Hot take: I turned down a steady $500 a month retainer for a one-off project

A marketing agency in Tampa offered me a long-term retainer to manage their social media, but I chose to take a single $2,000 website build instead. Everyone said the steady income was the smarter play, but that retainer would have locked up 10 hours a week I needed for bigger clients. It was a gamble, but that free time let me land two more site projects the next month. Has anyone else passed on a retainer that looked good on paper?

3 comments

3 Comments

miab871mo ago

That "locked up 10 hours a week" part is the key. I've done the same math. A retainer can feel safe, but it's just a fancy word for a long-term time block you can't use for anything else. Turning it down to keep your schedule open for bigger projects is the real pro move.

robinson.adam1mo ago

Exactly, calling it a "long-term time block you can can't use" hits the nail on the head. But how do you actually know when to say no? Is there a rule you use, like a minimum dollar amount per hour that makes the locked time worth it? Or do you just go by a gut feeling that something better might come along?

elizabeth8751mo ago

Man, that's the whole game right there. I don't use a strict dollar rule, I look at the total time it eats up. Is this retainer going to lock me out of a potential bigger job for a whole season? Because that's what happened to me once. You gotta ask, is this safe money actually costing you more in missed chances? Sometimes a quiet gut feeling is just your brain doing the math you haven't written down yet.