Agreed £600 flat for what was described as a five page site. Three weeks in it's eleven pages, two rounds of copy rewrites I didn't quote for, and now they want a booking form. I've done roughly half the work. I don't want to lose the client, they've hinted at more work, but at this rate I'm making about £8 an hour. How do I reset this mid-project without blowing it up?
Going forward, two things fixed this permanently for me. First, the quote lists what's included AND a short 'not included' list. Second, every request that arrives by message gets answered with 'happy to add that, it's about £X and pushes delivery to the Nth — want me to?' Every single time, immediately, no exceptions. It feels petty for the first month and then clients just stop asking for free work.
For the number itself: work out your hours on the extra work, multiply by the rate you wish you'd charged, and don't discount it because you feel awkward. If you undercharge the change order you've just taught them that additions are free.
Also don't itemise it down to the minute. 'Additional pages and booking form: £450' lands better than a fourteen line spreadsheet, which invites line-by-line negotiation.
Hinting at more work is not payment. I've lost real money to the future-work promise more than once. Price this job as if it's the only job you'll ever do for them, because statistically it probably is.
Two rounds of copy rewrites is the part that jumps out. Copy should almost never be your problem on a £600 site. Next time write 'client supplies final text before build begins' and mean it, because waiting on copy is where these projects rot.
@churn_charlie · 3mo ago · 3 replies
Stop work today and send one email. Not a confrontation, a summary. Something like: here's the original scope we agreed, here's what's been added since, here's what's complete, here's what remains. Then give them two options — deliver the original five pages for the original £600 by the original date, or continue with the expanded scope at £X additional.
The reason this works is that you're not accusing anyone of anything. Scope creep is almost never malicious, it's a client who doesn't have a mental model of how much work each request is. Putting it in a list is often the first time they see it.
And send it now, at halfway. At 90% done you have no leverage and they know it.
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@day_rate_dee · 3mo ago
Sent almost exactly this. They picked the expanded option and didn't push back on the number at all. I was dreading it for nothing.
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@churn_charlie · 3mo ago
That's the usual outcome. The client who blows up over a scope email was going to be a nightmare at the invoice stage anyway, so you'd rather find out at week three.
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