Why we stopped recommending retainers to most clients

Retainers are the default pitch in this industry — a fixed monthly fee, ongoing ‘optimisation’, a report at the end of the month.

For an ecommerce brand running constant campaigns, that can make sense. For most local SMEs, it doesn’t.

A local business usually needs a burst of proper work up front — a website that actually converts, a Google Business Profile that’s fully built out, local SEO fundamentals in place — and then relatively little ongoing attention until something changes: a new service, a new location, a redesign.

Paying a retainer every month for that in-between period is paying for activity, not results. So our default is now: do the project properly, hand it over once it’s paid for, and let you come back on a pay-as-you-go basis whenever something actually needs doing.

If you genuinely need ongoing management — multi-location businesses, frequent campaigns, active AI systems that need monitoring — a retainer is the right shape. We just don’t default to it for everyone.