GuideHow marketing gets bought
Fixed scope vs. retainer
Definition
Two ways to buy external marketing work. Fixed scope buys a defined deliverable at a set price; a retainer buys a share of someone’s capacity, month after month.
How you recognize it
Fixed scope fits work you can specify completely before it starts: a website build or a HubSpot implementation. The risk sits in the specification; if you described the wrong thing, you pay for the wrong thing on schedule. A retainer fits work that changes shape monthly, where the value is having capacity already inside your business when priorities move. Its risk is drift: paid availability that nobody points at anything. The mechanism that keeps a retainer honest is a written priority for the month, agreed before the month starts, so both sides can see what the capacity was for. The drifting retainers I have seen have usually lacked one.
What to watch for
For a retainer, ask anyone in the building what this month’s priority is; if the answers differ, or the monthly report lists activity with no priority at its head, you are paying for presence. A retainer that has rolled over unchanged for a year deserves a re-scope, because the problem it was sized for has moved. For fixed scope, put the change-order total next to the original quote; when the changes approach the quote, the specification was written too early, and the next project should hold budget back for what you will learn.
The question you ask
“Where is this month’s priority written down?”