How to nail your marketing retainer packages for clients
If I could go back into my early freelance marketing days, I would have paid more attention to creating a great marketing retainer package.
When I started freelancing, I wanted to separate myself from other agencies, so I told potential clients that “I don’t lock people into contracts, everything is month to month.”
At the time, I thought this made me look flexible, low-risk, and easy to work with. And in some ways, it did. But what I didn’t realize was that it also made my business unpredictable. I had no idea how much money I’d make the next month. I couldn’t plan. I couldn’t hire. And scaling? Basically impossible.
Funny enough, after some time working with my biggest client, they asked if I could commit to 3 months. They pretty much forced me to create a retainer, which, in hindsight, was a good sign that I had great product-market fit with my services.
However, I had no idea how to structure it.
What services do I include? How do I price it? What if the client wants something that’s not in scope? I did what most freelancers do: I winged it.
Since then, I’ve started to create systems that allow me to scale and not lose my mind (completely). So in this post, I’m breaking down everything I’ve learned about building marketing retainer packages. We’ll go over everything from how to structure your plans, how to price them, how to pitch them, and how to evolve them over time.
Let’s dig in.
What is a marketing retainer package and why should you offer one?
A marketing retainer package is an agreement between a service provider and a business in need of marketing services. It lists out how much the service will cost, on an agreed upon frequency, and what types of services will be delivered.
If you’re a freelancer or agency owner, the best part of having a retainer package is that it gives your business revenue predictability. This comes especially in handy when you want to scale and hire people to help you, because you’ll know how much you can afford to hire staff.
But, there’s not a lot of honest information out there on how to actually go about creating a retainer for your marketing agency. So, let’s go over what you need to know about all the retainer models and how to create your own service packages.
The 3 main types of retainer models
If there’s one thing I could go back and tell my younger self, it’s that there are no rules to how you approach your service business. All that matters is how your ideal target customer perceives you and if they value your services at your asking price.
Everything else is secondary.
However, there are different models and frameworks you can follow if you’re just starting out. And it’s good to know what’s possible (and what others are doing) before you try to go out and innovate on your own.
On that note, let’s look at some popular retainer models.
1. Deliverable-based retainer
A deliverable-based retainer is when you specify a certain amount of deliverables, or actions, that you will take for your client. This usually includes fixed services over a period of time, like a month.
I didn’t know it at the time, but this is what I initially started my freelancing journey with. And it’s also what I still follow to this day.
Sometimes, people refer to this deliverable style retainer as “productizing your services.” It’s just a fancy way of saying that your services are in package tiers at a fixed monthly fee. Similar to how SaaS companies price their products, you can think of this in the same way.
I’ll explain more on how you can approach this model in the section where we’ll talk about structuring our packages.
2. Time-based retainer
A time-based retainer is when you commit to a set number of hours, usually per week or month, that you will dedicate to a specific client. It’s one of the most widely used models for agencies and consultants.
However, when it comes to marketing agencies, this retainer model is usually not used as a standalone. It fits more into the consulting world, where businesses tap into specific knowledge when it’s needed.
Much of the marketing agency world is based on deliverables and what results you can provide to businesses. So, this model is generally paired with a deliverable-based approach, creating a hybrid model.
3. Strategy + execution hybrid
A hybrid model is when you include both a deliverable and a time-based retainer for your services. For most marketing agencies, this route makes the most sense.
In this case, you could have a deliverable retainer of “30 short form videos per month” and layer on a time-based retainer of “20 hours per month of social media consulting.”
It gives clients peace of mind knowing that they’ll have both specific outputs you’ll deliver on and guaranteed access to your knowledge while they’re paying you for your services. In most cases, this is the route you’ll want to take as someone who provides marketing services. And it’s the model I follow to this day.
How to structure your packages (with examples)
Most marketing service providers don’t last a long time in business because they struggle to create a compelling offer for businesses. This is where the art of structuring your packages comes into play.
Here are the steps to structure your packages:
Alright, let's take a look at each step.
1. Start with your mission statement
The basis of your package structures should come from your own personal mission statement. For example, you can start with this one line (replace X, Y, Z): I do X for Y to help them Z.
The more specific you are, the better.
Here are some examples for different types of marketers:
- (For myself) I do freelance SEO and content marketing for SaaS companies to help them grow organic website traffic and conversions from search engines.
- For a social media content creator:
I create short-form videos for local businesses so people can discover your business on platforms like TikTok, Instagram, and YouTube.
- For a public relations agency: We help brands earn media coverage in major news publications to elevate their brand awareness and public reputation.
This is your value proposition. And it will help you figure out how to create different types of packages for your services, aka “productize” your services. From here, you want to map out all the deliverables (or what I like to call, inputs).
2. Map out your inputs
Once you have your value prop, what you want to do is map out all of your deliverables. Not necessarily down to a T, but you want to get on paper what you actually deliver for clients.
I like to call these inputs. Because your inputs are what lead to the outcomes for your clients. You can’t always control what will go viral or what will drive customers for your clients. But you can control what actions you take that can lead to those outcomes.
For example, in my case, my inputs are things like:
- Audit of existing SEO traffic
- Content calendar creation (based on approved content strategy)
- Creating new landing pages
- Writing new blog posts
- Optimizing and updating old content and web pages
- Consulting on technical SEO and quality of a client site
These are all the “levers” that I can help a business pull to hopefully help them improve their presence in search engines and rank for search queries that their target customer would be searching for.
The same applies to social media services:
- Audit existing social media presence
- Content calendar creation (based on approved content strategy)
- Creating new short-form videos
- Publish across multiple platforms
- Create monthly reports on results
The point is, you want to list out all of the actions you take to help your potential clients grow. This way, you’ll know how much work it takes to deliver on your services, and you can adjust your packages based on the amount of inputs you will deliver. We’ll talk more about this in the fourth step.
3. Look at competitors
Now, you want to go out and see what other agencies are doing. Historically, agencies don’t explicitly say what packages they offer and at what price. But, over the past few years, it’s become popular to show your cards up front.
You may not find a direct competitor who offers the exact same services, in your style. But, you can look for similar agencies in your industry who have productized services listed on their website.
In the case of content marketing and SEO, uSERP is an example that lists out their packages:
Here, I can see that they offer content pieces based on a word count basis as an input. That’s some inspiration on how we could structure our input for our packages.
In my case, I use the input as the number of articles (and don’t mention word count as I’ll write however much is required to rank well). This may not be the smartest move in terms of time ROI, but it does yield better results for my clients.
Another example, in the design space, is Designjoy. Brett, the founder, has just one package that includes all the inputs for the service:
For other types of services, you’ll want to look around X (Twitter) or just Google search for agencies that offer services that are similar to what you want to offer. Look at how others create their packages and then use it as inspiration for your own.
4. Create package tiers
Once you have your inputs mapped out, and have done some market research, you want to create different package tiers. For example, if you create short-form videos, you could have your packages based on the number of videos you make:
- Starter package: 2 short-form videos per week (8 per month)
- Growth package: 4 short-form videos per week (16 per month)
- Scale package: 1 short-form video per day (30 per month)
Again, this is just an example. But the point is, you want to split up your tiers based on the volume of inputs. That is the foundation.
From there, you can layer on secondary services. For example, in the Starter tier, you could mention that your client will just receive final videos, and it’s up to them to upload them. Then, in the Growth tier, you can offer to publish the videos yourself.
The idea is to incentivize clients to purchase higher-tiered services. You could also use a popular pricing psychology called price anchoring to get clients to opt into your middle or higher tiered plans.
With that, let’s talk more about pricing.
Pricing your marketing retainers
When it comes to creating a compelling offer for your services, the first step is to come up with deliverable packages. And the second part is to come up with a price for those packages that people are willing to pay for.
This is where a lot of freelancers and agency owners get stuck. You don’t want to undercharge and resent the work, but you also don’t want to price yourself out of opportunities.
So, how do you find that sweet spot?
Do you charge hourly? Flat monthly? Base rate + performance? What if a client tries to negotiate down?
The truth is, there’s no single “right” way to price your services. But there is a wrong way — and that’s pulling numbers out of thin air without thinking about your time, your expertise, and your margins.
Here’s how I think about pricing my retainers:
1. Start with your income goal
Let’s say you want to make $10K/month from client work. Now ask yourself:
- How many clients can I actually serve well without burning out?
- How much time do I want to spend working each week?
- What level of service am I offering, basic execution or high-touch strategy?
If you can comfortably manage 3 clients, that means each one needs to be paying you roughly $3,300/month. That becomes your baseline for pricing. Now you just need to build packages that deliver that kind of value.
However, if you notice that competitors are charging a lot more (or less), you might want to consider adjusting your price. Of course, you don’t want to always undercut your competitors, because that’s just a race to the bottom. But you also don’t want to undervalue yourself.
The way I personally approached it was that I would offer the same number of inputs as my competitors, but I would do a better job at quality and execution. And, I started off with charging about 20% less.
But as time went on, and I gathered more case studies, I slowly brought my prices up to what others were charging.
If you charge a lot less than what others charge, you run the risk of devaluing your perceived value.
2. Take into consideration time, effort, outcomes, and the type of client
Pricing is not always based on how long it will take you to execute on a task. This is something beginners often fall into.
Pricing is more about:
- The strategy and thinking behind the work
- How complex or custom the deliverables are
- The type of client you’re working with (enterprise clients will almost always pay more than solopreneurs)
- And how much leverage your service has (i.e. will it bring compounding results over time?)
A blog post that brings in qualified leads for months or a video that goes viral on social? That’s high leverage and should be priced as such. So don’t fall into the trap of charging based on effort alone. Price based on outcomes you’re confident you can provide.
3. Create pricing tiers and anchor your value
Most clients want to feel like they have options, even if they all lead back to hiring you. That’s where tiered pricing comes in.
You can structure your packages like this:
- Starter: Lightest touch with minimal deliverables.
- Core: Your ideal package. Delivers strong results, includes support.
- Premium: Full-service, highest-touch. Reserved for clients who want everything handled.
The key here is to make your middle tier the most attractive. This is one of the most commonly known marketing pricing psychology tactics out there. Use your premium package as an anchor to make the middle option feel like a great deal.
You can also use add-ons (like reporting, consulting calls, or publishing) to move clients up a tier without needing to invent new services.
One other strategy you could implement is creating an ROI calculator on your pricing section as well. This is something I don’t see a lot of service providers do. In fact, according to this study, it can increase your conversions by up to 971%. Of course, it won’t do it for every business, but it does show potential clients that you are committed to helping them get a positive ROI.
How to pitch retainers to clients
A lot of service providers start out charging hourly rates because it feels less risky. It’s straightforward: work an hour, get paid for an hour.
But here’s the truth: most businesses don’t want to micromanage your time. What they actually want is results. And that’s where monthly retainer fees come in.
When you pitch a retainer, you’re offering consistency, peace of mind, and a long-term relationship that helps the client reach their goals without having to start from scratch every month.
1. Focus on results
Clients don’t care that you’re going to publish X piece of content per month for them. What they care about is that their business will make more money as a result. When you go about pitching your retainers, don’t say something like:
“My hourly rate is $150/hour, and this project will take 10 hours.”
Instead, you want to frame it as results-driven and say something like:
“I offer a monthly retainer where I take care of your content strategy, publish 12 short-form videos per month, and handle publishing on TikTok, Instagram, and YouTube. Most clients see traffic growth within the first 30 days.”
This puts you in a position of value, and it’s what most businesses care about. This is something I realized once I started working with larger enterprise companies. They don’t care how you do something, they care about their bottom line.
And honestly, those are the best clients.
The ones that want you to log every hour, and document everything, are not the types of clients you want to be working with anyway. From experience, those will be the ones that give you the most headaches.
2. Position this as a partnership
Instead of framing everything as you doing work in a silo, you want to make your marketing retainer packages feel like you’re an embedded part of your client’s marketing team.
Some of the best client interactions I’ve had came from me acting as an “interim” content marketing manager for my client, not as some agency that is just required to do a task and report on it.
3. Anchor your retainer against the cost of hiring
Hiring an in-house social media manager (in the US) can range anywhere from $30K-$170K a year. When you go out to pitch your retainer as a partnership, you could say something like: “The average salary for an in-house social media manager is $73K per year. With this retainer, you’re getting that level of expertise at a fraction of the cost, with even more flexibility and no need for employee benefits.”
This completely reframes your position within your client’s company and gives you a lot of leverage.
How to evolve a retainer over time
If you’ve worked in marketing for the past 3 years or so, you know how fast things have evolved. It’s honestly been quite overwhelming if I’m being honest.
So it’s important to always stay flexible and be willing to evolve. Believe me when I say this from experience: when you set out to start a service business, you make an invisible commitment to constantly adapting and challenging your beliefs about your work.
What worked for you (or your client) three months ago might not be the best fit for today. Here’s how I would approach evolving your marketing retainer packages over time:
1. Start small with your clients (in the hopes of growing)
You don’t have to pitch your biggest, most expensive packages right away. In fact, I usually recommend my clients start small and then grow as they see results. It shows I’m not going for a quick cash grab and that I care about both the reputation of my clients and myself.
Once your client starts to see results, it becomes way easier to upsell them into a higher-tier package.
2. Be as flexible as your client’s business
Algorithm changes, market changes, new products, AI, etc. — all of these can, and will, cause your client’s business to change over time. And if you’re doing your job right, you’ll grow with them.
That growth usually means:
- New products or services to promote
- A new content strategy to execute on
- More content to create
Make sure your marketing retainer packages are flexible enough to meet those future needs (and make sure to mention this in your contracts). If you’re charging a $3K/month retainer, and all of a sudden an algorithm change causes you to execute on a bunch of new work to keep the momentum going, you want that to be in your agreement.
You don’t want to be stuck in a $3K/month retainer doing $6K/month work.
When a client starts asking for more, that’s your signal to revisit the scope and re-pitch a new version of the retainer.
3. Set checkpoints
Every few months, it’s a good idea to schedule a quick check-in to talk about what’s working, what’s not, and what’s to come. This is where you can reposition your value and increase your rates.
I remember when I was working in-house as a content marketing manager, I hired a freelance editor to help me with my work. After about 5 months of good work, she approached me and mentioned that her rate would be increasing by 5% in the new year.
I thought this was such an honest and great way to go about increasing your rates, and I gladly accepted. But note this only works if your client has been happy to work with you. If you have little to no results to show for, this type of ask could backfire.
Tools to streamline your retainer work
There are tons of tools on the market to help you build out your marketing retainer packages. I wrote a blog post on some of my favorite tools for running your marketing agency. But here, I’m just going to go over a few tools I think are key:
1. Copilot
Copilot is the main “back-office” tool I use to manage my client work. It’s where I manage contracts, onboard my clients into their own client portal, and send invoices.
In Copilot, you can create products, which act as your marketing packages. And from there, you can set subscription amounts for each of them.
The great thing is that you can create monthly packages and set them up on a recurring basis. This way, you don’t have to chase clients for unpaid invoices; it will automatically charge them. But if your client doesn’t like that, you can also send them manually. Both options are there.
Overall, Copilot is a great tool for managing your packages and accepting payments for them.
2. Webflow or Framer
Both Webflow and Framer are no-code website builders used by a lot of marketing agencies. This is where you’ll market your services and show potential clients who you are, what you do, and the results you’ve driven (through case studies).
Here, you can integrate your website with Copilot so your clients can purchase your retainers straight from your website. And then, they can log into their client portal. I wrote a guide on how to do this that you can check out here.
3. Notion
Chances are you already know about this one. Notion is one of my favorite project management tools. It's also a place where you can map out your marketing strategy for your clients.
If Copilot is how I handle onboarding and payments, Notion is where I run the day-to-day content operations.
I use it to:
- Plan out client deliverables
- Track deadlines and status
- Document strategy notes, content calendars, and feedback
You don’t need anything overly complex, just a system you can stick to. And if you're working with a team, tools like Notion, ClickUp, or even Copilot’s Tasks App make it easy to stay aligned across multiple retainers.
You can also create client-facing dashboards if you want to be extra. But at the very least, it’s a simple way to keep your work organized without jumping between five different places.
Build a retainer that grows with you
As you can see, there’s a lot that can go into creating marketing retainer packages. It’s really easy to overcomplicate things.But you don’t have to do that.
Start with a clear marketing retainer proposal (based on everything above), structure your retainer plans around the value you provide, and keep things flexible so you can grow with your clients on an ongoing basis.
When you get your packages and pricing dialed in, your service business becomes much easier to manage. You stop worrying about chasing invoices or reselling yourself every month and start focusing on delivering great work and building long-term client relationships.
And if you want one tool to help you manage all of that in one place, Copilot is what I recommend.
From setting up retainer plans, to onboarding clients, to getting paid on a recurring basis, Copilot helps you run the back office of your marketing business without the chaos.
Want to see what that looks like?
Play around with the embedded client portal below and see how you can use Copilot to streamline your entire retainer workflow: