Retainer Agreement

Retainer Agreements are contracts between a company & service provider to engage the latter into a long-form provision of services under a carefully redacted list of terms & conditions.

These agreements are usually put in place when the hiring company, or client, understand their needs for a defined amount of time. These type of arrangements are ideal for companies who need a constant level of service, usually because they are engaging in many marketing campaigns across the year, or because they need a constant stream of always-on work, such as SEO, website maintenance or performance media buying.

Fable&Co. believe that retainer agreements are pragmatic & effective tools for the access of services & have detailed their benefits below.

Firstly, it clearly specifies the scope of the agreement. The service provider/agency will have helped the client understand what is the ideal breath of service to meet a number of business objectives, meaning the company only pays for the time they need the service provider for.

Secondly, the agreement specifies the terms. Clauses around termination, expenses, service level agreement, non-disclosure & confidentiality are some components that both parties need written confirmation on to avoid any disputes later on. This also ensures that the service is not severely disrupted when employees leave either the client or the agency, as the retainer agreement lets new employees continue their work.

Finally it provides a number of beneficial by-products. With a retainer agreement in place it is possible to have the agency ‘on tap’ for any small question or queries as these can easily be serviced alongside the main statement of work. In turn, the agencies knows their client’s business & organisational culture which over time dramatically improves the quality & efficiency of the work.

At Fable and Co. we assist & advise our clients to form a retainer agreement that suits their requirements & specifications as a business. We work collaboratively to help create an agreement that is just right for them in terms of size & scope, so that the benefits of this teamwork displays itself from day one.

Well, that’s the beautiful thing about a retainer. We’re always on call when you need us.

– Harvey Specter, Pearson Specter