For consultants and advisers
They are paying for judgement, and judgement leaves no trace
A month with nothing to show
An architect has drawings. A bookkeeper has a filing. You have a client who did not make an expensive mistake, and no way to put that on a page — which is why advisory retainers are the hardest of all to renew.
Files delivered in March
0
Nothing to attach. Nothing to point at. The invoice goes out anyway, and it is the same amount as every other month.
What the month actually contained
- Talked them out of the second warehouse — six months early
- Reset the pricing on their two largest accounts
- Sat in on the finance director interview, twice
- Stopped the ERP migration before the deposit went out
- Rewrote the board pack so the numbers were readable
None of it is a file. All of it is why they pay you.
And the two ways it goes wrong
The retainer became unlimited access
It was two days a month. Now it is a WhatsApp voice note on a Sunday and a call that was going to be fifteen minutes. Each one is genuinely small, and none of them was ever agreed.
A quiet month feels like a refund waiting to happen
Some months you steer three decisions and produce nothing. That is the month a client wonders aloud whether the arrangement still makes sense — not because the value was not there, but because none of it left a trace.
If the value leaves no trace, write the trace yourself.
Ten minutes at the end of the month, in outcomes rather than activity: what you worked on, what changed because of it, what happens next. It is the cheapest thing on this page and it does more for a renewal than any amount of good work nobody wrote down.
What changes
The retainer has an edge, written down before it is tested
What the arrangement includes, how many sessions or days, what sits outside it. Set once when you build the package, visible to the client when they buy. The boundary stops being something you enforce in the moment and becomes something you both agreed to in advance.
A quick question becomes a logged item with a price
Work outside the retainer comes in as a request. You put a figure on it, the client approves that figure, and it becomes an invoice. It is the same conversation you are already having, moved to before the work rather than after — which is the only point at which it is comfortable.
The month gets a record even when nothing shipped
Publish a monthly report: what you worked on, what came of it, what is next. Written in outcomes rather than files. It takes ten minutes, and it is what turns a renewal from a discussion into a formality.
Project work sits alongside the retainer
A diagnostic, a strategy piece, an implementation — billed in stages against milestones, with the client signing each one off, while the monthly arrangement carries on beside it.
What it costs
Ten dollars a month on your own, nineteen with a small team, and the pricing page converts that to your own currency. A free plan with one client runs indefinitely, so a real retainer can go through it before you decide.
Clients pay by card, bank transfer or mobile money, into your own payment account. We never touch your money and take no cut of it.
See whether it fits
Two minutes of questions, and an honest answer about whether Packaged suits how you work — including when it does not. No card needed.