> ## Documentation Index
> Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://usepike.com/docs/llms.txt
> Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further.

# Retainers

> Run recurring client work with a budget for hours, fee, and cost that resets every period.

A retainer is a project billed on a recurring schedule. Each period has its own budget for hours, fee, and cost, so you see margin per period instead of one blended number for the whole engagement.

![Retainer settings with billing period, hours, fee and cost budget per period](https://mintcdn.com/adjera/RIXwEC5yfXxaTFZp/images/changelog/25-09-2026-retainers.webp?fit=max\&auto=format\&n=RIXwEC5yfXxaTFZp\&q=85\&s=753dc11bb8971e60b8d727aac6e6c55a)

Admins and managers run delivery. Admins and finance members handle money.

## Create a retainer

There are two ways to start.

* In **Create project**, pick the **Retainer** tab. **Set up retainer** opens.
* On an existing project, open **Settings**, go to the **Retainer** section, and click **Enable retainer**.

The setup has these fields:

* **Billing period**: a number and Day, Week, or Month
* **Start date**
* **Open-ended** toggle, or a number of periods
* **Hours included per period**
* **Fee per period**
* **Cost budget per period**
* **Deduct expenses from budget burn**

Monthly periods are named by month, for example "October 2026". Open-ended retainers start with 6 periods. Click **Add period** to add more. Unused budget does not roll over between periods.

## Track a period

The project gets a **Retainer** tab with a period selector, including **All periods**. Its tabs are Overview, Invoices, Tasks, Time entries, and Settings.

Period KPIs:

* **Hours used**, with hours remaining
* **Revenue booked**, with money budget remaining
* **Cost**, against the cost budget
* **Profit (billable)**, with margin
* **Delivery burn**

The overview also shows planned vs actual hours and days remaining.

Time, expenses, and invoices count toward the period their date falls in. If work falls outside every period, a warning reads "This project also has X of work worth Y outside any retainer period".

To adjust a single period:

* **Edit budgets** changes hours, money, and cost.
* **Link invoices** attaches invoices to the period.
* Create task assigns a task to a period.

## Edit defaults

In retainer settings, **Edit defaults** changes the budget template. **Save** applies to upcoming periods only. **Save and override all periods** rewrites every period.

The project budget for money and hours equals the sum of all period budgets, and it is locked: "Budget set by retainer: Equals the sum of all retainer period budgets. Edit the periods to change it." The cost budget is not part of the project budget.

## Recurring retainer tasks

Use these for work that repeats every period, such as a monthly report. In **All periods**, open the **Recurring tasks** card and click **Add recurring task**. Pike creates one task per period.

Fields: Task title, Team, Assignee, Priority, Billable, Estimated hours, Due relative to (Period start or Period end), Due offset (days), Start offset (days), and Starts from period #.

Edits flow forward to upcoming periods unless someone changed a task by hand. Deleting a template stops future periods and keeps the tasks that already exist.

These are separate from general recurring tasks. See [Recurring tasks and invoices](https://usepike.com/docs/tasks/recurring.md).

## Related

See [Revenue recognition](https://usepike.com/docs/finance/revenue-recognition.md) for how retainer revenue is recognized and [Invoicing](https://usepike.com/docs/finance/invoicing.md) for billing each period.


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