# Retainer

> An ongoing engagement — a reserved slice of engineering capacity per month instead of one-off projects.

A retainer is how software that lives keeps living: the project ends, but the product needs updates, fixes, small features, monitoring and the occasional urgent call. The model reserves a block of time per month — the client keeps an engineer who knows the codebase and stops paying recruitment and re-onboarding every time something is needed.

It pays off when work is steady and unpredictable in shape — the honest test is whether you would otherwise write a new quote every month. The alternative that works for stable systems is a maintenance agreement: monitoring, updates, SLA on response, no feature time. Paying retainer prices for a site that needs four hours a year is the wrong shape.

## Related terms

- https://dfieldsolutions.com/en/glossary/mvp.md
- https://dfieldsolutions.com/en/glossary/discovery-call.md
- https://dfieldsolutions.com/en/glossary/social-proof.md

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Source: https://dfieldsolutions.com/en/glossary/retainer
DField Solutions — Dunakeszi, Hungary — dezso@dfieldsolutions.com
Booking: see https://dfieldsolutions.com/en/contact