Shares as fees. On the books.
Equity taken from a startup client shows on the invoice and in the record, at the value you agreed.
Industries · Management consulting firms
Advice on retainer. Hours on the record.
You price the retainer on value and size it in hours. Ceed keeps the hours and holds the one that would go over.
Northwind Foods · JuneHeld
43.0 of 40 h
Tue 23 Jun · 3.0 h · Board deck revisions, v4 · Marcus T.
Held for approval. 3.0 h over the client’s budget.
ApproveDecline
$12,000
the monthly retainer
40 h
the hours behind it
$300
the hour past it
$12
Ceed, this month
Version four. Still counted.
The client asks for one more pass on the board deck, and a retainer priced for forty hours quietly becomes fifty. Ceed counts every hour against the budget you sized the fee with, and hands the forty-first to a partner for a decision, before the month is gone.
Held. Not hidden.
The hour that would push a client over budget is saved, marked, and waits for a yes or no. Nothing is billed quietly. Nothing disappears.
- Logged
3.0 h · Northwind Foods · Board deck, v4
- Held
Over the 40 h budget. Waiting for a partner.
- Approved
On the June invoice, at $300 an hour.
One set of hours. Everything follows.
Associates and contractors. One set of hours.
The invoice, the associate’s payout and the partner’s commission come from the same entries. No second sheet.
Margin per client. This morning.
Revenue, cost and margin for every engagement, every day, visible to the partners and whoever they name.
Invoice · Northwind Foods · June 2026Computed
Advisory retainer · 40 h$12,000.00
Approved hours past the budget · 3.0 h at $300.00$900.00
Total$12,900.00
Computed from the agreement dated 12 May 2026. Nothing typed.
From the field. In their words.
What consultants say in public about retainers, scope creep and getting paid. Linked and dated. Not our words.
Said on X.
Unlike many of my peers, I’m not categorically opposed to the idea of keeping timesheets.
HOWEVER…
Custom work with no deposit and Net 90+ payment on a $100,000 project?
Look at the risk allocation:
Their risk: Zero. They pay nothing upfront. If they back out, they lose nothing.
Your risk: Everything.
Scope creep sucks..
But you know what’s worse?
Undercharging so badly that one extra request feels like a death sentence.
Charge more, stop sweating every little request.
Said on YouTube.
Said elsewhere.
- YouTubeConsultant Contract: What’s an Advisory Retainer Fee?Jonathan Stark · access retainers against buckets of hours
- RedditHow do you catch budget overruns before they kill your margin?r/consulting · March 2026 · late timesheets, burn checkpoints and change orders
- RedditScope creepr/consulting · October 2024 · the statement of work as the bible, and the change notice ready to go
- RedditBillable percent targets: are you all really working 80 to 100 percent on client work?r/consulting · May 2026 · boutique targets against what the timesheet says
- XWays to push back on scope creep without losing the client@BrianHonigman · June 2025
- PodcastUnleashed, episode 373: how to collect fees on timeUmbrex, Will Bachman · invoicing on signature so the payment pipes are connected
- ArticlePlease, never include rollover hours in your retainer contractBen Guttmann · February 2022 · each hour disappears from inventory every sixty minutes
Of what you invoice. That is the pricing page.
Invoice $12,000 this month for Northwind Foods and Ceed costs $12. A month you invoice nothing costs nothing. No seats, no tiers, no minimum.
Questions. Answers.
Our retainers are value-priced. Why would the team track hours against a number the client never sees?
Because you sized the fee with that number. The client sees the fee. You see whether the fee still fits the work.
Does the consultant find out before the client does?
Yes. The hold shows the moment the hour is logged, to the person who logged it and to the partner who decides. The client sees only the invoice.
Can the budget stay private to the partners?
The hours left per client are visible to the people who log them, so they can see the edge. Rates and margin are visible only to the people you grant, and the server enforces it.
We take equity from two startup clients. Does it show beside cash fees?
Yes. On the invoice and in the record, at the value you agreed, in the same month.
A fixed-fee project invoices $400,000 in one month. What does Ceed cost that month?
$400. 0.1% of what you invoice, that month and every month. The rate never moves.
From the blog: Held. Not hidden. The agreement said 40 hours. The month said 47. Other firms Ceed is for: Advisors · IT consulting · Fractional executives · all nineteen.