Updated July 16, 20266 min read
Written by Malcolm Reid Sr
Founder, President & CEO of ProGlobal Business Advisors
TL;DR
Add recurring revenue by moving from one-off projects to a monthly retainer built around something the client needs every month — a standing operating rhythm, reporting, or ongoing access. Charge monthly in advance on a rolling agreement. Group programmes and licensed tools add leverage. Retainers only hold if the client sees value land each month.
Why project revenue keeps you tired
Project work has a structural flaw that never resolves: every completed engagement empties your pipeline, and you cannot sell properly while you are delivering. So income arrives in waves, and you start each quarter at zero. Ten years in, that pattern is unchanged unless the model changes.
Recurring revenue is the fix, but only when it is honest. A retainer that exists to smooth your cash flow and does nothing for the client is a subscription they will cancel the first time they look at their expenses.
The rule: charge for something they need monthly
Recurring revenue requires a recurring need. That is the entire test. If the underlying need is one-off, dressing it as a retainer is just financing, and the client will work that out.
Real recurring needs in owner-led businesses are easy to find: the numbers have to be reviewed every month, decisions have to be made every month, the plan drifts every month, and somebody has to hold the owner to what they said. That is a genuine monthly job.
A retainer is not a payment plan. If the client cannot say what they got this month, you are financing your own cancellation.
Models that work
- Advisory retainer — a standing monthly operating rhythm: review the numbers, decide, commit, be held to it. The most durable model, and the one owners renew.
- Group programme — several clients, one delivery slot. Lower price per client, better margin per hour, and the peer group is often the product.
- Fractional role — a defined seat, a defined day-rate cadence. Highly predictable, though the ceiling is your calendar.
- Licensed tools and diagnostics — a platform or assessment the client uses continuously between sessions, so the value does not sit only in your presence.
- Ongoing implementation support — you built the system, you keep it working. Legitimate when the system genuinely needs tending, not when it is a make-work fee.
Models that mostly do not
The membership site is the classic error: a library of content at $97 a month. Churn is brutal, because owners do not have a content shortage — they have an implementation shortage. Recorded material has value as a component of something else. It rarely survives as the product.
Similarly, low-cost community access tends to fail without a delivery rhythm attached. A group chat is not a service. It is a place where a service could happen.
How to convert what you already have
- Look at your last five projects and find what the client needed after you left. That gap is your retainer.
- Define the monthly deliverable in concrete terms — this call, this review, this report, this decision.
- Price it against the monthly value, not the hours. Group $500–$2,500 a month; one-to-one advisory $1,500–$10,000 is the working range.
- Bill monthly in advance, rolling, with a 30-day notice period. Long lock-ins hide the fact that a retainer has quietly stopped delivering.
- Offer it at the end of the project, when the result is visible and the relationship is at its strongest. Not six months later by email.
- Review it every quarter, honestly. If there is no longer a job to do, say so and end it.
The part nobody mentions
Retainers create an incentive to keep the client dependent, and that incentive is worth naming out loud, because the industry mostly does not. If your income depends on the owner never becoming self-sufficient, you will unconsciously slow their progress. The defence is to price the retainer against a job that genuinely renews — judgement, accountability, the next constraint — rather than against the client's inability to run without you.
What is a good retainer for a coaching business?
One tied to a real monthly job — reviewing numbers, making decisions, holding the owner accountable — priced $1,500–$10,000 a month one-to-one depending on the value at stake. Not access for its own sake.
Should coaching retainers be locked into a contract?
A short initial term is fair, because structural work needs a quarter to show. After that, rolling with 30 days' notice. A lock-in that only exists to prevent cancellation is a warning sign about the offer.
Is a membership site good recurring revenue for coaches?
Usually not on its own. Churn is high because owners lack implementation, not information. Content works better as part of a programme with a live delivery rhythm attached.
Key takeaways
- Recurring revenue needs a recurring need — otherwise it's just financing.
- The durable model is a monthly operating rhythm, not a content library.
- Sell the retainer at the end of the project, while the result is visible.
- Name the incentive: never let your income depend on the client staying dependent.
About the author
Malcolm Reid Sr
Founder, President & CEO of ProGlobal Business Advisors
Malcolm Reid Sr is the founder, President and CEO of ProGlobal Business Advisors. Before founding the firm he spent more than 25 years in operating leadership, and by his own account generated over $1 billion in sales across the companies he led. He now advises business owners and trains the advisors who do this work.
- 25+ years in business and sales leadership
- $1B+ in sales generated across companies led (career total)
- Founder of ProGlobal Business Advisors, Columbia, Maryland