Monthly retainers are one of the most reliable pricing models. They provide a predictable income, ensure clients always have access to your time, streamline your workload, eliminate uncertainty and help create stable, long-term working relationships. In this post, I’ll cover how monthly retainers work, when to use them, and common mistakes to avoid.
What is a Virtual Assistant retainer, and how does it work?
As mentioned in my post on how to set your Virtual Assistant rates, a monthly retainer is when the client pays a set amount each month for an agreed number of hours or tasks.
This model is best for stable, recurring work and ensures that the client has guaranteed access to your time.
This arrangement benefits both parties as the client knows they’ll receive ongoing support, and you have a steady, predictable income.
When should Virtual Assistants use the retainer model?
Retainers are particularly useful when you have a client with lots of “bitty” work they need doing.
If your client only needs a few tasks completed here and there, it often won’t add up to much if you charge them by the hour.
Plus, bitty tasks are really time-consuming and annoying!
But by setting up a monthly retainer, you make sure you’re fairly compensated for your availability while giving your client peace of mind that their tasks will be completed.
The benefits of client retainers
There are many pros to putting a client on a monthly retainer.
- The client knows how much their invoice will be.
- You know how much you will be paid so you can budget and plan your finances.
- Retainers are always charged in advance for the month ahead, not the month just gone.
- Clients never have to worry you won’t have availability for their tasks.
- Retainers create long-term partnerships, making it easier to understand a client’s needs and provide better service.
- It’s less admin work for you.
- You have a more predictable workload and can plan your schedule more effectively.
- Clients are more likely to fully utilise your services when they’ve paid upfront.
The challenges of Virtual Assistant retainers and how to manage them.
While retainers provide stability, they also come with a few (manageable) challenges:
- Clients may try to squeeze in extra work beyond the agreed hours. Establishing clear boundaries will mitigate or prevent this, though.
- You’re locking in availability for specific clients, which means less flexibility to take on new or ad-hoc projects.
- Some clients may not use all their hours and expect rollovers or refunds. This is why it’s crucial to set expectations upfront.
- Some clients may expect priority treatment and assume they can contact you at any time or that their work will always come first. You could always offer a more expensive priority retainer for this reason.
- If you underestimate how long tasks will take, you could end up doing more work than the retainer covers.
- Locking clients into a set price makes it trickier to increase rates later unless you include a pricing review clause.
- Relying too heavily on a few big retainer clients can leave you vulnerable if one suddenly leaves.
Common retainer mistakes that Virtual Assistants make
Most Virtual Assistants make the same three mistakes when offering retainers.
1. Giving discounts on block bookings
Some VAs offer a discount if the client books a certain number of hours, but this isn’t common practice in other freelance industries.
Virtual Assistants usually come from an admin background, which means they can be huge people pleasers and exceptionally compliant. They like to be ‘helpful’, which translates as giving their time away for free.
They bend over backwards to facilitate other people’s needs, and if a client wants something, they usually try to organise it.
The problem is, they usually forget to charge for it!
There is even a funny video by Denise Duffield-Thomas on how women sell in business vs how men sell. Actually, it would be funny if it wasn’t so frustrating.
Discounts are not a good idea because every hour you’re working at a discounted rate is an hour you could be working at your full rate for another client.
Clients are paying to retain your time. They want the security of knowing you will always have time for their tasks.
It’s the time part of that sentence that’s important, not the money bit.
2. Refunding unused hours
When on a retainer, the client is paying to retain (secure) your availability, which means you need to bill them for the number of hours they’ve booked.
Whether they use all of these hours is literally not your business.
I remember when I was dating a computer programmer who charged £600 + VAT per day. The client retained him for ten days; they only used him for four days.
But he billed them for the full ten days because that is how many days of his time they asked to retain. This was time he had put aside for them instead of giving away to other clients.
Of course, his client paid without a quibble… because that’s how retainers work!
Some Virtual Assistants feel ‘guilty’ about doing this, but you’re a professional business owner, and this is not only the entire point of a retainer, but it’s also how you make your money.
You can inform the client of how many hours they’ve used up as you go along, but they’re also a professional business owner, and you’re not their Mum.
The story of the wealthy client.
I used to have a very wealthy client called Kevin. After taking a break from his business, Kevin became friends with my boyfriend and me, as we used to go sailing together. So, when he restarted his business, I decided to refer Kevin to another local VA I knew.
One day, I was having coffee with the VA, and he said, “Kevin pays me £350 a month but only uses around four or five hours of his retainer. I feel guilty taking his money.”
“I’ve seen him pay more than that for lunch”, I said. “It’s not up to you to decide how much Kevin can afford.”
Kevin spent more than the retainer on a shirt, so he felt that £350 a month to retain my VA friend’s time was an absolute bargain.
3. Rolling over hours
If you only go to the gym twice in one month (or not at all), the gym does not offer to roll your subscription over because you didn’t use the facilities you signed up for.
Nor would Netflix offer to roll over your payment if you decided not to watch any shows that month.
If you allow a client to roll over their hours, you will never know how many hours you will be working that month.
This means you can’t plan your time, you’ll lose money, and your calendar will be a hot mess.
Should Virtual Assistants offer minimum retainer hours?
When asked, some of the more experienced members of my VA Handbookers Facebook group said ten was the minimum number of retainer hours they offered.
“My min is 10hrs a month. I used to offer 5 but they never move up from 5 and also, 5 hr people are quite hard work! You just can’t make a big enough impact in 5 hrs.”
“My minimum is 10 hours. It takes time to really dig in and get to know a client and their business, and less than that in an entire month does end up feeling like you’re always playing catch-up and “Oh yeah there’s this other thing, but it will have to wait…” And yes, the ones who are on very small packages often end up being the most high-maintenance.”
“I used to do 5-hour packages but soon got rid of them as they were a real pain. I don’t take people on retainers unless they need at least 10 hours.”
Although some VAs only offer a minimum of ten retainer hours per month, as with all of your business decisions, whether or not you do this is entirely up to you.
How to transition a client to a monthly retainer
While your goal should be to get a client on a retainer, sometimes, they will only agree to do this once you’ve worked together for a while and have proved your value.
This is perfectly reasonable. They don’t know if you’re a good fit for their business yet – and vice versa.
Although I’ve heard VAs say their client signed up for a retainer immediately, in my experience, a client will rarely sign up for a retainer until they’ve been working with you for at least a month.
I’ve used many VAs myself, and I would never pay them for a month upfront before I knew if they were any good or if we got along.
Retainer email template:
When suggesting your client sign up for a retainer, you need to outline what’s in it for them and not you. So you could say something like:
“Hey, we’ve been working together for a few months now, I love working with you, and I know you’re happy with my work as well; your tasks always seem to take around x hours, so why don’t we set up a monthly retainer instead of billing by the hour.
This way, you’ll always know how much your invoice will be, but more importantly, you’ll be secure in the knowledge that I have the time put aside for your tasks.
My business is growing quickly, and I want to make sure I am always available for your tasks.”
Additional advice
When deciding the details of the retainer with your client, it’s important that your freelancer contract outlines hours, payment terms, and what happens to any unused hours.
If your client consistently needs more time than their current retainer covers, consider offering them a higher-tier retainer package.
Rather than just increasing their hours ad-hoc, you could say:
“I’ve noticed that over the last few months, you’ve needed more support than originally planned. To make sure you always have the time you need, we can increase your retainer to X hours per month.
This way, you won’t have to worry about running out of hours, and I can better plan my schedule to support you.”
This helps upsell your services while ensuring you’re fairly compensated.
Conclusion
Retainers are a fantastic way for Virtual Assistants to secure a steady income while offering clients reliability and peace of mind.
They work best for ongoing, recurring work and should be structured with clear terms to prevent scope creep and disputes.
While they’re not right for every client, they are one of the best and most optimum pricing models, and they will help you build a sustainable, profitable VA business.
If you’ve been relying on hourly work and want to move toward a retainer model, start by identifying which of your clients would benefit from one. Then, use the email template above to propose it.
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