Media & Marketing · Vancouver, BC · Est. 2015

We refund the retainer hours you never used.

Every month we publish how many of your retained hours we actually spent. Anything unused is credited back rather than quietly absorbed.

Campaign work in progress at the Oakfield studio — West 18th Avenue, Vancouver. Retained media and marketing since 2015.

Years in Vancouver: 10
Retained clients: 26
Median utilisation: 81%
Refunded last year: $214k

The problem with retainers

A monthly fee that is never reconciled.

A client retains an agency for a hundred hours a month. In a quiet month the agency uses sixty. The fee is charged in full, the shortfall is described as capacity being held available, and the client has no way to know it happened because no agency reports hours against a retainer it has already banked.

Unused retainer is the most reliable margin in this industry. It requires no work, appears in no report, and accumulates in exactly the months a client is least likely to ask questions. Over a year it can amount to a fifth of the fee.

Agencies defend it as holding capacity, which is a real cost and a much smaller one than the unused fee. The honest version is a smaller retainer with an overage rate.

So we report hours against retainer every month and credit anything unused. Median utilisation across our book is 81%, which means roughly a fifth of what clients commit comes back to them. Last year that was about $214,000 of revenue we did not keep.

Unused retainer requires no work, appears in no report, and accumulates in the months a client is least likely to ask.

The record

Hours retained against hours actually worked.

Utilisation — illustrative quarterHours logged against retainer, by client. Unused hours are credited to the following invoice, not carried indefinitely.
Client	Retained	Used	Credited
Regional retail groupHeavy campaign quarter, close to full use	180	174	$1,320
Professional services firmTwo planned campaigns deferred by the client	120	71	$10,780
Hospitality operatorSeasonal, and we recommended a smaller retainer for the winter	90	78	$2,640
Technology companyA leadership change paused all marketing for six weeks	150	86	$14,080
Healthcare groupContent programme running steadily	60	59	$220
Two clients used well under two-thirds of their retainer and both were credited in full. In the technology company's case we also recommended halving the retainer for the following quarter, which we did, and which reduced our own revenue by roughly $80,000 annually.

How we work

We will tell you the retainer is too big.

Where utilisation runs below about 70% for two consecutive quarters, we recommend reducing the retainer. Not because a client asked, and not at renewal — at the point the pattern is clear. We have done this eleven times and it has cost us more revenue than every client we have lost.

Hours are logged to the day, not to the month. A timesheet reconstructed at month end is a guess, and it is always a guess in the agency's favour.

No media commissions. Fees come from clients only. An agency earning a percentage of ad spend has a reason to recommend more spend regardless of what the work needs.

Do you know your utilisation?

Ask your agency for hours logged against your retainer for the last two quarters. Most cannot produce it by client.

Request a retainer review