Ask the agent
How do I set up a retainer for an agent who lists ten homes a month?
A retainer is not a bulk discount. It is her buying your calendar before her sellers sign. Get this wrong and you have handed a ten-listing agent a permanent discount on a handshake.
She wants the word, not the discount
"Monthly rate" from a ten-a-month agent means something specific: am I first? Are you there Tuesday at ten? She is not shopping price. She is tired of booking.
The farm you are worried about giving away is the discount. She did not ask for one. "Monthly rate" was the only phrase she had for "put me on the calendar."
Top agents do not want cheap. They want it handled. The photos happen and she never thinks about it.
So reserve the slot, not the number. Two mornings a week are hers. That is what she is paying for.
Price the retainer off the package she already buys
The number starts from the sheet, not from a percentage off. Ten shoots at $390 is the base.
The retainer moves her up a package, not down a price. $999 where the listing needs video. She is listing ten homes a month; some of them need the full kit, and the retainer is where she stops deciding that one at a time.
Build the fourth column on the sheet. Call it Reserved. It sits next to $390, $999 and $1,499, it is built from the $999, and the calendar, the folder and the clip are listed under it.
Add what costs you nothing: same-day scheduling, her own folder, her clip cut first. Billed on the 1st, a set number of shoots included, unused ones roll 30 days and then they don’t.
That is what I wanted for ten years as an agent: the photos happen and I never think about it. The retainer is you selling exactly that.
A minimum term and a real reshoot rule
Two terms photographers skip, and skipping them is how a retainer becomes free work.
Three months minimum. Her listings do not stop. Neither does your Tuesday. A retainer that can end next week is not a retainer. It is a discount with a nicer name.
A relist is a reshoot, and a reshoot is a shoot. It counts against the ten. Say that before the first relist, not after.
If she leaves, the slots go to the next agent in two weeks. Put both terms on the checkout page where she buys it. Not in a contract she has to sign, not in a text she has to find later. Once, where the money is, and never again.
Happy to. I added a Reserved column to my sheet: two mornings a week, $999 where the listing needs it, billed on the 1st, three months. Hold Tuesdays?
A retainer sells your calendar, not a discount.
This week: add a ’Reserved’ column to your sheet, built from the middle package, and send it to her.
The three-package sheet I send agents
Put your numbers in it before your next booking. Free. Then take the sixty-second roadmap quiz and I tell you what to fix first.
Get the sheetGet my roadmapStraight answers
- Should I give a volume discount to a real estate agent who lists a lot?
- No. A retainer is her buying your calendar, not a bulk rate. Reserve two mornings a week, price it off the package she already buys, and move her up a package, not down a price.
- How do I structure a monthly retainer for real estate photography?
- Billed on the 1st, a set number of shoots included, unused shoots roll 30 days and then expire, three months minimum. A relist counts as a shoot.
- What should a photography retainer include besides the shoots?
- What costs you nothing: same-day scheduling, her own folder, her clip cut first. Reliability is the product. The discount is not.
Related questions
Julian Lundgren sold real estate for ten years before he shot a listing for money. He runs Cineminn, a Minneapolis real estate photography studio, and writes these answers from the agent’s side of the table. Send a question to info@cineminn.com.