[Hidden-tech] Retainer Fees?

Ron Miller ronsmiller at comcast.net
Thu Feb 2 11:32:43 EST 2006


I would never agree to work in this fashion. Number one, you should 
*always* have a contract. I don't care how well you think you know your 
client. You are running a business and without a contract, if anything 
goes wrong, you have no legal protection whatsoever.

Secondly, while I've never worked on retainer, per se, I have worked for 
several technical writing clients long-term. In these instances, we have 
sat down in advance of signing the contract and agreed which projects I 
would be working. We would then come to an agreement on the cost of 
producing each project, add them up and put a final figure in a 
contract. I would then be paid monthly based on this contractual figure 
divided by the total number of months in the contract.

This way, I have agreed to produce a certain amount of work for a given 
price and I can move freely among projects without worrying about how to 
bill each one.

I've also signed contracts on an hourly basis, with a maximum number of 
hours per week and a maximum total hours for the contract, then bill the 
client on an hourly basis. When we use up the hours, we renew the contract.

No matter how good the client may be, I'm usually reluctant to park all 
my eggs in one basket. I've seen too many companies close, get sold, run 
out of money or fall victim to other business pitfalls.

You need to protect yourself with a firm commitment and set up the 
contract in such a way that you are not giving hours away. You can't 
think they'll make it up to you down the road, because I've learned they 
may not be there down the road for whatever reason.

Ron



Janis S. Gray wrote:
>    ** Be a Good Dobee and help the group, you must be counted to post .
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> 
> 
> 
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
> 
> My understanding (confirmed at one point by another writer who once 
> worked on retainer) is that they are discounted from the hourly fee. If 
> I can find my contract, I'll share it with you. (I signed it several 
> years ago; while the amount I get has changed since then, the client 
> never had me sign a new one.)
>  
> I'm paid for a certain number of projects a month, not by the hour, so I 
> can't help you there. But the project numbers do "roll over" into other 
> months in some ways. Unfortunately for me, fortunately for them, lately 
> I've been running several months well "in the black" with them. (In 
> other words, I've done more projects per month than I'm being paid for.) 
> To "catch up" with me, they agreed to not send me any work for a number 
> of weeks in December, which was actually quite nice. The creative 
> director also told me that if I pushed, I could just ask for the money 
> to make us "even." But I also know in the past they've had little work 
> to send me, and I've started sliding towards "red." So it mostly 
> balances out.
>  
> I'll be interested to see what others say! Good questions.
>  
> Janis Gray
> ----- Original Message -----
> 
>     *From:* Rachel Wilsey <mailto:rachelwilsey at gmail.com>
>     *To:* hidden-discuss at lists.hidden-tech.net
>     <mailto:hidden-discuss at lists.hidden-tech.net>
>     *Sent:* Wednesday, February 01, 2006 5:38 PM
>     *Subject:* [Hidden-tech] Retainer Fees?
> 
>        ** Be a Good Dobee and help the group, you must be counted to post .
>        ** Fill out the survey/skills inventory in the member's area.
> 
> 
>     ------------------------------------------------------------------------
> 
>     Hello all,
>     I am working with a new client that has lots of ongoing design work
>     for me and I am trying to accurately balance what I expect to get in
>     work from them with taking on new projects. Ideally I would like to
>     work out a retainer fee so I know to set aside x-hours per month for
>     them. Then I don't have to worry about taking on too much or too
>     little additional work.
> 
>     How are retainer fee's usually structured? Are they based straight
>     off your hourly fee or do they tend to be discounted? Does anyone
>     have a sample retainer contract they could send me. Also if we agree
>     to x hours and then the work comes in at less then that, it seems to
>     me that is their loss as I have already reserved that time for them
>     (and not taken on other jobs), but is this how it is actually done?
>     They were asking about hours rolling over into the next month etc.
> 
>     Any advice would be greatly appreciated.
>     Rachel Wilsey
> 
> 
>     *********************************
>     Rachel Wilsey Design & Marketing
>     PO Box 1401
>     Northampton, MA 01060
>     413.358.0788
>     RachelWilsey at gmail.com <mailto:RachelWilsey at gmail.com>
> 
>     ------------------------------------------------------------------------
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