A retainer trades a client's flexibility for your predictability — guaranteed monthly hours in exchange for a discount off your straight hourly rate. The part consultants get wrong most often isn't the concept, it's the size of the discount: give away too much and the "predictable revenue" isn't actually worth what it cost you.
Start from the real hourly-equivalent number
Rate times estimated monthly hours is the baseline — what this client would cost at straight hourly billing. Every retainer conversation should start from that real number, not a round figure that feels reasonable.
The discount is the price of predictability, not a favor
A retainer discount exists because guaranteed hours reduce your own uncertainty — fewer slow months, easier planning, less time spent re-selling the same client. That's worth something real, typically in the 10-20% range for most consulting practices, but it's a trade you're making deliberately, not a discount you're granting out of goodwill.
Annualize it before you commit
A monthly retainer fee is easy to agree to in the moment. Multiplying it out to a real annual number — and comparing that to what straight hourly billing would have produced — is what tells you honestly whether the trade is actually worth it for a full year, not just for the pitch meeting.
Use the template instead of picking a number that feels right
The Billable Hours & Retainer Calculator already runs this math — hourly rate and monthly hours into a straight fee, an adjustable retainer discount into a discounted fee, and a real annual revenue projection. Open it in FLYNT Sheets, and once you've settled on real numbers, pitch the retainer with the Retainer Proposal template.