What is a retainer and why should you care?

Okay, what exactly IS a retainer?  Wikipedia.org says: “A retainer agreement is a work-for-hire contract. It falls between a one-off contract and permanent employment, which may be full-time or part-time. Its distinguishing feature is that the client or customer pays in advance for professional work to be specified later. The purpose of a retainer fee is to ensure that the employed reserves time for the client in the future when their services are needed.”

I work for clients both on an “à la carte” basis (paying a flat hourly rate for the time I spend on their projects) and on a retainer basis.

You can use my services the way it will help you most. You can select to pay hourly for the work you need, or you can opt for a retainer contract, allowing you a discounted rate with priority scheduling for a set number of monthly hours to serve your all marketing communications projects. You might choose to contract for 10 or 40 hours per month, for example.

In a retainer agreement, a portion of any unused hours in a month might be rolled over to the next month, depending on your contract.  If your projects one month require more time than the contracted amount, any extra hours will bill at your contract’s discounted hourly rate, and only with your prior approval.

A retainer contract is helpful if you have ongoing marketing design needs and you want the security of knowing help is at the ready, prioritizing your projects. It also is useful if you have a team with various design needs, knowing they can reach out to me to have all the odds and ends taken care of. For example, I’m happy to work with one person to create your trade show booth, another person to design the show’s handout materials, and a third to craft the social media graphics promoting the show, keeping the messaging and imagery consistent across all fronts.

Having me on retainer allows you the peace of mind to send me multiple small projects without fretting that they’re too small to outsource (that's not a concern when working with me! but I understand the feeling), or to send over large projects, comfortable knowing your monthly cost up front.

My method of operation is very straightforward. I am in constant communication and will let you know if we are close to hitting your monthly hours. If additional time is needed for the month, I will let you know and seek your approval before committing to those extra hours.  No surprise punches here! You have full control over your project, whether you’d prefer it paused until the next month or continued at your additional hourly rate.

I send a detailed invoice each month with the description of projects and hours allocated for all project work.  Management and accounts payable will be pleased. 😊

As always, I send the complete, original, design files to you at the end of each project.

Give me a trial run if you haven’t worked with me before. Let’s complete some of your design projects on an hourly basis to give you a feel for my work’s quality and turnaround time.

My initial consultation is always free! Tell me about your ongoing graphic design needs. My contact information is at the top of the page; call or email and let's chat about your projects!