Just realized my client's 'quick change' request cost me a full day of work

Last week I was finishing up a kitchen layout for a couple in Denver, everything was signed off and ready for permits. On Friday afternoon, the wife emails saying she saw a different cabinet style online and wants to switch the whole lower run to that. She said it would be 'just a visual swap, super quick.' I knew it wasn't, but I said I'd look. Opening that file again, I had to redo the elevation drawings, adjust the electrical plan for the under-cabinet lighting runs, and re-spec all the hardware because the new style needed concealed hinges. What she thought was a 30-minute tweak ate my entire Saturday. I'm all for making clients happy, but man, some changes have a domino effect you just can't explain in a single email. How do you guys handle scope creep on 'simple' visual changes without sounding like you're pushing back too hard?

3 comments

3 Comments

janahenderson4mo agoTop Commenter

Scope creep is the worst, especially when it comes from a place of ignorance. You gotta build in a buffer for these things from the start. My contracts now have a line about "post-approval change orders" with a minimum fee, even for "visual swaps." It frames it as a standard business process, not personal pushback. Clients accept it way easier when it's just policy, and it saves you from the free Saturday tax.

beth7194mo ago

My buddy did a logo for a bakery. The owner loved it, signed off, then called a week later asking to swap the wheat graphic for a croissant because her niece suggested it. He redid it free, feeling nice. Then she wanted the font thicker, then a different color blue. He lost a whole weekend and ate the cost. Now his contract has a change fee after first approval, no exceptions.

tessawebb2mo ago

God the "free Saturday tax" is so real. I had a client do basically the same thing with a menu design - they signed off on everything then came back asking to swap the font from a sans-serif to a script one because their daughter said it looked "cuter." That led to two more rounds of tweaking the colors and adding clip art of coffee cups. I ended up billing them for like 8 extra hours and they acted shocked. Now every quote I send has a line that says "revisions after final approval billed at $X per hour" in bold.