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ivanstrug
Community Member

Retainer and hourly pay.

I am pretty sure that it is impossible to setup in Upwork, but maybe I am wrong.

 

Is is possible to have a retainer fee that is offsetable by actual hours worked i.e. I get a fixed retainer, which is offsetable (reduced) by the hours I would charge. It is a fairly standard pricing model in professional services, but I do not think that it can be implemented on the Upwork.

 

I am also curious if Upwork would ever implement total hourly fee cap - I often negotiate at total (on weekly) fee cap with clients, and currently I have to monitor this cap manually. Again this is a fairly standard feature in professional services setting and I've been mentioning it for ages, but it does not look like it was ever implemented. 

11 REPLIES 11
JoanneP
Moderator
Moderator

Hi Ivan,

 

Clients have the option to set up a weekly payment for you. Weekly payment is an automatic, recurring payment for a specific amount. The client is invoiced this amount each week in addition to the billable hours in your Work Diary. Please let us know if you have further questions. Thank you!

~ Joanne
Upwork
53ea7a89
Community Member

Joanne - I don't see the weekly payment as an option in my contract with a freelancer? What do I have to do to enable this or see it? Do you have any other links?

BojanS
Community Manager
Community Manager

Hi Jonathan,

 

When you make an offer, you can specify a Recurring Weekly Payment to be invoiced weekly along with your freelancers' hours. You'll set the amount in the Advanced Options on the offer form. 

 

Thank you!

~ Bojan
Upwork

If a client ends (completed) the contract in the middle of the week, will I get the weekly retainer amount (salary)?

Hi Rahul,

 

One of our team members will reach out to you directly via a support ticket to assist you further. You can access your tickets here.

 

Thank you,

~ Nikola
Upwork

Hi Joane,

 

How will my client convert current hourly contract to a weekly retainers?

Hi Ma,

 

It is not possible to convert a contract from hourly to fixed-price (or weekly retainer) after hiring. To change the type of contract, your client can end the job and rehire you, changing the offer terms as appropriate. 

 

The weekly retainer option is a new contract option we are testing out. As part of the test, certain clients will see three options when setting up a contract: hourly, fixed-price, or weekly retainer. 

 

~ Nikola
Upwork
kleczekr
Community Member

Hey Nikola!

It's been over two years since this discussion. How did the weekly retainer option work out, is it still being considered or was it binned?

Thanks!

Hi Rafal,

 

Thanks for reaching out. This feature has been active since. A weekly payment has been set up as an automatic, recurring payment for a specific amount. The client is invoiced this amount each week in addition to the billable hours in the freelancer's Work Diary. Unlike the hours they bill in their Work Diary, weekly payments do not undergo a review period, and the funds become available after the standard five-day security period.
 
You may want to check and review this article for additional information: Get Paid for Hourly Contracts.


~ AJ
Upwork
petra_r
Community Member


Ivan S wrote:

I am pretty sure that it is impossible to setup in Upwork, but maybe I am wrong.

 

Is is possible to have a retainer fee that is offsetable by actual hours worked i.e. I get a fixed retainer, which is offsetable (reduced) by the hours I would charge. It is a fairly standard pricing model in professional services, but I do not think that it can be implemented on the Upwork. 


Nope, that is not possible, the weekly salary is in addition to the hours logged.

 


Ivan S wrote

I am also curious if Upwork would ever implement total hourly fee cap - I often negotiate at total (on weekly) fee cap with clients,


That's very easily done with the weekly limit. If you want to set a cap of $ 1000 per week and your hourly rate is $ 50, for example, the client can set a weekly limit of 20 hours.

Petra, thank you, got you on the first part. 

 

On the second part it is my mistake - I made a typo (should be _not_ weekly, not _on_ weekly). The reason I need it is because I have projects that span several weeks and I often clients ask for a cap on hours.  

To give you an actual example - I negotiate the development of the the new financial model that takes about billable 12 billable hours. I has to be done in chunks (say 6 hours, 4 hours and 2 hours), as it requires feedback from the client. Often these chunks spun over few weeks. You can argue that I can use milestone, but it is a pain in the neck to set them up and fund them. Also if client realizes that the project does not make sense from the economic perspective, it is a pain in the neck to get money back to the client from the escrow (at least timewise). 

 

Setting overall cap on hours should not be a difficult thing to code in the Upwork platform.  

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