Billing an extra revision, without it going badly

The second version is part of the work. The sixth is not. Somewhere between them is a moment when somebody has to say this falls outside the quote, and that somebody is you.

That moment is uncomfortable for one reason: it almost always arrives too late, after four rounds have already gone by, when raising it sounds like a retroactive complaint.

Why the third version happens

Rarely because somebody is taking advantage. Three causes, and two of them are fixable upstream.

The brief was incomplete. The client had not said the logo needed to work on a dark background, because nobody asked. That is not a revision, it is information that was missing. It is what the questions to ask, trade by trade exist to prevent.

Nobody said how many there were. The quote said "a few rounds of feedback". The client understood five, you had planned two, and you are both right.

The client discovers what they want by seeing what they do not. That one is legitimate and unavoidable. It cannot be removed, only organised: one planned round after the first proposal costs less than three improvised ones.

Count revisions, and count them in rounds

A revision is not counted in changes, it is counted in rounds: one complete back and forth, however many corrections are inside it.

That matters in both directions. It saves the client counting their commas, and it saves you redoing the same file four times over one remark at a time. "Two rounds of revisions, collected" is a phrase that pushes the client to review everything in one go, which is exactly what you want.

Two or three rounds cover most jobs. Beyond that it is no longer a revision, it is a new direction, and a new direction gets priced.

Name the price before doing the work

This is the only rule in this article that genuinely matters.

An extra revision is priced at the moment it is asked for, never in the final balance. Two reasons, and the second is the expensive one:

• Right then, the client wants the thing. They agree without discussion, because they are comparing the price to how much they want it, not to an invoice they reread a month later.
• A balance forty per cent above the quote gets disputed even when every line is justified. The client is not disputing the amount: they are disputing the surprise.

It is the same reasoning as what order to ask for the money in.

How to say it

One sentence, with no apology and no complaint. What stings a client is not the price, it is the implication that they were trying to get more than agreed.

"Happy to. We are past the two rounds we planned, so this one is £120. I will send the line over and start as soon as it is approved."

Three parts: the yes, the fact, the price. And what happens next, which shows this is a formality rather than an obstacle.

If the request is small and the client is good, giving it away is perfectly fine, on one condition: say so. "This one is on me" stays a favour. A silent favour becomes the new normal, and the next one will be bigger. Same mechanism as out-of-scope requests.

And when the mistake is yours

It happens, and the answer is simple: it is not a revision, it is a correction, and corrections are not billed.

The line is sharp and worth holding from both sides. If the client wrote something in the brief and you did not do it, that is on you. If they did not write it, it is a new request. It is also the best argument for having a written brief rather than a memory of a conversation: it settles this question without anybody having to remember.

What Kalepio does with it

An extra revision becomes a payment line on the job, with its amount and a link of its own. The client sees it, settles it, and it is written down there rather than in an email.

When the request is more than a tweak, it becomes a new round of questions on the same job. The previous round stays frozen with its answers, so asking again never rewrites what was said, and you keep a record of what changed and when.

Frequently asked questions

How many revisions should a quote include?

Two or three rounds for most jobs, written out in words. A round is one complete back and forth however many corrections are inside it, which pushes the client to review everything at once.

How do you bill an extra revision?

At the moment it is asked for, with the amount named before the work is done. Never in the final balance: the client is not disputing the amount, they are disputing the surprise.

Should you bill for fixing your own mistake?

No. If the information was in the brief and was not followed, that is a correction, not a revision. It is the best argument for a written brief rather than a memory of a conversation.

What do you do when a client asks for too many changes?

Name the limit at the moment it is crossed, price the next round, and offer to collect everything into one set of feedback. A request that changes the direction is no longer a tweak and is priced as new work.