Know-How Exchange : Career/Training

Retainer fee in general means to pre-pay someone (or at least a portion) for service to be rendered. It is common in the legal service field. In your case, I guess it would mean to pay someone/band/performer etc. an agreed upon amount before the performance. The remaining balance would be paid upon completion of the service.

Typically, Matt, a retainer fee arrangement is used to pre-book a consultant for a certain number of hours per month regardless of the project or need (within the given scope of course).

For example, we are on retainer with several clients who need input, our presence at meetings, review of their marketing action plans (we provided the research and strategy, etc. We are available for input as needed.

Our clients pay the retainer up front each month. We typically engage for 3-month cycles. We keep track of hours, roll forward overages and note under usage to either suggest added implementations or, at the 3-month end, to change the arrangement to something more in keeping with their usage as needs.