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I started charging clients a flat monthly fee instead of hourly and it backfired for 8 months
Everyone in my circle swore that moving to a monthly retainer would fix the late invoice headaches I kept having with two clients in Portland. So I picked the retainer route over my old hourly setup and quoted one guy $1,800 a month for web updates, which sounded great until he started texting me at 11pm on Sundays. Turns out when people pay a flat fee they feel like they own all your time, and I spent about 30 hours on his stuff in March alone. Has anyone here actually made the retainer model work without turning into someone's on-call tech guy?
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sullivan.quinn22h ago
The problem wasn't the retainer, it was the setup. I charge monthly too, but I spell out exactly what's included upfront, like 10 hours a month and 48 hour response time, and anything past that gets billed extra. You gave him an open door and no rules, so of course he walked through it.
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