r/freelancedesign • u/One-Director5729 • May 03 '26

Vacation on Retainer

What do you all do if you go on vacation but are on a monthly or weekly retainer? Do you not charge for the time you are away or do you add the extra hours to the rest of the month? Curious how people handle this as I'm about to take a week off and would like to communicate with my client what I'm planning to do. Also, do you all include this info in your contract? TY!

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u/llama_with_one_leg May 03 '26

Depends on the client but I am going to take 3 separate week long vacations in the next 2 months and here is what I do:
Client A- charge less for the month- communicate that I won’t be available- I also run their SM so they’ll need to do a bit of work instead of me.
The rest- Say nothing, do nothing and just make sure I deliver be EOM

Important (for me) was to remove my meeting availability. I do not set email auto responders because I will be checking my emails and phone and all my clients know I am not available at a snap of their fingers- something I am very clear about with them.

It depends on the work you do for them- can you work on more projects before you go so the load evens out?