Free retainer calculator
This free retainer calculator prices a monthly retainer from your hourly rate: multiply the hours the client reserves by your rate, take off only the certainty discount you choose — around 10% is the usual ceiling — and check the number most freelancers never compute before signing: the rollover exposure, the most hours a client could call in during a single month. Hours past the block bill at the overage rate, your full rate by default.
Build the retainer
New to the rate itself? Work it out first with the hourly rate calculator — a retainer built on a guessed rate is a guess repeated twelve times a year. On this device, that rate is then prefilled here. Every field follows the method in our guide to freelance retainers.
Your monthly retainer
The monthly fee — invoiced before the month begins and due on receipt. Advance payment is what makes reserved capacity safe to sell.
| Reserved hours per month | 0 |
| Full-rate value (hours × rate) | $0.00 |
| Certainty discount (0%) | $0.00 |
| Monthly retainer fee | $0.00 |
| Annualised fee (fee × 12) | $0.00 |
Pick a rollover rule, and this line shows the most a client could call in during a single month.
Add reserved hours and an overage rate, and this line shows where the block ends and hourly billing begins.
Worked example
The worked example from our guide to freelance retainers, run through this calculator: Maya, a freelance designer at $95 an hour, offering a software client a 20-hour monthly block with a 10% certainty discount and a one-month rollover. Enter those numbers above and the calculator returns exactly this:
| Reserved block | 20 hours a month |
| Full-rate value (20 × $95) | $1,900.00 |
| Certainty discount (10%) | −$190.00 |
| Monthly retainer fee | $1,710 |
| Annualised fee (fee × 12) | $20,520.00 |
| Full rate across a year | $22,800.00 |
| What the discount costs per year | $2,280.00 |
| Rollover exposure (one-month rollover) | Up to 40 hours in one month — $3,800.00 |
Read the trade the way Maya does. She gives up $2,280 across a year and buys twelve months of revenue she can plan around — no quoting, no chasing invoices, no empty weeks. The exposure line is the number she checked before signing: a quiet month followed by a launch month can land 40 hours at once, and the rollover rule — not goodwill — decides whether that is fine. Hours past the block bill at her full $95: in a 26-hour month the extra 6 hours add $570, because the discount was the price of the reservation, never of extra work.
How the number works
- Start from the rate. A retainer is your hourly maths repeated twelve times a year, so it inherits the quality of the rate underneath it. If you do not have one you trust, stop and set one — the fee, the discount and the overage rate are all built on it.
- The fee is the reservation, priced. Rate × reserved hours is the full value of capacity you cannot sell to anyone else that month. That is the starting figure, and the agreement should show it — a client who sees the full rate beside the fee sees what the arrangement is worth.
- The discount is a trade, not a toll. Guaranteed, advance-paid income is worth something — up to about 10% is the common ceiling — and the trade is fair when it is your offer, stated in writing, and priced: this calculator shows what it costs across a year, so you give it up with the number visible, never by drift.
- Rollover caps a debt of future time. Unused hours are time a client can call in later. Use-it-or-lose-it, a one-month rollover, or a bank with a cap are all workable; unlimited rollover is the trap, because the bank only grows. The exposure line above is the worst case under your rule — read it before you sign, not in the busy month.
- Overage stays at the full rate. The discount bought the reserved block; it was never a price cut on extra work. Hours past the block bill at your standard rate, agreed in advance, and two habits keep it painless: warn the client as the block runs low, and send a short monthly statement — hours used, hours rolled, hours billed.
- Bill before the month begins. Invoiced in advance and due on receipt — the vocabulary is in our guide to freelance payment terms. Advance payment is the mechanism that makes reserved capacity safe to sell; a client who wants the reservation without it is asking for hourly work with extra administration and a discount.
The calculator finds the numbers; the documents carry them. Put the fee and its six terms into a proposal — our proposal template guide shows where they sit — and if the client’s work turns out to be a one-off project instead of a monthly pattern, price that with the project price calculator. The full method is our guide to freelance retainers.