What would be the best way to approach retainers and deposits. I am new to all of this and would love to hear some feed back as to how to set up deposit amounts and apply them to retainers. I was thinking that the retainers would be paid up front. Let me know if that was a good assumption, or if I need to give this a little more thought.

I'm not sure either and would love to know.

Sally

I charge the full amount upfront for retainers. I think this is typical practice but don't quote me on that

I charge upfront for this reason: A retainer is used to book my time for the month. I set aside that many hours for the client. The client is guaranteed that I have those hours available to him/her and their work will be completed. If they don't want to pay a retainer then they take their chances that I'll be available.

Currently the only time I take a deposit is if I am subcontracting out work. I get my clients to pay the sub's deposit. For instance, right now I have subcontracted out an ecommerce site. The sub requires a 50% deposit so my client pays me and then I forward that to the sub.

HTH

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Shari Sultana
Online Business Manager (marketing for retail ecommerce)

I agree with Shari, from previous discussions on the board, charging the full retainer in advance seems to be the norm, because that is the whole point of a retainer to have your client reserve your time for the month.

I charge by the hour, therefore I charge an upfront deposit for new clients which is applied to their first bill. I charge a set deposit or 50% of the project, depending on the project.

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Rebecka Melson ~ Virtual Business Services

Thanks for the information, quite the opposite from the building trade where the customer holds back a percentage (the retainer) until the snags list is completed by all. I haven't charged retainers yet, even to new customers, this is something I need to think about

Sally

Thank you for the quick replies, I appreciate all of the help. This is something that I know is important to know before I really get going.

We charge new clients a deposit against six months regularly paid invoices, which is of course applied back to them at the time.
For large projects like websites and SEO consulting, and one-off projects we charge a deposit that's applied against the final invoice.

I don't offer retainers at the moment....

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