BugHerd CEO Stephen Neville ran a great webinar with Olly Feldman, Head of Global Sales at hosting.com, to unpack what actually works in the real world when it comes to agency retainers. Olly has spent a decade helping thousands of agencies build profitable retainers and runs an annual agency retainer strategy report, so this session was packed with practical advice, not theory.

This blog will break down the biggest learnings from the session, including:

• Why so many agencies struggle with retainers
  
• How to ‘productize’ your services into simple, repeatable packages
  
• What to charge, how to protect your margins, and where hosting fits in
  
• Actionable steps you can take in the next week to get started
  

Why Agencies Struggle With Retainers

Most agencies don’t fail at retainers because of bad clients. They fail because the retainer itself isn’t designed well. The same pattern can be seen over and over:

• Retainers are too vague: ‘a bundle of hours’ or ‘ongoing support’ with no clear scope
  
• They’re not aimed at a clear ideal client profile (ICP)
  
• Pricing is built around hours, not value or outcomes
  
• There’s no consistent structure, so every retainer feels custom and hard to repeat
  

This leads to the classic problems: project creep, messy expectations, low profit, and clients who don’t really understand what they’re getting.

Your retainer problem is a structure problem, not a client problem.

When retainers are simple, clearly scoped, and built around the right customers, they become easier to sell, easier to deliver, and far more profitable.

What a Productized Retainer Actually Looks Like

“You need to turn your agency into a bakery, not a building site.”

A building site is different every time. Every project is custom, timelines move, scope changes, walls get moved. Profit gets squeezed.

A bakery runs smoothly because it sells a defined set of products. Everything has a repeatable recipe and each item has predictable margins because the cost to ‘bake’ it is already known. Agencies can mirror this structure by standardizing their services the same way.

A productized retainer works on the same principle. It bundles the services you do best into a clear, outcome-driven package that clients can easily understand. Instead of selling hours, you sell a fixed, profitable solution with clear boundaries, making retainers easier to deliver, scale, and maintain month after month.

For example, instead of ‘10 hours of SEO consulting per month’, you might sell:

SEO Growth Plan Retainer
We deliver and manage a strategy designed to generate X leads per month over the next 12 months.

The work in the background still takes hours, but the client buys the outcome, not the time.

The Three-Tier Retainer Model (and Why “3” Works So Well)

Across thousands of agencies, Olly sees one structure work again and again:
The three-tier model:  Good - Better - Best  

Psychologically, three options makes it much easier for clients to decide. 

1. Entry-level package
   
   1. ‘No-frills’ option
   2. Lower price, limited scope
   3. Great for smaller clients or those testing the waters
   4. Helpful to get a foot in the door
2. Anchor / flagship package
   
   1. The one you really want people to buy
   2. Built around your ideal client and best product mix
   3. Highest alignment with profit, expertise and outcomes
   4. This is the package you lead with in sales conversations
3. Premium package
   
   1. For clients with bigger budgets or more complex needs
   2. Adds extra services, higher SLAs, deeper strategy or more volume
   3. Gives you room to upsell when clients outgrow the middle tier

It’s critical that each tier clearly spells out what’s included (in scope) and what’s not included (out of scope).  That’s how you avoid scope creep and create a natural path to upsell.

“That request sits outside your current package, but it’s fully covered in our next tier up. Shall we move you there?”

From Selling Hours to Selling Outcomes

One of the biggest mindset shifts is moving away from hour-based retainers. Clients don’t actually care about hours. They care about: Leads generated, campaigns launched, pages built, websites maintained and secure, performance targets met, etc.

Olly’s advice is to change the ‘currency’ of your retainers from time to results.

For example:

Instead of: ‘20 hours a month on campaigns’, try: ‘We’ll launch 4 new campaigns per quarter and optimise toward X conversions.’

Or for a dev / maintenance retainer:
Instead of: ‘Up to 10 hours of support’, try ‘We maintain, secure and update your site, fix bugs, and guarantee response within X hours if something breaks’.

You still calculate pricing based on hours and costs internally, but you sell the outcome, not the effort.

What ‘Good’ Retainer Economics Look Like

Here are some simple benchmarks seen in healthy agencies:

• 60%+ of revenue from retainers.  This smooths cash flow and reduces reliance on ‘big one-off projects’.
  
• 50%+ gross margin on retainers. After delivery costs (staff + tools), you should still be keeping at least half.  Build in a small buffer so you can absorb the odd overrun without killing profit.
  
• $90K–$120K revenue per staff member per year. If you have 10 people in the agency, you’re aiming around $900K–$1.2M annual revenue.  

You don’t need to hit those numbers overnight, but they’re helpful as a north star when you’re designing or reworking your packages.

Charging for Consulting Hours

Consultancy is something that agencies often give away for free without realising it. However, it is not only the most profitable component of many retainers, but also the biggest driver of deeper, more strategic client relationships.

Consultative time includes activities like strategy sessions, roadmap planning, whiteboard days, marketing and growth planning, and executive check-ins. When this is intentionally built into your retainer packages, you get paid for the relationship-building work you’re already doing.

Clients begin to see you not as a supplier executing tasks, but as a genuine strategic partner guiding their growth. It also creates a natural rhythm for reviewing outcomes and adjusting scope as the landscape shifts, especially in the midst of rapidly evolving AI. The key is to include this time explicitly in your retainers, rather than giving it away for free.

Retainers Work for Agencies of All Sizes

Retainers aren’t just for large agencies; they work at every stage of growth.

For small agencies and freelancers, retainers help smooth out the classic ‘feast or famine’ cycle by providing reliable monthly revenue that covers essential costs like tools, salaries, and rent. They create breathing room and stability, making it easier to plan ahead instead of constantly chasing the next project to stay afloat.

For mid-sized agencies, retainers add predictability and financial confidence. A strong base of recurring revenue makes the business easier to manage, reduces reliance on one-off projects, and can significantly increase the agency’s valuation if a future exit is part of the long-term plan. 

Larger agencies already operate largely on retainer models and often introduce retainer ‘bands’ such as junior, mid-level, or senior tiers.  This helps them to align value, pricing, and delivery at scale.

Regardless of your size, the fundamentals remain the same: productize your services, set clear scope and boundaries, protect your margins, and build your retainers around your ideal client profile.

Where Hosting Fits Into a Retainer Strategy

Most web agencies already manage hosting in some form, but many treat it as just a cost of doing business.

Instead, it’s recommended that hosting be folded into your website care / maintenance retainers, for example:

• Basic Care Plan
  
  • Managed hosting
    
  • Core updates
  • No SLA, minimal support
• Standard Care Plan
  
  • Managed hosting
    
  • Updates + small monthly changes
    
  • Defined SLA (eg. response within X hours)
    
• Premium Care Plan
  
  • High-performance hosting
    
  • Priority support
    
  • Security add-ons, monthly reports
    
  • Bundled dev hours for ongoing improvements

As long as your hosting costs are covered and you’re adding a healthy margin, it becomes a simple, scalable way to increase retainer revenue while genuinely improving reliability for clients.

How to Get Started in a Week: The Springboard Approach

You don’t need to redesign your entire business overnight. Try using a ‘springboard’ model:

1. Pick your best, most profitable service
   
   • The thing you’re great at and clients already value.
     
2. Turn it into one simple, fixed-scope retainer package
   
   • Define what’s included, what’s not, and what outcome you deliver.
     
   • Make sure you’re getting 50%+ gross margin.
3. Sell that service only as a retainer from now on
   
   • No more one-off, custom jobs for that specific thing.
     
   • When new leads come in for that service, they pick a package.
4. Refine as you go
   
   • Learn from the first few clients.
     
   • Adjust pricing, scope, and messaging, then start adding second and third packages.

It feels scary to stop selling one-off work in that area, but this is how you build a repeatable, scalable foundation.

Final Thoughts on Retainers for Agencies

A common fear among agencies is that retainers will make client relationships feel more transactional and less like true partnerships. In practice, the opposite can happen when retainers are designed well. 

Retainers aren’t a magic shortcut. They’re the result of clear thinking, tight structure, and a willingness to productize what you already do well.

Design them around your ideal clients, package them in threes, tie them to outcomes, and protect your margins. When you do that, retainers stop being a headache and start becoming the engine of your agency’s growth.

If you’d like to dive deeper, watch the full webinar for more examples and nuance.

About hosting.com

Hosting.com delivers fast, secure, and scalable hosting built for agencies and businesses of all sizes - with over 3 million websites hosted globally, 40+ data-centres, and 24/7 support to keep sites online and performing at peak speed. 

Find out more about hosting.com’s premium hosting services for your agency or book a 1:1 discovery call with one of their team members.

About BugHerd 

BugHerd makes it ridiculously easy for your clients to capture website feedback, organize them into tasks for your team to manage, and keep retainer work moving without the usual chaos.

See for yourself how BugHerd can totally transform your website feedback process; helping you run web projects on time and to budget.

Start a free trial (no credit card required), or book into a 1:1 demo