BI Consulting Retainer: Ongoing Power BI Help on Hours That Never Expire

A BI consulting retainer usually means a fixed monthly fee for a set number of hours, and the hours you don't use that month are gone. Lightray Solutions does it differently: ongoing work runs on prepaid blocks of Power BI Flex Support hours that never expire, refilled when they run low.

You get what a retainer is for, the same senior consultant who already knows your model and your business, without paying for idle months. That consultant is Edward Pinela, MBA, every time.

Blocks are 20, 40 or 80 hours, from $2,500 for 20 hours, at $100 to $125 an hour, and nothing renews automatically. The first step is a free 30-minute strategy call.

How does a retainer on prepaid hours work?

You buy a block, agree a short list of priorities, and the hours are drawn down as work is done. When the balance runs low you decide whether to refill, change the block size or stop. There is no monthly invoice for unused time, no auto-renewal and no notice period, because nothing recurs until you choose it.

Block size follows your rhythm. A company with steady monthly changes might refill a 40-hour block every few months; one with a busy season might buy 80 hours before it and nothing after. Larger blocks carry the lower hourly rate. The table compares this with a conventional monthly-fee retainer.

What work fits a BI retainer?

Work that keeps arriving in small pieces, month after month, and is done faster by someone who already knows your model, your definitions and your people. If it can be written up as one deliverable with a finish line, it is usually cheaper as a fixed-price project. Typical retainer work:

• Monthly reporting changes. New measures, a new page for a department, a target that changed, a filter leadership keeps asking for.
• New data sources. A second CRM pipeline, a new payroll export or an acquired company's ledger added to the existing model.
• Small enhancements. Faster pages, clearer visuals, row-level security for a new team, a mobile layout for the sales manager.
• Platform changes. Microsoft ships a Power BI update every month, and some change how things behave, such as older Desktop versions losing the ability to save to OneDrive and SharePoint from October 2026.
• Questions and coaching. Short sessions that help your own people build on the shared model instead of exporting to spreadsheets.

How are priorities and reviews handled?

Through two light routines. Each month, your sponsor and Edward agree a short ranked list of what the hours should go to, and work is done in that order. Each quarter, a longer review looks back at what changed, which reports are actually used and what the next quarter's business changes will need.

Between those, requests come by email or Teams and get a reply within 4 business hours. Each request shows the hours it used, so you can see where the block went. If something urgent breaks, on-demand BI support explains how fast fixes are handled; if you only need occasional help, the hourly BI consultant page covers paying task by task.

Who is a BI retainer right for?

Companies whose Power BI reports are past the build stage and in daily use, with a steady trickle of changes but no full-time BI person. It also suits companies with a capable internal analyst who needs a senior person to check models and unblock hard problems.

It is the wrong fit if you need someone in the office every day, or if the reports have never worked properly. In the first case, hire. In the second, fix the foundation as a project first; a retainer maintains a sound model, it does not quietly rebuild a broken one. Trying it is low-risk: on Power BI work, if you don't like working with us within the first 4 hours of your first block, the money comes back to you.

Further reading: Microsoft Learn — What's new in the latest Power BI update (monthly).