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Digital Space

Retainers

Ongoing development capacity, billed hourly or as a fixed monthly block: for changes and features, not day-to-day site care.

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Ad hoc · £50/hour10 hours a month · £45/hour20 hours a month · £40/hour40+ hours a month · From £37.50/hour
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A retainer is development capacity, not site care, the distinction matters, because it's easy to confuse with our Hosting Care or Business plans. Hosting Care and Business keep an existing site running: updates, backups, monitoring, and a small monthly allowance of minor changes. A retainer is for when you need actual development work done on an ongoing basis, new features, integrations, or changes bigger than a hosting plan's allowance covers, without scoping and quoting a brand new project every time something comes up.

Read the full details

Ad hoc work is billed at £50/hour with no monthly commitment, which suits businesses with occasional, unpredictable development needs. For more regular work, a fixed monthly block brings the effective rate down: 10 hours a month works out at £45/hour, and 20 hours a month, our most popular tier, works out at £40/hour, with priority response and a plain-English summary of what was done each month, so you always know where the time went. Businesses needing more than 40 hours a month move to our 40+ tier, with capacity agreed quarterly and direct access to a senior engineer rather than going through a queue. Every retainer month starts with a short review of what's outstanding and what matters most, so time goes on the highest-value work rather than whatever happened to land first. We keep a visible log of what's been worked on and what's next, rather than an opaque "hours bank" you have to trust blindly, you can see exactly what you're paying for. If your needs change, moving between tiers is straightforward and we align changes to a billing period rather than mid-month chaos. And if what you actually need is simpler, your site just needs to stay online, secure, and lightly maintained, we'll say so plainly and point you at Hosting Care or Business instead, rather than selling you ongoing development capacity you don't need yet.

Timeline

How it works

Ongoing, month to month.

  1. Week 1

    Book a call and pick a tier

    Tell us what ongoing work you expect and choose ad hoc or a monthly block.

  2. Start of each month

    Review and prioritise

    We go through what is outstanding and agree what matters most.

  3. During the month

    Work gets delivered

    Changes and features are built and shipped as capacity allows.

  4. Month end

    Plain-English summary

    A clear note of what was done and where the time went.

Goals and requirements can change, and availability can affect this timeline.

Guides

  1. How retainers workWhat a retainer month actually looks like, from the initial review to the plain-English summary at the end.
  2. Retainers vs. projectsWhen ongoing development capacity makes more sense than scoping and quoting a new project each time.
  3. Retainers vs. care plansWhy a development retainer is a different thing from Hosting Care or a Business plan, and how to tell which one you need.
  4. What you can use retainer hours forThe kinds of work that typically fit inside a retainer, with a few hypothetical examples by tier.

Pricing

Retainer plans

Care plans keep something running; retainers are for new work.

Ad hoc

£50/hour

Occasional development work, billed for the hours actually used.

  • No monthly commitment
  • Billed for hours used
  • Same team each time
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10 hours a month

£45/hour

A fixed monthly block of development capacity at a lower hourly rate.

  • £450 a month for 10 hours
  • Monthly plain-English summary
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Recommended

20 hours a month

£40/hour

Our most popular block of development capacity, at a lower hourly rate.

  • £800 a month for 20 hours
  • Priority response
  • Monthly plain-English summary
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40+ hours a month

From £37.50/hour

Higher-volume capacity for teams that need more than 40 hours a month, agreed quarterly.

  • From £1,500 a month for 40+ hours
  • Capacity agreed quarterly
  • Direct senior access
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Monthly rolling, 30 days' notice. No setup fee.

Included

What's included

  • A dedicated monthly review
  • Plain-English monthly summary
  • Priority response (20 hrs+)
  • Direct senior access (40+ hrs)

FAQ

Questions

How is retainer time tracked and reported?
We work in focused slices and report in plain language: what was done, what's next, and anything that needs a decision. You're not buying an opaque "hours bank": you're buying visible capacity with a clear monthly summary of where the time went.
Can we change tier or pause a retainer?
Yes, with reasonable notice. We align tier changes to billing periods rather than switching mid-month, and make sure handover notes stay current so nothing gets lost in the transition.
What isn't included in a retainer?
Large net-new products, major redesigns without a scoped phase, or work that needs a dedicated team beyond the agreed capacity. We'll say so early and propose a sensible split, a phase, a spike, or a separate quoted project, rather than quietly stretching a retainer to cover it.
Do you support our existing stack?
Usually yes, especially Next.js, TypeScript, Strapi, and common cloud setups: the same stack we build on ourselves. If something is legacy or unusual, we'll be honest about the risk and the sensible first step.

Ready to get started?

Tell us a bit about your business and we will be in touch within one business day.

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