Can we talk about how everyone pushes for kill fees?

I was working on a branding project for a brewery in Denver last fall, and the owner ghosted me after three rounds of sketches. The common advice is to have a kill fee in your contract, but mine didn't. Instead, I had a clause that said all work delivered up to the point of stoppage was owned by me until final payment. I sent a polite email saying I'd be licensing the unused concepts elsewhere. He called within an hour to pay the full project fee so he could keep them. Has anyone else found that holding onto the work itself is a better motivator than just charging a partial fee?

4 comments

4 Comments

hayes.wade1mo ago

Honestly, that's the smartest move. A kill fee just makes stopping the project a cheap option for them. Holding the actual files hostage? That hits way harder. They've already pictured that work as theirs, so taking it back creates real panic. Your contract made the choice simple for him: pay the full price or get nothing and watch you maybe sell his idea to a competitor. That's a much stronger position to be in.

alexpalmer1mo ago

But what if they just call your bluff?

grace_kelly451mo ago

Yeah, that's the real power move right there. @alexpalmer asks what if they call your bluff, but the whole point is you aren't bluffing. You actually own the work. It's not a threat, it's just a fact they have to deal with. A kill fee is like a parking ticket they can just pay and forget. Keeping the files means they actually lose something they already wanted. Makes them sweat every time.

hannahj496d ago

Hold on though, is it really that serious? I mean, I get the idea of making them sweat, but most of these project files are just stuff like layered Photoshop documents or a folder of video clips. Like, if they're a big company they probably already have backups of the raw footage or a copy of the design from the last round of revisions. So you holding the final files might just be annoying, not panic-inducing. Plus, what if they're a small client who doesn't have their own IT guy? Then you're just being a jerk for no reason. It feels like a lot of drama over something that might just end up in a "sorry, we moved on" email.