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Dinosaur
Local user
(1/29/00 5:16:28 pm)
Reply | Edit | Del | Re: Specifics !
A “retainer” is essentially a fee you collect for being “available” to serve the client.
Here are some variables to negotiate with the client.
- Duration of the retainer agreement - several months or month-to-month?
- Maximum number of hours you are available per day/week/month
- Minimum response time
- Minimum fee per incident
- Number of hours of work included in retainer fee - zero to whatever.
- Pricing - monthly retainer/hourly rate/expenses/etc.
- Payment terms - how often do you bill and what is the "net" (You could bill monthly for the retainer and add on your services used in the previous month or you could bill for services weekly or per incident. You should also be aware that a retainer is an advance payment.)
Now here’s the first hard part - you must examine the situation and come up with one or more plans that you think are reasonable.
Second hard part - get the client to accept one of your plans, without giving away the store.
Over what hill? I don't remember any hill!
| phaedrus
Unregistered User
(2/11/00 7:06:45 pm)
Reply | Edit | Del | My Retainer for SysAdmin
I'm a contract SysAdmin that was brought in to overhaul several server systems at a site where the existing Admin had left the company. After 6 months of working on straight contract, the bulk of the work had been completed and the "need" of me had subsided. The client wanted me to be available but wasn't willing to keep me around all the time. I switched to a retainer contract that had these terms. I had been working at $75/hour prior to this agreement:
- Flat $1000/month for the first 20 of work performed.
- $75/hour after first 20 hours.
- Flat retainer is billed ahead for the next month.
- Extra hours are billed after the month has closed.
- Monthly billing.
- Net 7 terms. (7 days from the day I invoice them, which may be after the first of the month)
- Phone calls are billed as actual time rounded up the the next 15 mins.
Some thoughts:
I like this client and thought at first that I wouldn't hear from them much and perhaps get the $1000 for only a few hours of work. The reality is that I've worked from 30-60 hours every month since going on retainer. This is effectively giving the client 20 hours of work at a 33% discount! There is more work ongoing than our first expectation. The have yet to hire a replacement Administrator, so this may go on for some time. If I went back to strict $75 an hour, I would likely still bill a similar number of hours. It's hard to keep track of and bill for every 30second call. I tend to only bill for calls that seem significant or go over 5-10 minutes long.
It is harder that I expected to focus on other client's tasks when I'm interrupted by this retainer client 1-5 times a day. It' hard to determine the lost production due to "task switching overhead".
| Jah-Wren Ryel
Local user
(2/11/00 8:03:03 pm)
Reply | Edit | Del | Re: My Retainer for SysAdmin
In my opinion, having never worked on retainer as a contractor (though I carried a pager as an FTE with a retainer-like payment schedule), your retainer hours should be at least as expensive, if not more so, than your normal rates for exactly the reason you mentioned - they are paying for you to be available at almost a moment's notice. Thus ramp-down from current work and ramp-up to old-client's work each time you get a call, that is lost productivity on your part.
I would expect to bill in hourly increments and include round-trip travel time too.
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