Compared watermarked drafts vs. final delivery and one cut my theft rate by half

I used to send high-res unwatermarked proofs to clients before payment because I thought it built trust. Then a client in Austin took my logo design straight to a printer without paying me the $500 balance. After that I switched to low-res watermarked previews only until full payment clears. Now I've had zero stolen work in 6 months. Has anyone else tried sending deliberately fuzzy samples to avoid this?

3 comments

3 Comments

the_rose4d agoMost Upvoted

white.keith, your buddy Mark lost $12k to fuzzy samples? That's like blaming a broken umbrella for getting struck by lightning. Honestly, if a client bails because you made them squint a little, they were probably never gonna pay the full $12k anyway. Fuzzy samples don't kill trust, they just weed out the cheapskates faster. You think a big contract falls apart over a blurry JPEG? No, that's just the excuse they used to run.

angela7288d ago

Fuzzy samples just tell clients you don't trust them, which kills relationships faster than any stolen design.

white.keith7d ago

My buddy Mark lost a $12k contract after sending fuzzy samples to a potential client last spring.