Deposit vs. Retainer
A deposit is an upfront part-payment for one specific job, applied to that job’s final invoice. A retainer is money paid in advance to hold your availability over time, for work that hasn’t been scoped yet. Mixing them up confuses ongoing clients about what they’ve already paid for.
What it means
A deposit belongs to a job you’ve already quoted — 25 to 50% upfront on a kitchen remodel, credited straight off the final bill. It exists to cover your materials and protect your time before you start, and it disappears into that one invoice once the job’s done.
A retainer works differently: a client pays it to guarantee you’re available — a set number of hours a month, or first call on their work — before there’s a specific job to quote. It usually gets drawn down as work happens, or refreshed each period whether or not it was fully used, which is why the terms need to be written down clearly.
A remodel client pays a $1,200 deposit against a $4,000 quoted job — it’s subtracted from the final invoice. A separate maintenance client pays you a $500 monthly retainer just to have you on call, which you draw down as call-outs happen through the month.
Calling a job deposit a “retainer” (or the reverse) in the quote — a client who thinks they’ve paid a retainer for ongoing access gets a surprise when you treat it as a one-off deposit that’s already been used up.
See also
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