Executive Summary
A done for you content writing retainer rarely costs what the headline price says. The base fee covers the easy part. The add-ons cover the work that makes content actually publishable. This case study walks through one real contract where a $2,400 monthly retainer turned into $5,100 in month one and the two changes that brought it back under control.
The Client and the Deal
Dana runs marketing for a 12-person B2B software company. She had one content writer on staff and he was stretched thin. So she signed a done for you content writing package.
The pitch looked clean: eight articles a month at 900 words each. The price was $2,400 per month, which works out to $300 per article. On paper that beat the $650 a freelancer had quoted her for the same volume.
She signed a 12-month deal in March. By April she was already confused about why the invoice looked different from the proposal.
What the Retainer Actually Covered
Dana reread the contract after the first bill. The base fee covered drafting. That was it.
Drafting meant the writer produced a first pass from a topic Dana supplied. Everything around that draft sat outside the retainer.
So the $300 per article was really the price of a rough draft. The rest of the work, the part that turns a draft into something you can publish, got billed separately.
The Add-Ons That Showed Up
Here is where the money went in month one.
- Keyword research: $400. The retainer assumed Dana would hand over target keywords. She did not have a keyword list, so the vendor built one and charged for it.
- Revisions past two rounds: $350. Two rounds sounds generous until two editors touch the same article. Round three onward cost $75 each.
- Image sourcing and formatting: $300. Stock images and on-page formatting were billed as production work.
- Publishing and CMS upload: $250. Someone had to log in and post the articles. That task had its own fee.
- Strategy calls: $600. The monthly planning call was billed at $150 per hour and it ran four hours over the quarter.
Dana added it up. Base retainer plus add-ons came to $4,300 in month one. One extra revision cycle pushed the real total to $5,100.
Run the Real Math
The proposal said $300 per article. The invoice said $637 per article.
That is the number that matters. Divide your total monthly invoice by the articles you can actually publish.
Do this before you sign, using the vendor’s own numbers. Ask what a busy month looks like. Ask which line items appear on almost every invoice. Most sales reps will tell you if you ask in plain terms.
Why the Add-Ons Hide So Well
Buyers compare the base price against freelancers. The base price usually wins.
The catch is that a good freelancer quotes the whole job. Keyword research, two revision rounds, image selection, upload. One number covers all of it.
A done for you content service often quotes the smallest slice and prices the rest as extras. That makes the comparison unfair from the start.
Dana was comparing a full-service quote to a partial-service price.
The Two Changes That Fixed It
Dana did not cancel the contract. She renegotiated in month two.
Change one: build the inputs herself
She spent one afternoon building a keyword list and a topic calendar. That single task removed the $400 research fee and cut the strategy calls down to one short check-in. Giving the vendor research ready to use took that cost off the table for good.
Change two: cap the revision loop
She set a rule. One consolidated round of edits per article, no exceptions. Her team collects every change in one document. No more scattered emails that drag a draft into round four.
Those two moves knocked roughly $900 off the monthly bill. Real cost per article dropped from $637 to $412.
What This Means for Anyone Buying Content
Before you sign a done for you content writing deal, ask for a sample invoice from a normal month, not the proposal.
Then compare that number to a freelancer who quotes the whole job. If the retainer still wins, sign it with confidence.
The One Thing to Remember
Dana kept her vendor and cut her real cost by a third, simply by owning the research and closing the revision loop. You can do the same thing this week. Build your keyword list and set one edit round per piece.
Read the full guide: What Nobody Tells You About Content Writing Before You Buy a Done For You Service