I'm a Linux SysAdmin in Sunnyvale, clients are all over. I don't do a lot of consulting, maybe one day a month or so, give or take. But I usually charge around $100/hr. I've gone as high as $200 and as low as $80 in recent times, but $100 is usually the target. Of course, my prices float based on how much I want the work; If prgmr.com just handed out a big credit and/or I'm drooling over some new hardware, you can of…
The plans I always presented were multi-tiered. I always found that companies were more open to talking numbers when then felt that they had options. I also only do retainers on a month-to-month basis. I tried a yearly retainer once and it did not work out for me or the client.
Basically, my retainers worked like this:
* The client pays for X amount of hours a month
* The size of X determined many factors of the relationship
- how much they pay per hour
- how their work was weighted against my other work
- whether they paid after-hours rates or not (typically, I charge double for calls after normal business hours)
- whether I would guarantee same day/24/48/72 hour service
- how much they paid for hours over X
- how much they paid for phone/remote support and if those hours were included in the monthly agreement or not
* X hours were guaranteed to the client each month and we generally set a schedule weekly. If they paid for 24 hours a month, I would be at their business 6 hours a week, no matter if they called or not.
I billed monthly, and the client was expected to pay within 10 days. Some wanted to pay me up front, but I never worked well that way so I discouraged it. The clients that I still do work for started off as retainer clients. Since that time, I have structured my work-flow to only include them and we no longer need an agreement. Many monhts, I have made more than I would have had we maintained the retainer (because of discounts) and most months it's about the same.