Retainer math, plainly
A monthly plan is usually obviously worth it or obviously not. The third case is genuinely yours to call.
Subscriptions are easy to sell and easy to resent. So rather than describe ours, here is the arithmetic on three real shapes of client — our published one-off prices worked out line by line, as the benchmark any monthly quote from us has to beat.
We sell both, and the monthly one is better for us. Which is why every number below is one you can check against the pricing pages, and why one of the three examples ends with us telling you not to subscribe.
What each thing actually contains
This is the part that makes the comparison work, and the part people skip. A plan is not a discount on reels — it’s a fixed monthly bundle with a set number of deliverables in it.
One-off: $750 buys one edited vertical reel, a square crop, and about five edited photos from the same capture. Each additional reel on the same shoot is $250. Usage rights and cleared audio included.
Monthly: quoted to the gallery or artist, not published as a fixed number. The quote is built from how many sessions, reels and photos the month actually needs, and whether you post them or we do. Three-month minimum, then month to month.
So the honest comparison is never “plan versus however many reels you want.” It’s a monthly quote versus the same content, bought one at a time. The one-off side has published prices, so it gives you a hard benchmark. That’s what the three examples below work out.
One-off prices as published on our social reels page. How monthly work is scoped is on the monthly media page.
Three worked examples
The method: price the content you actually need as one-offs, using the published numbers. That total is the line a monthly quote has to beat, or justify with what it adds. Where a plan isn’t even in contention, we say so. That’s the first example.
The gallery that posts around shows
Two or three openings a year and quiet in between. Wants a reel when something is actually happening.
- One reel, one-off
- $750
- Times three, across the year
- $2,250
- A monthly plan instead
- Twelve months billed for three busy weeks
- Cheaper option
- One-off
Don’t subscribe. Event-driven posting is what one-offs are for. A plan here means paying twelve months to cover three busy weeks, and you’d feel it by month four. Buy the $750 reel when the show goes up.
The studio building a steady feed
Wants to post consistently, handles their own captions and scheduling, doesn’t want to think about it beyond that.
- Three reels from one one-off shoot ($750 + $250 + $250)
- $1,000/mo
- Photos that come with it
- ~5
- Same three reels from three separate visits ($750 × 3)
- $2,250/mo
- Benchmark for a monthly quote
- $1,000 to $2,250/mo
This is where a monthly quote earns a look. If all three reels can come from one shoot, one-offs cost $1,000 a month and that is hard to beat. If they need three separate visits because the work changes through the month, one-offs cost $2,250, and a monthly quote built around a recurring session usually lands well under that while adding more photos than the one-off route’s five.
So ask for the monthly number with your one-off total next to it. If the quote is not clearly better on price or on what it includes, buy one-offs. We’d rather say that here than have you find out in month four.
The brand that wants it off their desk
Five reels a month, twenty photos, and no interest in writing captions or scheduling anything.
- Five reels from one one-off shoot ($750 + $250 × 4)
- $1,750/mo
- Captions, scheduling, posting
- Not included in one-offs
- What a monthly quote adds
- Posting, captions, more photos
Here the monthly quote should cost a bit more on content, and that’s the point. $1,750 a month is the content-only floor. Whatever a monthly quote adds above it pays for captions, scheduling, posting on your platforms, and more photos than the one-off route produces. Whether that difference is worth it depends on how many hours a month posting currently costs you, which is a number only you have.
Arithmetic shown in full so you can check it. One-off pricing is $750 for the first reel on a shoot and $250 for each additional reel on that same shoot. Monthly work is quoted, so bring your one-off total when you ask.
When not to subscribe to us
One piece a month — don’t. One reel is $750 outright, and a monthly arrangement exists to spread the cost of turning up across several pieces. With one piece there is nothing to spread. At two it is close; three is where a monthly quote usually starts to pull ahead.
If your posting is genuinely event-driven — don’t. An opening, a launch, a fair. Those are one-offs by nature, as the first example above works out in full.
If you’re not sure the content is doing anything — not yet. Do a one-off, watch what happens, decide after. We’d rather you subscribed on evidence than on intention. There’s a three-month minimum on plans, so it’s a real commitment and worth being sure.
What genuinely tips it: a rhythm you already keep, or one you keep failing to keep and would rather hand over. Price the month as one-offs first, then ask for the monthly quote. The gap between those two numbers is the whole judgement call, and it’s yours rather than ours.
Tell us what you actually make
We’ll tell you which of the two is cheaper for you, including when that’s the one-off. No call needed — we’ll just reply.
Full plans on the monthly media page, one-off pricing on social reels.