For independent consultants
RetainerMeter gives you live burn tracking, professional invoices, and complete peace of mind over every client retainer — all running locally on your desktop, no subscriptions, no cloud.
Windows · 30-day free trial · €79 one-time · No account needed
| Client | Project | Mon | Tue | Wed | Thu | Fri | Total |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Acme Strategy | Planning | 2 | — | 3 | — | 4 | 9.0 |
| Vertex Digital | Sprint 4 | 4 | 4 | 3 | 4 | 3.5 | 18.5 |
| Meridian PMO | Governance | 6 | 8 | 6 | 6 | 6 | 32.0 |
The problem
You log hours at the end of the week and realise you burned through a client's retainer days ago. No warning, no pacing, no visibility — just an awkward conversation about an invoice that's going to be higher than expected.
Cross-referencing a time log with a rate table, calculating overage, building an invoice in Word, hoping the numbers match — every month, from scratch. It takes hours and introduces errors that undermine your professionalism.
A single spreadsheet with no versioning, no backup strategy, and no audit trail. Three years of billing history, one accidental overwrite.
How it works
Step 01
A keyboard-first weekly grid lets you tab through days and clients at full speed. Autosave means you never lose an entry. Copy last week's structure with one click at the start of each week.
Step 02
Live burn cards update as you type. Each card shows hours used, hours remaining, overage risk, and whether you're ahead or behind the expected pace for the month — so you can act before it becomes a problem.
Step 03
RetainerMeter generates a branded HTML invoice with your logo, line items, notes, retainer fee, overage, and tax. Mark it sent, record payment, track outstanding balances — all in the billing panel.
Features
Burn cards update in real time as you enter hours. Pace indicators tell you whether you're ahead or behind the expected monthly burn — before the month ends.
Hourly, flat monthly retainer, or retainer plus overage. Each generates the correct invoice structure automatically — no manual calculation.
Mark an invoice as sent and it locks. Correcting a prior week's hours won't silently change an amount you've already invoiced. A proper audit trail.
Tab, Enter, and arrow keys navigate the entire grid. Undo and redo stack. Copy last week in one keystroke. Faster than any spreadsheet once learned.
Your data lives on your machine. No cloud account, no monthly SaaS fee, no vendor lock-in. Atomic writes and validated backup/restore protect against data loss.
Configure your currency, tax label, and tax rate. Invoice formatting uses your locale. Rollover hours for clients who negotiate unused hour carry-over.
Your data stays on your machine. RetainerMeter stores everything in a local JSON file. There is no account to create, no data uploaded anywhere, no privacy policy to worry about for your client information.
Works offline, always. No internet connection needed to log hours, view burn cards, or generate invoices. It's a desktop app that behaves like one.
One price, yours to keep. Pay once, use it for the current major version indefinitely. No subscription that stops working if you cancel. Your billing history remains accessible.
Pricing
No subscription. No per-seat fees. No surprises.
Download the free 30-day trial. No account. No credit card. Just the app.
Windows 10 / 11 · Ubuntu 22.04+ AppImage · No account required