A retainer is a recurring fee paid to an agency or consultant for ongoing work, typically monthly. It provides continuity and predictable capacity for both sides. Its weakness is that it can drift into paying for activity rather than outcomes if the terms are not tied to results.

The problem with most retainers is not the price, it is that you are buying hours instead of outcomes. A retainer that lists deliverables makes the agency accountable for producing tasks, not results, and those are very different things. If you cannot state what the retainer is supposed to change in the business, you are buying activity.

Example:

A retainer defined as twelve blog posts and four campaigns guarantees output. A retainer defined against pipeline targets guarantees something you actually care about.

What is wrong with a deliverables-based retainer?

It holds the provider accountable for producing tasks rather than results. The work can be fully delivered while the business outcome never arrives.

How should a retainer be structured?

Around the outcome it is meant to produce, with the deliverables serving that outcome rather than defining the engagement.