Client said 'just use Canva' after I quoted 3 weeks of design work

Found out last Tuesday that a client I'd been sending mockups to for 6 months was secretly screenshotting my PDFs and having his nephew 'clean them up' in Canva, and he told me my $2,400 invoice was too much since 'the software does it now.' Has anyone else had a client brag about undercutting your process with a free tool and still expect you to fix their mess afterward?

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cora_west512d ago

The software does it now" hit different when they came crawling back three weeks later because their Canva exports kept turning into pixel soup at print size. I had a similar thing happen with a restaurant menu project, client bragged about using a template site, then asked me to "just fix the colors" after they'd already paid the nephew. I told them straight up, happy to help, but my retainer rate applies to rescues too, and it's double if I have to untangle someone else's file setup. They paid it, grudgingly, and next time they came back to me first. Take this how you will, but never lower your quote to match a free tool, because you're not selling the software, you're selling knowing what to do when it breaks.