Agencies lose an average of 18% of monthly retainer revenue to untracked revisions and unbilled overages. Stackon combines real-time retainer ledgers, automated rollover caps, pre-work deficit alerts, and 1-click Stripe overage billing starting at $19/mo.
Unbilled revisions, ad-hoc Slack requests, and uncapped rollover hours quietly destroy agency profit margins. See how much billable revenue Stackon protects each year.
28.0 hours burned on unbilled tasks, representing 14.6% of your active retainer billing.
Recovered directly to agency profit margins through automated balance warnings and 1-click Stripe overage invoices.
Compared to Stackon’s $49/mo Studio plan ($588/yr) with 5 seats included and unlimited free client accounts.
When agency retainers are managed across spreadsheets, separate time trackers, and email threads, profits leak from every client account.
Your team tracks hours in Harvest while the client asks for ad-hoc deliverables in Slack. At the end of the month, the agency realizes it executed 32 hours on a 20-hour retainer. You send an invoice for the extra 12 hours ($1,800), and the client pushes back angrily: "Nobody told us we were over capacity!" You end up writing off the unbilled time.
The Stackon Solution:
Pre-work deficit warnings. If a client request will exceed their remaining monthly capacity, Stackon flags the deficit before creators start work and prompts an overage deposit via Stripe.
You promise a client that "unused hours roll over" to make the retainer sale. In months 1, 2, and 3, the client uses only 5 out of 25 hours. In month 4, they suddenly claim all 60 accumulated rollover hours at once, demanding urgent delivery that paralyzes your agency production schedule.
The Stackon Solution:
Automated rollover caps and expiration rules. Enforce policies like "maximum 5 hours roll over" with automatic 30-day expiration windows to safeguard agency delivery capacity.
Every Friday, agency founders and project managers waste 3 to 5 hours exporting CSVs from time-tracking apps, compiling Google Sheets, updating client balance tabs, and emailing PDF statements. When spreadsheet formulas break or numbers don't match, clients doubt agency integrity.
The Stackon Solution:
Live client ledger portal. Hours deduct automatically from deliverable tasks. Clients open their portal at any time to see live burn meters, task line items, and remaining hours.
Clients on retainers send daily messages: "Can you change this banner copy?" or "Can you resize this ad?" Creators complete these 20-minute tweaks without logging time because creating a task is cumbersome. By month-end, 15 to 20 hours of billable work disappear into the void.
The Stackon Solution:
Integrated task intake briefs. All requests enter as structured ledger items with designated time allocations, ensuring every minute of agency work is tracked and billed.
Purpose-built financial mechanics that protect agency capacity and capture every billable dollar.
Define monthly retainer hour pools (e.g., 20 hours/month at $150/hr), cycle reset dates, and assigned team members. As creators and contractors log time against deliverable tasks, hours automatically deduct from the client ledger with visual burn progress bars.
Stop letting unused retainer hours pile up into unmanageable agency debt. Set strict rollover policies (e.g., maximum 5 hours carried forward into the next month) and automatic expiration rules. Clients receive fair rollover value without creating sudden capacity crunches.
If a client submits a 6-hour website update on the 26th of the month and only has 2 hours remaining in their retainer ledger, Stackon immediately flags a 4-hour deficit before your team starts working in Figma or Webflow, stopping unbilled scope creep.
When hours exceed the monthly allowance, Stackon automatically calculates the difference at your agreed hourly rate and drafts an itemized Stripe invoice. Clients review and approve overages with one click directly inside their white-label portal.
How creative agencies and consultancies recaptured five figures in lost billings by implementing automated ledgers.
The Setup: An agency managed 12 client retainers at $2,500/mo (20 hours each). Without automated balance alerts, the team worked an average of 24 hours per client, giving away 48 unbilled hours ($6,000 value) every month.
The Stackon Setup: Activated pre-work deficit alerts and 1-click Stripe overage billing. Overages are now automatically flagged and billed upfront, increasing monthly gross billing by $2,900.
The Setup: A client paid for 30 hours/month but barely used 10 hours for three consecutive months. In Q4, the client demanded 70 hours of emergency holiday campaign work all at once, overwhelming the design team.
The Stackon Setup: Configured a strict 5-hour monthly rollover cap with 30-day expiration rules. Capacity is protected, and the client now plans retainer work consistently.
The Setup: The agency founder spent every Friday afternoon exporting Harvest logs into Google Sheets to show 8 retainer clients where their hours went.
The Stackon Setup: Enabled the transparent client portal retainer view. Clients track active burn meters and deliverable tasks in real time, saving 16 founder hours per month.
Compare automated ledger accounting against disconnected time-tracking stacks across scope protection, transparency, and monthly overhead.
Real-Time Retainer Ledger Engine
Both agency and client share a single transparent ledger of truth.
Pre-Work Balance Checks
Prevents uncomfortable month-end invoice disputes over unexpected hours.
Configurable Rollover Hour Caps
Eliminates clients hoarding 60 unused hours and demanding immediate delivery.
Automated Stripe Overage Deposit Billing
Recaptures thousands of dollars in billable overages every single month.
Client-Facing Retainer Dashboard
Builds client trust and eliminates repetitive "how many hours left?" emails.
Visual Canvas Proofing on Retainer Deliverables
Review marketing assets and design deliverables right where hours are tracked.
1-Click Invitation & Portal Entry
Clients actually use the portal instead of falling back to WhatsApp or Slack.
Monthly Software Cost (5 Creators + Unlimited Clients)
Saves over $1,750 annually by consolidating retainer tracking with client delivery.
Client Guest Seat Charges
Never hesitate to invite multiple client reviewers or finance contacts.
Custom Domain White-Labeling
Delivers an enterprise-grade client experience under your own agency identity.
Direct answers to common operational questions regarding retainer ledgers, rollover caps, and Stripe overage billing.
Standalone time trackers (like Harvest or Toggl) record time entries, but they are completely disconnected from the actual client deliverables, task queues, and client-facing portals. Agency owners must manually export CSVs, update formulas in Google Sheets, and email static reports at month-end. By the time an overage is detected, the agency has already completed 15 unbilled hours. When the client receives a surprise invoice, disputes erupt. Stackon connects retainer hours directly to live deliverable tasks: clients see their live burn rate inside their portal, and the system flags deficits before work begins.
Stackon includes a configurable rollover policy engine. Agency founders can define exact rollover caps per client agreement (for example: a 20-hour/month retainer allows a maximum of 5 unused hours to roll over into the next billing cycle). You can also set expiration rules, such as requiring rolled-over hours to expire after 30 or 60 days. This gives clients the flexibility they appreciate without exposing your agency to catastrophic capacity crunches where a client hoards 50 hours and demands immediate execution.
When a team member estimates or logs hours on a new client request that exceeds the client’s remaining balance, Stackon triggers an automatic deficit alert. For example, if a client submits an 8-hour landing page redesign but only has 3 hours remaining, the system warns your project manager that 5 hours will be out of scope. Stackon allows you to generate a 1-click Stripe overage invoice at your pre-agreed hourly rate (e.g., 5 hours × $150 = $750) and collect payment or client authorization before production work begins.
Yes. Clients have a dedicated Retainer Statement tab in their white-label portal. They can view their total monthly allowance, rollover hours applied, hours burned to date, and remaining balance. Below the burn meter, clients see an itemized breakdown of deliverable tasks with hours logged, assignee, completion date, and direct links to the approved deliverables.
Yes. Stackon operates as a secure two-sided workspace. Your internal team dashboard allows you to record internal contractor hourly costs alongside the client billing rate. Freelancers and junior contractors see only the specific tasks assigned to them. External clients see only their clean billing statement and client-facing hours logged, keeping your internal margins and contractor pay rates 100% confidential.
Yes. Stackon supports hybrid agency business models. You can configure self-service checkout packages for recurring monthly retainers (e.g., $3,000/mo for 20 hours), flat-rate productized subscriptions (e.g., $4,000/mo Unlimited Design with 1 active request), and one-off fixed deliverables (e.g., $2,500 SEO Technical Audit). Everything runs through your integrated Stripe Connect account under one roof.
Stackon uses flat-rate agency pricing with unlimited client accounts on every tier: the Solo plan is $19/mo (1 internal seat), the Studio plan is $49/mo (includes 5 internal seats), and the Agency plan is $79/mo (includes 20 internal seats). Additional seats are just $7/mo each. You can onboard 10, 50, or 200 retainer clients without paying a single dollar in client seat fees.
Yes. Built-in visual canvas proofing is included across all plans. When your team delivers design mockups, wireframes, or marketing graphics (PNG, JPG, WebP, SVG) under a retainer agreement, clients can click directly on the canvas to drop numbered feedback pins. Revisions are inspected with a side-by-side diff slider, eliminating the need to pay $15/seat for third-party tools like MarkUp.io.
Set up your first retainer ledger in less than 2 minutes. Define your hour pool, configure rollover caps, and test pre-work balance alerts without entering a credit card.
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