Retainers, confirmed, you have to pay for them.

[Nenin]

Retainers were going to be $1 in legacy XIV also, so I don't even get where they justify $2 in ARR for a much less broken game, with a much higher subscription base, outside of business reasons.

Maybe they see a steady decline in subscriptions and they are trying to milk everything they can before going F2P?

inb4 $15 fantasia potions