Retainers, confirmed, you have to pay for them.

[ChoedanKal]

Well, their justification for the price is completely absurd. The price difference between a 1 character per server sub and the 8 character one is $4-5, so basically the same as the price for 2 retainers per month.
I don't see how 2 retainers for one character take up the same amount of storage space as 8 chars with 100 inventory + 13 x 25 armoury + 2 x 175 retainer slots PER character. It's such a blatant money grab, and it has no place in a P2P MMO.