Warning: When a client asked for 'small changes' that turned into 6 months of unpaid revisions

Last year I took on a web design job for a local bakery in Austin. They said it was just tweaking colors on an existing site. Three months in, they had me rebuilding the whole checkout flow. I should have invoiced for every extra hour instead of thinking it would end soon. Has anyone else had a client downplay a scope like that?

3 comments

3 Comments

jennybailey14d agoMost Upvoted

The "small changes" thing gets me every time, especially when clients don't realize that tweaking colors often means going through every page and making sure the contrast and branding still work together. You probably know this already but a lot of web design folks get burned by not putting a clause in the contract about what counts as a revision versus new work. I always tell people to set a hard cap on how many rounds of changes are included before you start billing hourly. It sounds like that bakery took advantage of your good nature, and six months of work for free is way too much. Next time you might want to charge a flat fee for the first batch of changes and then a higher rate after that to protect yourself from scope creep.

kelly_rivera14d ago

Wait, six months for free?

xenam8414d agoTop Commenter

@kelly_rivera my friend did free "quick fixes" for a coffee shop and ended up coding a whole app for nothing.