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shayla-sullivan
Community Member

What are some best practices to handle unlimited revision requests for clients?

i am somewhat new and starting to land contracts.  One in particular is giving me the REVISION REQUEST BLUES!  As I attempted to discuss in detail the scope and direction of the project, they were unavailable for about a week.  When they responded, they only permitted a 1 day extension. Here is where it went LEFT....

Every other hour of the day following their reply, they were having epiphanies about new ideas to implement AFTER they saw the final draft. It was bad enough they had given me outdate and non-applicable content to compose their document in the first place.  They then needed their superior to review and make comments, who then needed a another person to do the same....

 

What do I do, and how can I prevent this in the future??

 

Thanks fellow freelancers!!

3 REPLIES 3
lysis10
Community Member

Hourly contracts. Totally stops this stuff, but if it doesn't, you get paid anyway so they can just keep adding to the bill.

wlyonsatl
Community Member

Hi, Shayla.

 

This is the sort of thing you'll soon be able to **bleep** in the bud before you even agree to a contract.

 

Some freelancers set a fixed limit with the client on the number of revisions they'll make to a project. That might not be practical in your work, but you should always do your best to set the client's expectations for the end product they can expect from you, including how many times you'll revise your work without requiring additional payments from them. 

 

If you can set up your projects on an hourly basis, you may not care how many revisions you will have to do because you're getting paid, which is also the reason certain types of difficult clients don't agree to setting up their projects on an hourly basis.

 

But most of what I do is on an hourly basis and I occasionally get fed up with clients who just can't be satisfied - there's always one more little detail they want added. Yes, I'm getting paid for the ongoing work, but I have other things to work on and there is a point where I just wish they'd end it already.

 

janpedersen
Community Member

When you bid on the project or respond to an invite, spell out your terms and conditions in your cover letter.

 

For example, I now include standard (informal but clear) language about what IS and IS NOT included in my bid.

 

I'm a writer, so I add this kind of stuff to my fixed-price projects:

 

"All work is guaranteed to be gramatically correct, free of typos and misspellings, and based on a clear understanding of our agreed-upon scope of work. My quoted rate includes outlining, drafting, editing, and proofreading of first draft, then ONE round of revisions. Any additional revisions will be contracted separately and billed at my standard hourly rate of $XX, rounded to the nearest half hour."

 

"My rates do NOT include any research, editing, or manipulation of images, graphics, or photographs. Furthermore, my rates do not include uploading to, management of, or pixel-tweaking websites, blogs, or other online sites. There are experts proficient in those tasks, and I defer to them."

 

When you agree to accept a fixed-price or flat-fee contract, reiterate your terms in the "message box" on the submission form.

 

For hourly projects, just bill in half-hour increments based on manual time. That will, indeed, put an end to endless tweaking.

 

Best of luck!

 

Jan

 

 

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