Why we no longer charge a retainer

A retainer rewards presence. After three months, no one checks if more was sold. Here's how we changed that and what it costs us.

The Problem with Retainers

Retainers are convenient. For us and for clients. You agree on a monthly fee, and in return, you're present, attend meetings, deliver reports, and tweak a few things. After twelve months, no one asks if more was sold. They ask if the collaboration went well, if the chemistry was right, if the contact person was friendly.

That's not outcome-based collaboration; it's a friendship with an invoice. We did that for years. It worked well for us. It worked well for clients as long as they didn't bother calculating the ROI.

What Happened

Two years ago, a client asked us how much revenue our work generated. Specifically, in Swiss francs. We started calculating. Attribution was imprecise, first-touch versus last-click, organic versus paid. In the end, the honest answer was: we don't know exactly, but probably less than what the client paid us.
That was uncomfortable. Not because we did a bad job. But because the model was wrong. We were paid for presence, not for results. And presence is cheaper than results.

What We Do Instead

Since August 2025, we've been working with a model of a fixed fee plus a success commission. The fixed fee covers the setup: research, setup, ongoing support. The commission depends on the additional revenue we generate together through the channels we are responsible for. From the second year, the fixed fee is dropped, and only the commission remains.
The setup is less convenient. We need to be able to measure what we do accurately. We might have to calculate against ourselves if needed. We have to explain why a channel that makes us look good isn't always the channel that sells.

What It Costs Us

Fewer mandates. We can't manage sixteen businesses simultaneously. We currently work with a strict upper limit of six parallel mandates, otherwise, we cannot deliver the setup phase or the ongoing optimization properly.
Two clients dropped out during the transition because they didn't want the effort of precise measurement. That's fine. If a client doesn't want to know what their investment brings, they are not a client for us.

What It Brings Clients

They know at all times what their investment in us brings. After nine months, they can say: this worked, we'll continue. Or: this didn't work, we'll stop. Without an exit debate, without a notice period, without a retainer that runs for another three months.

And they know that we only make money if they make money. That changes the conversations we have.