below. Specify: which type it is (reserved capacity versus fixed monthly deliverables), the monthly fee and billing date, exactly what is included each month with counts, an explicit exclusions list, guaranteed response and turnaround times, whether unused hours expire at month end, how overflow work is quoted as a separate change order, a minimum term of three months, and a 30-day written cancellation notice. Then give me two alternate price tiers around it. Plain English, one page.