Services and consulting
Retainer agreement
The paper for work that repeats on a rhythm rather than arriving as projects. A fee is paid each period, and in exchange the supplier either does a defined amount of work or holds availability open. Its hard questions are the ones a project contract never asks: what happens to unused hours at the end of a month, what counts as an extra, how far ahead notice has to be given, and whether the fee is for output or for access.
- In the catalogue
- Services and consulting
- Where it can live
- Any of the 184 governing laws
Who uses one
- Agencies and consultants with clients who need steady work rather than one-off projects.
- Companies keeping a specialist on call — legal-adjacent operations, finance, design, maintenance.
- Freelancers converting a good client into predictable income.
What you are deciding
- What the retainer buys each period: hours, deliverables, or availability
- The fee, and when it is charged
- What happens to unused time — rolls over, or lapses
- What counts as outside the retainer, and how it is charged
- How quickly the supplier answers, and on which days
- How often the fee is reviewed
- The notice either side gives to stop it
Blanks you leave stay blank and wait in the room. Nothing is filled in from a guess.
The sections a draft usually has
- 1The parties
- 2What the retainer covers
- 3The fee and billing period
- 4Unused time
- 5Work outside the retainer
- 6Response times
- 7Fee review
- 8Term, renewal and notice
- 9Governing law
A general outline, not a required one. What turns up in a draft follows what you described. A contract is written in the order a contract is read.
What people call it
The names this kind of paper goes by. They are here because people search for them. They also filter the catalogue. They are not a wordlist the door matches. At the composer you describe the deal in your own words instead.
- retainer agreement
- monthly retainer
- retainer contract
- ongoing services agreement
- subscription services agreement
- recurring services agreement
Questions people ask
- Do unused hours usually roll over?
- That is a commercial choice written into the paper. Some retainers let unused time carry for one period, some let it lapse, and some are for availability rather than hours, in which case the question does not arise.
- How is a retainer different from a subscription?
- The billing looks the same; the promise does not. A retainer commonly buys a person's time and attention, while a subscription buys access to a product. The two are written differently because what fails is different.
- How much notice is normal to end one?
- Papers of this kind usually set a notice period matched to the billing rhythm, so neither side is left with a half-paid month. The length itself is negotiated rather than fixed by law.
General answers about the document. Not advice about your situation. Not written about any one country.
Where it lives
A contract names the legal system it is governed by. That is a separate decision from which paper it is. You pick it at the door, from any of the 184 units in Governing law, including England and Wales, Delaware, California and New York.
You do not start from this page. Describe the deal in one sentence at the door. Read the draft back in plain language, in the order a contract is read.
Start it at the door →Related kinds