Billing models
Retainer invoicing, automated.
How Handl bills your retainers on time, every cycle — and tells you when you're giving the work away.
The problem
Why retainers break most invoicing tools
Retainers look like the easy one. Same fee, same date, every month. So why does it go wrong? Because the invoice is the easy part. The hard part is everything around it. Most invoicing tools treat a retainer like a recurring charge and stop there — they'll fire out “$4,000, due net 14” on the 1st and call it a day. But a retainer isn't really a subscription. It's a promise to do a chunk of work for a fixed fee — and the whole thing only makes money if the work stays inside the fee.
That's where it falls apart. The fee is fixed but the hours aren't. One month a client goes quiet and you're up. Next month they want three rounds of revisions, a last-minute deck and a “quick favour” — and you're 11 hours over without noticing. Your recurring-invoice tool can't see any of that. It doesn't know the work. It just bills the same number while your margin quietly bleeds out the side. The retainer that “runs itself” is usually the one losing you the most money.
“Hours delivered can quietly exceed the fee. That's the retainer trap in one line.”
How Handl handles it
Handl plugs into the place the work actually lives — so it doesn't just bill the calendar. It watches the work behind the fee.
Bills on the cycle, automatically
Set the fee and the date once. Handl raises and sends the invoice every cycle, pushes it to Xero or MYOB, and reconciles it against Stripe when it lands. You stop “remembering the 1st.”
Tracks hours against the fee in real time
Pulls logged time from your PM tool and shows included vs delivered as the month runs — not three weeks after you've already lost the margin. Amber flag when you're close, red when you're over.
Turns overage into a change order, not an awkward email
When you blow past the included hours, Handl drafts the extra-hours line for you. One click and it's billed — instead of you eating it because the conversation felt too hard.
Chases the late ones for you
Retainer didn't clear? The AI billing agent sends the reminders on your schedule, in your tone, so you're not the bad guy every month.
This is the bit nobody else does. Your accounting tool holds the money but has no idea you went 11 hours over. Your PM tool knows you went over but can't bill a cent. Handl sits between them and connects the work you did to the money you're actually owed.
Mix and match
Works alongside your other billing models
Most agencies don't run pure retainers. You've got a couple of retainer clients, a project on milestones, an hourly overflow client and the odd fixed-fee one-off. Handl runs all four at once — no separate tool, no separate logic.
Integrations
Works with the tools you already run.
Monday, Asana, Jira, ClickUp and Trello for the work. Xero and MYOB for the books. Stripe for the payments.
Pricing
From $29/mo. Unlimited retainers on every plan.
Unlimited retainers, unlimited clients, on every plan — solo at $29, up to 3 seats at $99, unlimited team at $199. No “contact us for the retainer module.” Most retainer tools that actually track hours charge per user — the bill grows with every account manager you add. Handl prices by plan, not per head, and the top one caps at $199/mo however big you get. A freelancer with two retainers pays $29. A 10-person studio running twenty knows exactly where the ceiling is. Talk to Darren →
Get started — $29/mo
Reclaim your time
Stop being your own debt collector.
Get paid faster with automated invoicing and reminders.
