“We have a law firm on retainer” sounds like a closed subject. In practice a retainer is an agreement for a pool of hours, and what comes out of it in a given month depends on the queue, on who asked first, and on how much is left in the pool. A fixed price per matter is a different unit: you pay for a result, not for time.
This piece is not about whether law firms are good. They are, and for many things there is no better option. It is about the unit in which you buy legal work, because that unit decides what you get, when and for how much. In the first piece of the series we collected the prices of a single contract review. Here we look at the retainer.
How a monthly retainer works
The public price lists of law firms describe the same mechanism. You pay a fixed amount every month, in return you get a limit of lawyer hours, and once it is used up every hour costs the hourly rate 11Kancelaria FIROST, “Stała obsługa prawna firm, kompleksowe wsparcie kancelarii prawnej” (Ongoing legal services for companies) (opens in a new tab). Retainers: micro and small firms 600 to 1,500 zł net a month for 3 to 7 hours, medium firms 1,500 to 3,500 zł for 6 to 14 hours, larger companies from 3,500 zł; after the limit every hour at the hourly rate; special projects priced separately. Read on 16 October 2026.22MDL Kancelaria Prawna, price list (opens in a new tab). Monthly packages: 4 hours for 1,600 zł net, 10 for 3,500 zł, 25 for 8,000 zł; extra hour 400, 375 and 350 zł net. Read on 16 October 2026..
- Packages of hours. One firm sells 4 hours for 1,600 zł net, 10 for 3,500 zł and 25 for 8,000 zł, with an extra hour at 350 to 400 zł net 2. Another: 4 hours for 1,200 zł, 8 for 2,200 zł, 16 for 4,000 zł and 32 for 6,400 zł net, with the extra hour costing from 400 zł on the smallest package to 100 zł on the largest 33Kancelaria BHPEX, price list (opens in a new tab). Monthly packages: 4 hours for 1,200 zł net, 8 for 2,200 zł, 16 for 4,000 zł, 32 for 6,400 zł; extra hour from 400 zł to 100 zł depending on the package; marked as illustrative. Read on 16 October 2026.. A third lists a 10-hour package at 3,200 zł net 44Ekspertonline.pl, “Ile kosztuje prawnik dla firmy? Ceny i modele rozliczeń” (How much does a lawyer for a company cost? Prices and billing models) (opens in a new tab), 5 September 2026. Examples from firms: 350 zł net per hour, a 10-hour package for 3,200 zł net a month..
- A retainer by company size. Micro and small firms from 600 to 1,500 zł net a month for 3 to 7 hours, medium firms from 1,500 to 3,500 zł for 6 to 14 hours, larger companies from 3,500 zł up 1. Examples from other firms: about 2,000 zł net a month for a company with 15 employees and about 12,000 zł for a plant with 250 people 55Kancelaria Lipiński, “Ile kosztuje obsługa prawna firmy. Cennik” (How much do legal services for a company cost) (opens in a new tab), 24 November 2022. Rate from 300 zł net per hour; about 2,000 zł net a month for a company with 15 employees and about 12,000 zł for a plant with 250 people; the subscription rate slightly lower than the rate after the hours run out; representation in proceedings outside the retainer., and in an interview with a trade site a range of 2,000 to 20,000 zł a month was given 66Log24.pl, “Ile kosztuje usługa prawna?” (How much does a legal service cost?) (opens in a new tab), 18 July 2020. A law firm quoted: hourly rate 220 to 400 zł net, retainer from 2,000 to 20,000 zł a month depending on client size and scope..
- What sits outside the retainer. Court representation is priced separately 5. Some packages exclude tax matters 77Kancelaria Staniszewski, “Stała obsługa prawna: cennik, zakres, warunki” (Ongoing legal services: prices, scope, terms) (opens in a new tab), updated 29 January 2021. Packages from 1,200 zł net for 6 hours for micro-entrepreneurs, from 1,500 zł for 5 hours for SMEs, from 3,000 zł for 10 hours for large companies; tax matters excluded.. Special projects get their own quote 1.
- What happens to unused hours. Most price lists do not say. If the agreement has no clause, assume they expire, and ask.
An hour in the pool costs less than an hour bought on its own. That is a real benefit of the retainer, and firms are right to stress it 5. The question is what that hour produces for you.
What an hour from the pool buys
An hour has no defined result. The same hour can be a review of half a contract, replies to three emails, or reading the file to recall the matter. All of that is honest work. But you do not know up front how many hours your matter will take, and the lawyer has no reason to promise it will take fewer.
Then there is the queue. The pool of hours at a firm is shared by many clients and served by the same team. If two clients have an urgent contract in the same week, one of them waits. A retainer buys availability, but it does not buy priority.
The third thing is the limit. An hour limit looks like protection from surprises, but it cuts both ways. In a quiet month you pay for hours you did not use. In a busy month you exceed the limit and get an invoice with the hourly rate on top. The billing looks like a flat fee, but it behaves like hourly billing with a minimum charge.
A retainer with an hour limit is hourly billing with a minimum charge. That is not a flaw. That is the definition.
What a fixed price per matter buys
A fixed price per matter turns the arrangement around. First the result is described: a review of a contract up to 25 pages with redlines and one revision round, a finished B2B contract template, the negotiation of one point through to signature. Then comes the price. If the work takes more time than the provider assumed, that is their problem, not yours.
On your side this changes three things. You know the amount before you say yes. You can compare two offers, because you are comparing the same result. And you do not manage hours, because there are no hours.
A fixed price has its own cost. Everything beyond the description is a new item: another round of changes, a second document, an extra question. For companies that prefer to pick up the phone and ask without thinking about scope, that can be tiresome. That is why a good fixed-price offer states clearly what is inside and what is not, and does not make you guess.
Clients, when asked, choose this model. In Clio's 2024 survey, 71 percent of clients preferred a flat fee for their entire matter, and 51 percent a flat fee for individual activities 88Clio, “Flat Fee Billing: A Win-Win Model for Clients and Lawyers” (opens in a new tab), press release for the 2024 Legal Trends Report. 71 percent of surveyed clients prefer a flat fee for their entire matter, 51 percent for individual activities; a US market survey.. That is a US survey, so treat it as a direction, not a Polish statistic.
The same month in both models
Take a services company with 20 people. In a typical month it has one contract from a counterparty to check, a few short questions about HR or an invoice, and once a quarter a new contract template.
On a retainer. An 8-hour package for 2,200 zł net 3 looks comfortable. A contract review takes 2 to 4 hours, the questions an hour, so in an ordinary month there is slack. In the month with a new template, which takes 4 to 6 hours, the pool runs out and a few hours at the hourly rate are added. Over a year you pay 26,400 zł net plus the overruns, and in three or four quiet months you buy hours nobody used.
At a fixed price. You pay for each item separately: the review, the question, the template. In a quiet month the bill for legal work is zero. In the month with a new template it is higher, but known before you order. You learn the annual total only at the end, but you know every component at the start.
Which model comes out cheaper depends on how even your stream of work is. The more irregular it is, the more a fixed price per matter wins. The more daily and small it is, the more a retainer makes sense.
When a retainer is better
- You are in daily contact with a lawyer: HR, complaints, letters to authorities, small questions that cannot sensibly be described as separate matters.
- You run court disputes and need one counsel who knows the history.
- You work in a regulated industry, where a person who has known your company for years matters.
- You use the hours evenly, month after month, and someone looks at the statement.
In those situations the pool of hours is an honest unit, because the work really has no end and no shape up front.
When a fixed price per matter is better
- The work can be described before it starts: a contract to check, a document to write, one point to negotiate.
- Your volume is irregular: two months of nothing, then three contracts in a week.
- You want to compare offers, and only the same result at different amounts can be compared.
- You have nobody in the company to watch hours, limits and carry-overs.
Many companies have both needs at once. It is sensible to keep a law firm for disputes and for matters without a shape, and to buy the work that can be described at a fixed price.
Questions before signing a retainer
- What happens to the hours I do not use, and for how long they carry over.
- What the rate above the limit is, and whether it depends on who does the work: a partner, an attorney or a trainee.
- What sits outside the retainer: court, tax, special projects, travel.
- Whether I get a monthly statement of hours with a description of what they went on.
- What the notice period is, and whether there is a trial period.
- In what form I receive the result: an email, comments, tracked changes in the document.
If the firm answers these questions without hesitation, its retainer is probably well designed. If the answer is “we always work it out somehow”, you will work it out after the fact.
How we do it at Kepta
Kepta does not sell a pool of hours. Standard work has a public fixed price per matter: a contract review by length, a document from scratch, a negotiation within an agreed scope. Custom work has one written scope and one price before the start. The current amounts are on the pricing page.
Our monthly plans are not an hourly retainer. A plan is a fee for the platform, meaning the contract register and deadline monitoring, plus a defined number of reviews or documents a month. Unused reviews carry over, up to three on the On Call plan. Work beyond the plan is billed at Price List rates, not by the hour. Our Retainer plan is called that because it gives continuity across matters, but the unit is still the matter, not the hour.
Kepta is a technology-driven legal-services company, not a bar-regulated law firm. Software supports delivery; lawyers review the legal work within the agreed service. Court matters and activities reserved for advocates and attorneys-at-law are work for a law firm, and we say so.
See plans and per-matter prices
This piece describes the market in general terms and is not legal advice. Package prices were read from the firms' price lists on 16 October 2026; three sources date from 2020 to 2022 and are quoted for scale, not as a current offer. The position is stated as at 16 October 2026.