Why Doesn't UpWork Have Monthly Retainers?

[smitheli]

Hey guys,

I'm a first-time poster and long-time freelancer. I quit my day job primarily In part because of encouragement from Upwork. I'm super appreciative of the people I work with, thanks to Upwork connecting us. 

However, I've reached a blockade: monthly retainers. A client of mine requested to come off-platform (which I refused) to set up automatic ACH. They work on an automatic, monthly payment schedule, something that UpWork doesn't have a solution for. A single fixed-price contract is the only solution that meets her payment schedule, but it still requires us to step away from the desired automatic payments. 

Monthly retainers enable you to commit to a large quantity of work with a client under a fixed rate. Receiving an automatic payment at the beginning/end of every month allows you to focus on the job over fiddling with the payment. Overall, it provides more efficiency. 

I looked through announcements, plans, and other forum posts to find a few people mentioning the topic. However, other than reminding people about the existence of weekly retainers, there isn't much reason why we don't have this feature. Weekly retainers don't meet our needs here. 

So I'd like to raise awareness and start a discussion.

Why aren't monthly retainers a thing on UpWork? Do you want to see a monthly retainer on UpWork? 

Let me know your thoughts below. 

[prestonhunter]

Upwork already has the equivalent of monthly retainers.

I wanted to hire Jane using a $4000 monthly retainer.

I hired her using an hourly contract, and set the automatic weekly payment to $1000, thus implementing a $4000 monthly retainer.

Simple.

[petra_r]

---

Preston H wrote:

Upwork already has the equivalent of monthly retainers.

I hired her using an hourly contract, and set the automatic weekly payment to $1000, thus implementing a $4000 monthly retainer.

---

That does not create a monthly payment, it creates 4-5 weekly payments and 4 weekly payments of $1000 do not make $4000 a month.

[64963dc1]

Thanks for sharing!

[NikolaS]

Hi Eli,

Thank you for reaching out to us and sharing your interest in this feature. I would like to clarify that monthly payment is something that we're able to offer only to selected clients on the Enterprise plan. You can check this help article for more information.

Additionally, I will share your feedback with our team for further review and consideration.