Free retainer renewal price checker
A retainer fee is set once and then stands still, while your rate, your pace and the client’s appetite all move. This checker audits the gap at renewal: enter the fee as it stands, the hours it includes and the hours you actually work, and it returns the effective rate the retainer really paid, what the frozen months cost against today’s rate, and the renewal fee rebuilt from that rate at next term’s expected hours.
The retainer as it stands
The pace figure is the one that matters and the one nobody keeps: the retainer hours tracker counts it while the term runs. New to the rate itself? Work it out first with the hourly rate calculator — on this device, that rate is then prefilled here. Every field follows the method in our guide to freelance retainers.
The renewal, rebuilt
The renewal fee — your current standard rate multiplied by next term’s expected hours. No certainty discount is applied: at renewal a discount is a fresh choice, never an inheritance, and the retainer calculator prices one if you decide to offer it.
| Current monthly fee | $0.00 |
| Rate per included hour (fee ÷ included hours) | — |
| Effective hourly rate last term (fee ÷ actual hours) | — |
| Value of last term’s pace at today’s rate (actual hours × rate) | — |
| Monthly gap at last term’s pace (value − fee) | — |
| Across the frozen months (gap × months) | — |
| Expected hours next term | 0 |
| Renewal fee at today’s rate (rate × expected hours) | $0.00 |
| Change vs the current fee | — |
| Renewal fee annualised (fee × 12) | $0.00 |
One honesty note on the frozen-months figure: it prices last term’s pace at today’s rate across every month the fee stood still. It is a measure of the drift, not a bill you can send — and our guide to renegotiating a contract renewal shows how to carry it into the conversation as evidence rather than as a claim.
Worked example
Daniel, a freelance web developer, set a retainer a year ago: $1,800 a month for a 20-hour block, priced — at the time — at his full $90 rate. Since then his standard rate has risen to $100, and the client’s requests have crept from the 20 hours on paper to a real average of 25. Next term the client is adding a second site, about 10% more work. Enter Daniel’s numbers above and the checker returns exactly this:
| Current fee and block | $1,800 a month for 20 hours |
| Rate per included hour ($1,800 ÷ 20) | $90.00 |
| Effective rate at the real pace ($1,800 ÷ 25 hours) | $72.00 |
| Last term’s pace at today’s rate (25 × $100) | $2,500.00 |
| Monthly gap at that pace | $700.00 |
| Across the 12 frozen months | $8,400.00 |
| Expected hours next term (25 hours, scope +10%) | 27.5 |
| Renewal fee (27.5 × $100) | $2,750 |
| Change vs the current fee | +$950.00 (+52.8%) |
| Renewal fee annualised | $33,000.00 |
Read the drift the way Daniel has to. The fee was honest when it was set — $90 was his rate. What eroded it was not one decision but two quiet ones: his rate moved and the client’s pace crept, and the fee answered neither. The $8,400 is the year priced at today’s rate and last term’s pace — a measure of the drift, not an invoice — and the renewal fee is not “the old fee plus a rise”: it is next term’s expected hours at the rate he now charges everyone, which is why the jump reads large. The rise he is actually asking the client to accept is the $950 a month between the fee they know and the fee the same work costs now.
How the renewal number works
- Audit the fee against the hours that actually happened. The block on paper is the client’s version of the term. Yours is the pace: the hours a typical month really took, calls, tweaks and revision rounds included. Divide the fee by that pace and you get the effective rate — the only rate the retainer truly paid. If the pace was never counted, the retainer hours tracker counts it from the next term onward; a renewal priced on a guessed pace is a guess with a signature on it.
- Price the pace at today’s rate. Multiply the same hours by your current standard rate and set it beside the fee. The difference is the monthly gap — what the same work would have cost the client at the rate new clients pay now. A gap of zero is a finding too: it means the fee kept up, and renewal is about something else.
- Count the frozen months. A fee rarely drifts in one jump; it stands still while everything else moves, one month at a time. Multiplying the gap by the months since the fee was last set sizes the drift across the whole freeze. Read it as this checker labels it — last term’s pace priced at today’s rate, held across the frozen months — a measure for the conversation, never a back-bill.
- Project next term’s hours honestly. The renewal is priced on the term ahead, not the term behind. Start from last term’s actual pace — or from the included block if there is no pace to start from — and adjust it by the scope change you genuinely expect: the second site, the extra report, the work the client has already said is coming. A renewal priced on the old block while everyone knows the scope grew just rebuilds the same trap at a higher fee.
- Rebuild from the rate, not from the old fee. “Old fee plus five percent” anchors the new term to the number that already drifted. The honest build is the same one that priced the retainer the first time — today’s rate multiplied by the hours, which is what the retainer calculator does for a new block and what this checker does for a renewing one. If the size of the jump is what frightens you, the price increase calculator turns that fear into arithmetic: the share of hours you could lose and still earn the same.
- Put the renewal in writing before the term rolls. The rebuilt fee, the new block, the review date — sent while the current term is still running, so the client decides with the evidence in front of them: the pace they used, the rate it truly paid, the fee the same work costs now. Our guide to renegotiating a contract renewal runs the conversation itself, and our guide to raising your rates covers the announcement for the clients who are not on retainers.
The three retainer tools stand at the three moments of the term. The retainer calculator prices the block before you sign — the fee, the certainty discount, the rollover exposure. The retainer hours tracker watches it burn while it runs — the pace, the day the block runs out, the projected overage. And this checker closes the term: the fee audited against the hours that actually happened, and the next fee rebuilt from today’s rate. The full method behind all three is our guide to freelance retainers.