Price your agency retainer from your hours and margin
Enter hours per service, your hourly cost, tool costs, a target margin and how many clients. Get the retainer price per client and your monthly revenue and profit, with the formula shown. Free, no account.
Your retainer
Example inputs, pre-filled so you can see how it works. They are not typical agency figures: replace the hours, costs and margin with your own.
At 20 hours a client a month, a $35 hourly cost, $150 of tools and a 50% target margin, the retainer is $1,700 a month per client. With 8 clients that is $13,600 a month in revenue and $6,800 in profit.
| Service | Hours | Your cost | Price share |
|---|---|---|---|
| SEO | 6 | $255 | $510 |
| Paid ads management | 5 | $212.50 | $425 |
| Social media | 4 | $170 | $340 |
| Content | 3 | $127.50 | $255 |
| Reporting and calls | 2 | $85 | $170 |
| Per client | 20 | $850 | $1,700 |
- Labour: 20 hours × $35 = $700
- Cost per client: $700 + $150 tools = $850
- Price: $850 ÷ (1 − 50%) = $1,700
- Profit per client: $1,700 − $850 = $850
- That price is $85 for each hour you spend, a markup of 100% on cost.
- All 8 clients take 160 hours a month of your team's time.
Margin here is a share of the price (profit ÷ price), not a markup on cost. Cost is only what you enter: add your own overheads, tax and unpaid hours, or the profit shown is too high. This is a price floor from your costs, not what the market will pay.
How the retainer is priced
Add up the hours each service takes a client every month, multiply by what an hour of your team's time costs you, add tool costs, then divide by one minus your target margin. A 50% margin means half of every dollar billed is profit, which is a markup of 100% on cost. Spread over the clients you have, the result gives monthly revenue and profit, so you can see how many clients it takes to cover your own pay.
- Include account management, calls and reporting hours, not only the doing.
- Use a fully loaded hourly cost for staff, not only their pay.
- Rename the services to match what you sell; leave hours at 0 for any you do not.
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Questions
Add the hours each service takes per month at your hourly cost, add tool costs, then divide by one minus your target margin. The calculator does this and shows each step.
It is your call. Enter the margin you want and the calculator shows the price that earns it; we do not claim a standard margin for agencies.
Margin is profit as a share of the price; markup is profit as a share of cost. A 50% margin is a 100% markup.
Only if you include it in the hourly cost or tool costs. Rent, software and unpaid time that you do not enter are not counted.
No. The result is worked out when the page is served and not saved.
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