8 min readBy Shaish Guni
Freelance pricing models compared: fixed, retainer, hourly and six more
A pricing model is more than a way of arriving at a number. It decides what the client is buying, when money changes hands, and which argument you will have after they sign. Pick the model before you write the proposal, because the proposal for each one is different.
The short answer
- Can you list every deliverable? Fixed price. Long, with approval points? Milestones.
- Can’t write the scope yet? Sell paid discovery first.
- Steady ongoing work? A monthly retainer, with a capacity limit and a rollover rule.
- Genuinely uncertain work? Hourly, against an estimate with a cap.
- The schedules below are conventions from standard forms and practitioners. Nobody has measured how freelancers actually split payments.
Three questions decide the model
Every model answers the same three questions differently. What is the client buying? A deliverable, a phase, a month of capacity, an hour or a day, a plan, an option, an outcome, or a unit. When does money move? Up front, per phase, in advance each month, or in arrears from timesheets. What will you argue about later? Each model has one characteristic dispute, and a good proposal answers it before anyone signs.
The models also split into two families. Project models (fixed price, milestones, paid discovery, value-based, packages) sell a finished thing for one total. Ongoing and metered models (retainer, hourly, day rate, subscription, open-ended per-unit) sell capacity over time, and need terms a project never has: what one period includes, what happens to unused capacity, and how the arrangement ends.
The nine models side by side
Each row gives the schedule with its evidence in brackets. Fit is how well the model works in ApeiroCraft today, which we explain under the table.
| Model | Right when | Typical payment schedule | Terms that matter | Dispute it invites | Fit in ApeiroCraft | Template |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Fixed price | Every deliverable can be listed; a short job | 50/50, or 40/40/20 with the last payment before launch (legal examples, practitioner) | Revision count with a per-round price; written change orders; exclusions; deemed acceptance; ownership on full payment | Scope ambiguity: is this a revision or a change? | Good. One total and a payment schedule is exactly this model. | Fixed-price template |
| Milestone / phased | Natural approval gates; work running past a few weeks | 25–40% deposit, one payment per phase, final before handover (legal guidance, vendor) | Review window per phase; pause on an overdue invoice; day-for-day delay | Triggers worded as feelings (“when happy”); work done ahead of payment | Good. Each payment falls due on signing, when you mark its phase complete, or on a date. Nothing releases automatically after a review window. | Milestone template |
| Paid discovery | The scope can't be written honestly yet | 100% on signing (practitioner) | Non-refundable once sessions run; credit against the build and when it expires; who owns the roadmap | The client expected a build quote, not a strategy document | Good. No credit or negative line yet, so the credit lives in the terms. | Paid discovery template |
| Monthly retainer | Steady, ongoing work: SEO, content, social, maintenance | First month on signing, then monthly in advance (practitioner; no data) | Rollover rule; capacity and overage rate; minimum term and notice; rate review | Unused hours, scope drift, and how to leave | Poor. No recurring billing. The first month is invoiced at signing; later months you invoice yourself. | Retainer template |
| Hourly / day rate | Uncertain scope, ad-hoc support, block-booked or on-site days | Optional deposit, then weekly or monthly in arrears; a booking deposit for days (standard form; inference) | Estimate labelled as an estimate; not-to-exceed cap with a 75–85% warning; timesheets; for days, cancellation tiers | The bill exceeds what the client read as a price; late cancellation of a booked day | Poor. No time tracking and no estimate range or cap display; the cap lives in the terms. | Hourly template |
| Subscription / productized | Small, repeatable, queueable units of work | Charged on signing and every cycle in advance (practitioner) | One active request at a time; turnaround as an average; pause and cancel rules; refund window | Refunds for completed work; what counts as one request | Poor. Needs card-on-file recurring charges, which ApeiroCraft doesn't do. | All templates |
| Packages (good / better / best) | The scope can honestly be dialled up or down | 50/50 on the chosen option's total (inference) | The option named beside the signature; a rule for adding items from another option | Which option did the client sign for? | Poor. No option picker: every pricing line adds into one total, so describe options in the text and price the one being signed. | All templates |
| Value-based | A measurable outcome, and a client willing to share the numbers | Large upfront share, or date-based instalments (practitioner, inference) | Measures of success framed as shared; a change of goal means a new agreement; an optional guarantee | The client relitigates the value premise afterwards | Good. Works as a single fixed fee; the value case goes in the scope. | Value-based template |
| Per deliverable / per unit | Countable output: articles, videos, product photos | Per batch in advance, or deposit plus per delivery (practitioner) | A unit definition; minimum order; revisions per unit; a staged kill fee | What counts as one unit; overruns | Fair. Fine for a fixed quantity; open-ended monthly volume needs recurring billing. | All templates |
Adapted from our research report on proposal types by pricing model, which draws on the AIGA Standard Form of Agreement for Design Services, the Graphic Artists Guild, legal guidance and practitioner sources, gathered 23 October 2026. No schedule in this table is a measured norm.
What is actually measured
Very little, and none of it on payment splits. The model shares come from narrow samples. Consulting Success’s study of about 1,000 consultants found project pricing primary for 30%, hourly 29%, monthly retainers 16%, value-based 15% and day rates 10%; it doesn’t give fieldwork dates. Among small digital and SEO agencies, SparkToro found 85% prefer retainers, and that solo consultants and freelancers are much more likely to work on projects; the sample size isn’t stated. In Ahrefs’ survey of 439 SEO providers (about 2023), 78.2% charge a monthly retainer and 34.8% charge hourly, with more than one answer allowed.
That is the whole measured picture. Deposits, split patterns such as 50/50 or 40/40/20, revision counts, rollover policies and kill fees have no measured distribution at all. Our guide to freelance deposits sets out where each convention comes from, along with the late-payment data that has been measured.
How to choose, model by model
Fixed price is right when you can list every deliverable. It is wrong when requirements are unclear or expected to change, because you carry the estimation risk and uncertain work forces a padded quote. “Fixed” means fixed for the written scope: AIGA’s form bills out-of-scope changes at the hourly rate, and treats a change of more than about 10% of budget or schedule as needing a new signed proposal.
Milestones are how larger fixed-price jobs are run. Each phase carries its own deliverables and sign-off, and each payment is tied to an event both sides can see happen. Put the last payment before handover.
Paid discovery is the honest answer when you can’t write the scope without guessing. It is one fixed fee, usually paid in full on signing, and the deliverable should be a document the client could hand to another vendor. Crediting the fee against the build is common but not universal.
Retainers suit steady work and are wrong for one-offs or months that swing widely. The term that causes the most arguments is the rollover rule: if the proposal is silent, the client tends to assume unused hours carry over. State it, along with a capacity limit, an overage rate, a minimum term and the notice period.
Hourly and day rates suit genuinely uncertain work. When you bill hourly you are giving an estimate, not a price, so label it as one and add a not-to-exceed cap with a warning point. Commercial time-and-materials templates use written notice at 75% or 85% of the cap. Day rates also need a definition of a day and cancellation tiers. The NUJ London Freelance Branch sets minimums of 100%, 75%, 50% and 25% of the fee for cancellation 1–7, 8–14, 15–21 and 22–28 days ahead, for UK-law contracts.
Subscriptions fit small, queueable units of work, and sell a plan rather than a project: one active request at a time, turnaround as an average, and published pause and refund rules. Packages work when scope can honestly be dialled up or down; the academic evidence supports offering a sensible middle option more than a deliberate decoy. Name the chosen option beside the signature.
Value-based pricing needs a measurable outcome and a client willing to share their own numbers. Put the objectives and the value before any price, show no hours, and never guarantee a business result you don’t control. Per-deliverable pricing lives or dies on the unit definition: length band, inclusions, revisions per unit and turnaround.
Where ApeiroCraft fits, and where it doesn’t
We make ApeiroCraft, so here is the plain version. A proposal has one total and a payment schedule: each payment is a percentage or a fixed amount, due on signing, on completion or on a date. When the client signs, the deposit invoice is drafted for you to send, and later payments are one click each. That fits the project models well: fixed price, milestones, paid discovery and a single-fee value-based project.
It fits the ongoing and metered models poorly, and we would rather say so than let a template imply otherwise. There is no recurring billing, so a retainer or subscription has its first month invoiced at signing and later months invoiced by you. There is no estimate range or cap display and no time tracking, so an hourly proposal’s cap lives in its terms. There is no option picker, so a client can’t choose a package on the page; every pricing line adds into one total. The in-app wizard still has a starter proposal for all nine models, with the terms for each written in.
For what the product includes in full, see proposal software. Every free template, by industry and by pricing model, is on the proposal templates page.
Pricing model questions
- Retainer vs hourly vs project pricing: which should I use?
- Match the model to what the client is buying. If every deliverable can be listed, price the project. If the work is steady and ongoing, use a monthly retainer with a capacity limit and a rollover rule. If the scope is genuinely uncertain, bill hourly against an estimate with a not-to-exceed cap. If you can't write the scope yet, sell a paid discovery phase first.
- Which pricing model is most common for freelancers?
- Only narrow samples exist. A Consulting Success study of about 1,000 consultants found project pricing primary for 30%, hourly 29%, monthly retainers 16%, value-based 15% and day rates 10%. SparkToro found 85% of small digital and SEO agencies prefer retainers, while solo freelancers are much more likely to work on projects. Neither is a census of freelancers.
- Can I combine pricing models in one engagement?
- Yes, and the common combinations are sequential: paid discovery, then a fixed-price or milestone build, then a monthly maintenance retainer. Keep each one in its own proposal so each has its own total, schedule and terms.
- Which pricing model causes the fewest disputes?
- No one has measured it. Each model invites one specific argument after signing: scope for fixed price, triggers for milestones, rollover for retainers, the cap for hourly, the chosen option for packages, the value premise for value pricing, and the unit for per-deliverable work. The template for each model is written to answer that argument in advance.