Retainer hours are offered on a "use them or lose them" basis per month, but if you keep in touch with us and plan ahead and tell us that you'll need to borrow against future months for a specific project, we can be accommodating! This is done for 2 main reason:
To make sure we can adequately resource the members of your team so they are available when you need them
To clearly provide expectations on due dates, turnaround times, and availability
Our goal is that over the course of our engagement, we average out to use your contracted hours per month, because we know some months you'll need more help than others. If for any reason we see a pattern of not enough or too many hours being used, your Project Manager will be in touch to discuss.
Typically we assign the same amount of hours per week based on your hours per month. However, more hours may be reserved one week vs. another depending on retainer needs and unforeseen resourcing issues (like personal leave or urgent issues). For our different retainers packages, the table below shows how many hours we typically reserve each week (Note: This time is typically broken up between your Developer and/or Content Strategist and your Project Manager):
As part of your retainer, we will share a Retainer Dashboard with you that will provide a clear, real-time snapshot of how your retainer hours are being used. It shows total hours, hours used and remaining, and how time is distributed across projects or phases, so you can easily track progress and plan upcoming work.
If you have any questions about how hours are being used or you need to use more hours one month than the other, please reach out to your Project Manager.