Retainer vs project calculator

See which pricing model actually pays you more.

What do you want to work out?

Project work
Monthly retainer
The unpaid hours & cash timing

Nothing leaves your browser — the math runs on your device.

The effective hourly behind each model — and how big a retainer discount you can safely offer — appears right here as you type, or press the button to try example numbers.

Good to know

Why the bigger number is usually the wrong answer

Put a $6,000 project next to a $3,000-a-month retainer and the project looks like the better deal per hour: $150 an hour against $120. But neither price is earned in the hours it quotes. The project carries the proposals you wrote and lost, the scope you gave away, and the week of onboarding, invoicing, and chasing that nobody bills for. The retainer carries a standing call and one sale instead of four. Divide each price by the hours you actually spend and the ranking flips more often than not — which is the only comparison worth making.

The hours you never send an invoice for

Three leaks decide this, and only one of them is obvious. Scope creep is the visible one: the extra 20% of delivery you hand over because it was easier than arguing. Admin is the forgotten one: kickoff calls, contracts, invoices, the polite email chasing payment. The expensive one is your win rate — at 33%, every project you land quietly carries three proposals' worth of unpaid scoping. Six hours a pitch becomes eighteen hours per win. That single line moves an effective rate further than anything else on this page, and almost nobody prices for it.

How big a retainer discount is actually safe

Clients ask for a discount in exchange for committing, and the honest answer is that they've earned some of one — a retainer you sell once replaces four projects you'd sell four times. The question is how much. This tool works out the exact fee at which both models pay you the same per hour, then expresses it as a percentage off your project rate: your discount ceiling. Anything shallower than that ceiling makes the retainer the better deal even at a lower headline rate. Anything deeper and you've bought certainty with money you didn't have to spend.

When a retainer is the wrong call

A retainer can win on rate and still be a bad idea. Two things spoil it. The first is scope bleed: included hours are a ceiling for the client and a floor for you, and a client who quietly uses 140% of theirs turns a good rate into a bad one — the calculator shows the usage level where that happens. The second is concentration. If one agreement is half your year, losing it takes half your income in a single email, and no hourly rate compensates for that. Steady money and safe money are not the same thing.

Frequently asked questions

Is a retainer better than project-based pricing?

Usually on rate, not always. A retainer removes the cost of re-selling — lost proposals, kickoff admin, gaps between projects — so it can pay more per hour even at a lower headline rate. It's worse when the client overuses their included hours or when it becomes too large a share of your income.

How much should I discount a monthly retainer?

Only as far as the savings justify. Work out the fee at which the retainer earns the same per hour as your project work, then treat that as the floor. For most freelancers the safe ceiling lands somewhere between 10% and 35% off the project rate.

How do I price a monthly retainer?

Take the hours the client will really consume each month — included hours plus calls, reporting, and admin — and multiply by the effective hourly rate you need. Don't price off the included hours alone; that's the number that leaves people underpaid.

What is an effective hourly rate?

What you're paid divided by every hour the work actually costs you, including scope creep, admin, and the proposals you wrote for jobs you didn't win. It's almost always well below the rate on your invoice.

How many retainer clients should I have?

Enough that losing any one of them doesn't take more than a quarter or so of your income. This tool shows the share of your year a single retainer would occupy, plus the mix of retainers and projects that fills your capacity best.

Do you store the numbers I enter?

No. It runs entirely in your browser: nothing you type is sent to a server, saved, or shared.

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