What happens when we outgrow our retainer tier?

You move up a level, and the effective hourly rate goes down. Going from 20 hours at $3,500 to 40 hours at $6,750 takes your rate from $175 an hour to about $169. The harder question is whether you have actually outgrown the tier or just have a queue problem.

The signals that say you have outgrown it

• The hours run out before the month does, every month. Once is a busy month. Three months in a row is a sizing problem.
• The request queue never clears. If items keep rolling to next month, you are not buying capacity, you are buying a waiting list.
• You added scope. A second ad platform is $350 a month. A second location on SEO is $350 a month. Two or three of those and the tier underneath them needs to move too.
• Ad spend crossed $15,000 a month. Above that, the 10% fee exceeds the $1,500 minimum and your program is large enough to justify more hands on it.

The signal that means something else entirely

If the problem is that nobody is deciding what to do, more hours will not fix it. You will just execute more things, faster, in more directions. That is a leadership gap, not a capacity gap, and the answer is a fractional CMO at $195 an hour, typically 10 to 20 hours a month, sitting above the execution rather than adding to it. We will tell you when we think that is the actual problem.

What does not mean you have outgrown it

One chaotic month. A single large launch, which is better handled as a project. Or wanting results faster, which is usually a spend question or a timeline question rather than an hours question. Buying a bigger retainer to make SEO go faster does not make Google move faster.

How the change happens

Thirty days notice either direction, and the new rate starts the next billing cycle. There is no upgrade fee and no penalty for moving back down later. Current tiers are on the retainers page.

Related: Does LevelUp Digital offer retainer services?, What size businesses do you work with?, How many hours does a fractional CMO need?