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Update: I used to let scope creep slide to keep the peace, now I bill for it
Back when I started freelancing in 2021 I would just eat the extra work whenever a client added "one small thing" to a project. Last Tuesday a guy in Denver asked me to redo his whole logo three times after we agreed on the first draft, so I sent a change order for $300 and he paid it without a peep. Honestly wish I had done this two years sooner because I lost so many nights to free revisions. Does anyone here charge for scope changes upfront or do you just wait until it piles up?
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paulnguyen4d ago
Learned this the hard way too, but what finally worked for me was putting a revision limit in the original contract, like two rounds of changes included and anything past that gets billed at my hourly rate. That way the client knows the rules before we even start and I don't feel like the bad guy when I send the extra invoice. I also started writing down every little request in a shared doc so when the pile gets big I can just point to the list instead of arguing about what counts as a "small thing." The upfront part matters most because clients who push back on a change order after the fact are way more annoying than ones who see the limit on day one and self correct. If someone refuses to sign a contract with a revision cap, that tells you everything you need to know about how the project will go. Good on you for sending that $300 bill, that first one is always the hardest.
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