That $300 'unlimited revisions' clause cost me a month of work

I took a logo design project back in March for a local coffee shop in Portland. Their contract had a line that said 'unlimited revisions until final approval.' Sounded great at first. But the owner kept tweaking tiny things for six weeks straight. Colors, fonts, spacing, you name it. I ended up spending like 40 extra hours on it with zero extra pay. Finally I said no more and walked away. Now I always cap revisions at three rounds in my contracts, with a fee for anything beyond that. Has anyone else had a client milk an unlimited clause like that?

3 comments

3 Comments

the_drew8d ago

Learned that the hard way too... now I put a "you get 3 freebies then it's $50 an hour for every change after that" clause in everything.

barbaradavis8d ago

@the_drew That clause is GENIUS. I started doing something similar after a client kept wanting to "tweak" colors four times after I already finished the whole layout. Now I write in a flat fee for the first two rounds of revisions and then $40 per hour after that. Saved me from so many headaches. People really don't value your time until you put a price tag on every extra change. I also make them sign off on each round in writing so there's no confusion later.

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waderamirez8d ago

Same pattern everywhere - free pizza samples at Costco get people buying, free revisions get people asking for more.

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