How do I price a monthly retainer for my web design business?
Price it so it clears your hourly rate even if every client uses their full allowance. At $100 an hour, a care plan with hosting, updates, backups and up to an hour of edits needs to be about $175 a month: $175 minus about $25 of hosting and licences, over 1.5 hours of work, is $100 an hour. Twelve clients is $2,100 a month, $25,200 a year.
12 clients = $2,100/month, $25,200/year, at your full rate even in the worst month.
Most web designers underprice retainers because they price them against the time they expect to spend rather than the time they have promised. Some clients will use every minute. The plan has to be profitable for those clients, with the quieter clients as upside.
Separate the care plan from project work. Hosting, updates, security and a small edit allowance belong in a recurring fee; a new page, a redesign or new functionality is a quoted project. Letting projects leak into the retainer is how a $175 plan turns into ten hours a month.
Unused hours should not roll over indefinitely. A one-month rollover is generous; anything longer builds up a bank of prepaid hours that all get called in at once, usually when you are busiest.
Offer the plan at launch, not months later. At handover the client is thinking about who looks after the site, and that is when most retainers are agreed.
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Figures are typical ranges for small businesses in the UK, US and Canada, given so you can check them against your own books rather than take them on trust. They are arithmetic on stated assumptions, not a forecast, and not financial advice.