Latest / Freelance Careers with Fexingo: Independent Work, Consulting, and Self-Employment / How a Freelance Consultant Raised Rates by Offering a Retainer Plus On-Call Hours
Transcript
- Lucas: So Luna, I keep circling back to something a listener named Priya shared with us after last week's episode on value guarantees. She runs a small IT project management consultancy, and she's been stuck at the same rate for about two years. And she tried something that I've been chewing on ever since — she added on-call hours to her retainer agreements. Luna: On-call hours — like, she's charging for the privilege of being able to ping her anytime? That sounds like a bold move. Lucas: Exactly. And it's not just a gimmick. She restructured her entire offer. Instead of a flat monthly retainer for a set number of hours, she split it into a base retainer that covers, say, twenty hours of work, and then an additional on-call component that gives clients priority access for urgent issues — at a premium, of course. Luna: So how much more did she end up charging? I'm guessing the on-call premium is significant. Lucas: She raised her monthly revenue by about thirty percent per client. But here's the kicker — she didn't add any extra hours. She just repriced the same availability she was already giving away for free. You know, those 'quick calls' that turn into twenty-minute troubleshooting sessions at two in the afternoon. Luna: Ooh, I hate those. They're the death of a freelancer's day. So she basically formalized the chaos and put a price tag on it. Lucas: That's the neat part. She said the idea came from a painful pattern she noticed in her own calendar. She'd have a client on a standard retainer, and they'd email her at odd hours, expect a response 'whenever you get a chance,' but then it's never actually that casual. It's always 'we need this for a board meeting tomorrow.' Luna: Right, so the retainer was supposed to buy a block of time, but the real cost was the unpredictability. That's what she needed to get paid for. Lucas: Exactly. So she designed a two-tier structure. The base retainer — let's call it a 'scheduled hours' package — covers a fixed number of hours per month, typically twenty to forty depending on the client's needs. The on-call tier adds a response-time guarantee, like a two-hour turnaround during business hours, and a monthly subscription fee for that access. Luna: So clients pay extra for the privilege of getting a quick answer. And that fee is on top of the hours they actually use? Or does it include any hours? Lucas: Good question. In Priya's model, the on-call fee doesn't include any project hours — it's purely for availability and priority response. The actual work is still billed at the hourly rate or covered by the base retainer hours. She sets it at a flat monthly fee, somewhere between one and two thousand dollars, depending on the client's complexity. Luna: That's a serious chunk of change. But I can see how a client who's been burned by a vendor who disappears for three days would see that as a bargain. Lucas: Absolutely. And she told me the first client who signed on for it said it was the closest thing to having an in-house IT manager without the full-time salary. That's the value proposition — it's not about the hours, it's about the peace of mind. Luna: That's a smart framing. But I have to challenge you on this, Lucas. I heard a story from a graphic designer in my network who tried something similar — she offered a 'priority lane' for revisions — and it backfired because clients just expected her to be available whenever they snapped their fingers. She didn't set boundaries, and the premium didn't cover the stress. Lucas: That's a really important counterpoint. And it's exactly why Priya's contract is the key. She defines on-call hours as business hours only, Monday through Friday, nine to five. Anything outside that is either not included or billed at a time and a half rate. She also caps the number of 'urgent' requests per month — say, five — before additional fees kick in. Luna: So she's creating a fence around the on-call time. That's crucial. Otherwise, you're just selling your evenings and weekends for a flat fee. Lucas: Exactly. And she learned that the hard way in her first month. A client took 'on-call' to mean 'always,' and she was getting emails at ten p.m. So she had to walk it back, renegotiate the terms, and add that contract language. It was awkward, but she said it actually strengthened the relationship because the client realized she was serious about her boundaries. Luna: It's a classic case of pricing your availability, not your time. I love that. So how does this connect to the broader theme of raising rates? It's not about doing more work — it's about redefining the work. Lucas: Right. And that's the through-line of so many of these episodes. You're not charging more for the same thing; you're offering a new thing that has a higher perceived value. In this case, the 'thing' is reliability and speed, which are genuinely scarce in the freelance world. Luna: And from a client's perspective, if they've ever lost money because a project stalled waiting for an answer, the math is easy. A thousand dollars a month for a two-hour response guarantee is nothing compared to, say, a day of factory downtime. Lucas: That's exactly the pitch Priya uses. She walks them through a hypothetical scenario: 'If you had a critical issue that cost you ten thousand dollars in lost revenue, would you pay a thousand to have it resolved in two hours instead of two days?' And every single time, the answer is yes. Luna: That's a powerful way to shift the conversation from cost to value. And it's a reminder that we as freelancers often undervalue the intangible stuff — responsiveness, reliability, context — because we're so focused on billable hours. Lucas: For sure. And look, this isn't for everyone. If you're a freelancer who genuinely can't commit to a response-time guarantee, don't offer it. But the process of thinking through what your clients really need — and what it's worth to them — is valuable in itself. Priya said that even the clients who didn't sign up for on-call hours saw her differently after she presented it. They realized she was thinking about their business, not just her own invoice. Luna: That's a nice ripple effect. And I'm curious — did she have any clients who negotiated the on-call fee down? Or who pushed back on the cap of five urgent requests? Lucas: A few. One client tried to negotiate the fee down to five hundred, but Priya held firm. She said the whole point was to make it a serious commitment on both sides. If the client isn't willing to pay for the access, they probably don't need it that badly. And the cap — she was actually flexible on that. She said she'd rather adjust the cap up if the client needed more, but she'd charge extra for additional requests over the cap, which is a fair compromise. Luna: So it's a menu, not a one-size-fits-all contract. That's smart. And I bet it also made her standard retainer look more attractive by comparison — like, the base package suddenly seems like a deal next to the premium option. Lucas: Classic decoy effect. Priya actually mentioned that she saw an uptick in clients signing up for the on-call tier, but also a few who upgraded their base retainer hours because they were already at the cap. So it's a win-win for her either way. Luna: I love that. And this is such a practical thing to implement. You don't need to overhaul your whole business — you can just add an on-call option to your next proposal. Lucas: Exactly. And I think that's the most actionable takeaway from this episode. If you're a consultant or freelancer who's been fielding 'quick questions' from clients without charging for them, this is your opportunity to formalize that and turn it into a revenue stream. Luna: And it's a way to raise your rates without raising your rates, which is kind of the holy grail of freelancing. Lucas: You said it. And that's the kind of insight that makes this show genuinely useful, I think. If today's episode gave you a concrete idea you can actually use, that's exactly why we keep doing this — and why listener support matters. If you've gotten value from these conversations, the way we keep the show ad-free is through listeners who decide to buy us a coffee. You can do that at buy me a coffee dot com slash fexingo. It's a small gesture, but it keeps the lights on and lets us keep digging into stories like Priya's. Luna: Yeah, and it really does make a difference. We're a tiny team, and every bit of support lets us spend more time on the research that goes into these episodes. Lucas: Alright, back to the pricing toolbox. So if you're thinking about trying this, there are a few practical steps. First, audit your current client interactions — how often do you get those unscheduled calls? What are they actually about? Then, decide what a reasonable response-time guarantee would be for your niche. And finally, price it based on the value to the client, not just your hourly rate. Luna: And make sure you write it all down. The contract is your best friend here. Lucas: Absolutely. Priya's biggest lesson was that boundaries are only real if they're in writing. She's now working on a one-page addendum she can attach to any retainer agreement, outlining the on-call terms clearly. She's even thinking about creating a template to sell to other consultants — which would be another revenue stream, by the way. Luna: That's a great side hustle. But let's talk about the risks for a second. What if a client takes advantage of the cap? They use all five urgent requests in the first week, and then they're stuck. That could create resentment. Lucas: That's a real concern. Priya handles it by offering a 'top-up' option — if a client exceeds the cap, they can buy additional urgent requests at a set price. And she also sends a monthly summary of how many urgent requests they used, so there are no surprises. That transparency actually builds trust. Luna: That's a good system. And I love the idea of the monthly summary — it shows the client the value they're getting, too. Lucas: Exactly. It's a documentation win-win. So, to wrap this up — and I have to say, this is one of my favorite episodes we've done — the takeaway is that pricing isn't just about hours and output. It's about the promises you make and the peace of mind you deliver. The on-call model is a powerful way to monetize the intangibles that clients already rely on. Luna: And it's a reminder that you can always find a new angle to raise your rates, even if you've been stuck for years. The question is, what are you giving away for free that you could start charging for? Lucas: That's the question. I'm curious to hear from our listeners — has anyone tried something like this? Or do you have a nightmare on-call story? Send us a note, and we might feature it in a future episode.