The one thing that made me stop losing money on contracts

I used to sign client agreements without ever talking about what happens if the project changes halfway through. Then I did a $4,200 website build for a shop near Portland last fall, and they added four extra pages and a custom form after the deal was done. I had no written rule for scope changes, so I ate the extra 20 hours of work. Now I put a sentence in every contract that says any new requests over 2 hours of work get billed at $85 an hour. It has saved me from at least three ugly conversations since November. Has anyone found a good way to handle small scope creep without making the client feel nickel and dimed?

3 comments

3 Comments

nathan_kim11d ago

$4,200 for a website build and they just tacked on four extra pages and a custom form for free? Dude, I would have lost my mind. That's like an extra week of work for a small shop owner who probably thinks "it's just a couple more clicks." I had a similar thing happen with a real estate agent who wanted me to add a property search feature after we already agreed on a basic landing page. Good on you for sticking that $85/hour clause in there, I need to do the same thing because my blood pressure can't take another "oh by the way" email.

carr.luna10d ago

Have you ever tried adding a flat rate for "scope creep" at the start of a project? I started bundling common extras into a higher base price, and it cut way down on those surprise requests. Clients seem to respect it more when they see the full list upfront, lol.

adam41410d ago

That $85 an hour line is smart (and honestly probably still too cheap for custom dev work), but I'd also add a minimum 1-hour billing increment so they don't nickel and dime you back with a bunch of tiny 15-minute requests.