Every retainer's hours used, every team member's load, every account trending over budget — visible in one place before scope creep becomes an uncomfortable invoice conversation. Clone the Retainer & Capacity Planner from Taskade Genesis and protect your margin the same week.
The live app above is the real system. Click "Use this app" to own a running copy in minutes: a working capacity board backed by a relational data table, with an AI agent that flags at-risk retainers and automations that alert you before the damage is done.
The margin problem agencies don't see coming
Scope creep doesn't announce itself. It accumulates: a few extra rounds of revisions here, an unplanned call there, a deliverable that grew. By the time you notice, the retainer is 120% burned and the client relationship is awkward. This planner surfaces the signal early.
Workspace DNA runs the whole margin loop:
- Memory — every retainer's agreed scope, hours logged, and billing cycle lives in a relational database with the Relationship field linking clients to retainers, retainers to team members, and team members to active tasks. History is always in context.
- Intelligence — an embedded AI agent with built-in tools reads the hours-versus-budget ratio for every active retainer, flags accounts trending over 80%, and identifies which team member is carrying the most unplanned work.
- Execution — built-in reliable automations send an alert the moment a retainer crosses your defined threshold — 80% of hours, 90% of budget, or a custom signal you set. No spreadsheet audit required.
The views your team actually uses
- Table view — hours planned vs. hours used per retainer, with budget burn rate and remaining balance
- Board view — team load by person: see who's overbooked before you assign the next task
- Calendar view — billing cycles, renewal dates, and upcoming scope reviews
- Gantt view — long-term campaign delivery against retainer windows (Timeline lives inside Gantt)
Share a read-only capacity summary with leadership using the roles — they see the portfolio health, not the task-level detail.
Connected to your whole agency stack
- 100+ bidirectional integrations: pull time-tracking data in from your tools, push at-risk alerts out to Slack or email — triggers pull events in, actions push data out
- The Relationship field links each retainer to its client, its proposals, and its delivery projects — so signed scope flows directly into the capacity view without manual entry
- Clone-and-own: the whole planner belongs to your agency — invite your full team with no per-seat tax
- Custom domains (Pro plan and up) + GenesisAuth (every plan): a client-facing capacity view for transparent retainer reporting at your own domain
Common questions
What counts as "hours used"? Do I need a time tracker?
You can pull time data via 100+ integrations from your preferred tracker, or log manually in the Table view. The AI agent works with either input — it reads what's there and flags the pattern.
Can I run this across 20+ retainer clients?
Yes. The Relationship field connects each retainer record to its client and team assignments. The Board view shows the full portfolio at once; filter to any client or team member in one click.
How does this connect to proposals and billing?
Pair with the Proposal Builder & Tracker so signed scope flows into capacity automatically, and with the Invoice Tracker so billing is triggered when a retainer cycle closes. Generate a custom capacity system from a prompt or browse live agency apps in the Community Gallery.