Retainers and subscriptions.
Run a client on a monthly, quarterly or yearly plan: record the subscription, show it in their portal, and generate the invoice for each period in one click.
Plenty of studios work for some clients on a retainer: a fixed fee per month for a steady flow of requests. UpRush supports this with a subscription on the client, paired with the client’s Dashboard mode and their active task limit, which together decide how much they can have in production at once.
Subscription or Projects mode
Every client has a Dashboard mode, set when you add the client (in the setup wizard or Settings → Clients) and changeable later. It controls how their portal frames the work:
| Mode | What the client sees |
|---|---|
| Subscription | Their plan on the portal cover: plan name, price per interval and the renewal date. The Active tile counts against their slots (for example “1 of 2”, with “Slot available” or “All slots in use”). |
| Projects | A simpler dashboard organised around their projects, without plan or slot details. |
Add a subscription
- Go to Settings → Clients and open the client.
- Choose Subscription. The Add subscription dialog opens.
- Fill in Plan name (for example “Content retainer”), the Price and the Billing interval: Monthly, Quarterly or Yearly.
- Set the Status: Active, Paused or Cancelled.
- Enter the Current period start and Current period end, and when the relationship Started on.
- Add any Notes for your team, then save.
Each client has one subscription. To change the plan, price or period, open Subscription again; the dialog becomes Edit subscription.
Invoice each period
When it is time to bill, choose Generate invoice for current period. You’ll find it in the subscription dialog and on the client’s page in Billing → Clients, under Subscriptions.
UpRush creates a draft invoice for the client with one line for the plan, labelled with the period (for example “Content retainer · subscription”, with an installment label such as “Mar–Apr 2026”). You’ll see a confirmation like “Draft IN_2026_0042 generated”. Review it, then send it as usual (see Invoices).
Retainer housekeeping
- Set the client’s active task limit to match what the retainer covers. The client can move requests between Queue and Active only while a slot is free. See Active task limit.
- Use Paused when a client takes a break, and Cancelled when the retainer ends, so your team can see the state at a glance.
- Record retainer payments like any other invoice. See Recording payments.
- Larger one-off pieces of work for a retainer client can still run as separate projects with their own value and invoices.