Having a designer on staff is a luxury for many small businesses, but that doesn’t mean small businesses need to forgo design services. With a creative retainer agreement, your business can have a designer on call whenever you need creative services.
Why a creative retainer agreement makes sense
With a creative retainer agreement, you commit to purchasing a set number of design hours per month for a 12-month period. You may commit to as few as four hours per month. Those committed hours are dedicated to your projects, and can be used for ongoing work, or needs that arise unexpectedly.
Key design services are included in the retainer agreement. With a creative retainer, you can receive graphic design, website design and maintenance, email template design, research, writing, editing, print management, strategic consulting, interim creative management, recruiting and design project management services for a set hourly rate. Better still, the retainer rate is about 20% lower than a standard hourly rate for these services.
With a creative retainer agreement, you can actually save money and be certain that your business has instant access to creative services whenever you need them! Grantstreet Creative can provide you with design services, additional creative capacity during peak periods, managerial services or interim or transitional support when you need to expand or fill open creative staff positions.
If you don’t use your committed hours in any given month, unused hours can roll over once to the next month. If a project exceeds your monthly retainer commitment, you can purchase additional hours at the discounted retainer rate. That’s a great advantage over other creative retainers, which often require you to purchase additional hours at the designer’s standard rates.
One of the best features of a creative retainer agreement is that you get cost certainty with design services. You’re in control of the retainer agreement. You know up front what your hourly costs will be, and if you find that your monthly commitment is too conservative for your design needs, you can always adjust your agreement upward without paying more per-hour for your increased commitment.
If you would like to know more about a creative retainer agreement, or how you may put this kind of agreement to work for your business, please contact our Creative Director, Dave Ramsell or give Dave a call at (330) 243-0651 to set up a consultation.
Photo Credit: intuitives, via FreeImages.com
