Caught a scope creep clause that saved me $400 on a single rewrite

I was reviewing a new contract last month from a web design client and almost missed this line that said 'minor revisions included' with no cap. After my second round of changes, they asked me to rebuild the whole homepage layout for free. I swapped it to a 3 revision limit with additional work billed at $75 per hour. Has anyone else had a client try to stretch 'minor revisions' into a full redesign?

3 comments

3 Comments

gracej992d ago

Oh man, did I get burned on this exact thing last year? Client wanted "a few small tweaks" to their landing page and it turned into me rebuilding the entire navigation system and adding a whole new section. No extra pay, just "well you agreed to revisions." I was so mad at myself for not catching that language sooner. Now I put a hard stop at 2 rounds of revisions in every contract and spell out exactly what counts as minor.

smith.lee2d ago

Preach, @gracej99. I got burned on "just a few tweaks" myself. Never again.

finley_smith2d agoMost Upvoted

Learned that lesson myself. Got burned on "one more round." That turned into three more rounds. Now I cap revisions at 2 rounds. Hard limit. And I write out exactly what minor means. Color changes. Font size. That's minor. Anything past that gets a new quote.