What a monthly retainer covers, and what it does not

Most business owners have heard "there is a monthly charge too" without ever getting an explanation of what it buys. Sometimes it really is just hosting with a margin on top. Sometimes it is the thing keeping the system alive.

The difference between the two is not the price, it is what is written down.

What a retainer can cover

A real retainer can include running and overseeing the infrastructure, database services, the base plans of outside services, maintenance, fixing faults, small improvements, and building small additions within a capped number of hours. Along with technical support for the owner and the administrators.

The eleven lines that need to be in it

A retainer proposal that does not answer these will produce a disagreement eventually, usually at the exact moment something is urgent:

• The fixed fee, and what precisely it includes.
• How many hours of work are included each month.
• Whether unused hours carry over to the next month.
• What counts as technical work and what does not.
• What is explicitly excluded.
• Costs that grow with usage, and who pays them.
• What happens when an outside service raises its price.
• Priority: what counts as urgent and what waits.
• The scope of support: for whom, during which hours, on which channel.
• The notice period to end it, on both sides.
• And what happens at the end: how it is handed over, and how the data comes out.

What our retainer does not include

We do not promise round-the-clock support, and we would not believe a supplier our size who did. Support is for the owner and the administrators, about the system. It is not a helpdesk for your own end customers, unless you specifically had one built and it is part of the scope.

Also: a retainer is not an open scope. A large request is a project or a change order, not something to push into this month's hours. That definition protects both sides.

Whether you need one at all

Not always. A brochure site that does not change and touches neither money nor personal data can get by on occasional maintenance. A system a business works in every day is a different matter, and there the question is not whether support is needed but who provides it when something breaks at three in the afternoon.

Talk about a system with support terms written down clearly