Retainer fatigue
What is Retainer fatigue?
The gradual erosion of margin and energy on a long-running retainer as scope drifts and the team loses momentum.
Retainer fatigue typically starts a few quarters in: brief lift drops, novelty fades and over-servicing creeps in unnoticed. Real-time hours-against-retainer tracking, plus deliberate renewal conversations, are the standard counter-measures.
Related terms
- Capacity-vs-sales constraintWhether an agency's growth ceiling is the work it can deliver (capacity-constrained) or the work it can sell (sales-constrained).
- Account-management overheadNon-billable time spent running the client relationship: status updates, reporting, internal coordination and admin.
- Deliverable marginThe margin made on a single deliverable (a campaign, a website, a brand system), independent of overall project margin.
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