How many rounds of feedback to plan for, and how to write it down

Two sentences ruin a project, and they are the two most often written.

The first is "we'll keep tweaking until you're happy". People say it because it wins the quote, and it is sincere at the moment it is said.

The second looks professional and is no better: "three revisions included". The problem is not the number, it is the word.

Why "three revisions" never holds

Because nobody knows what a revision is, and the two parties have different answers without ever having discussed it.

A client sends you an email with twelve remarks. To you that is twelve changes, so well over a third of what was planned. To them it is one email, so one revision. You are both right, and you discover the disagreement on the third email rather than the first, which is the worst possible moment for it.

And if you try to count the changes, you become the person who counts changes. That is a conversation nobody wins, and it damages a relationship far more reliably than the overrun it was meant to prevent.

What to count: rounds, not changes

A round is one there and back: you show something, the client responds once, with everything they have to say, gathered.

It is the only unit with three useful properties at once. It is countable without ambiguity: two rounds means you show twice. It is visible to both sides: the client knows perfectly well how many times they have replied. And it measures what actually costs, which is the next point.

What costs is not the change

This is what makes a limit defensible in front of a client rather than arbitrary, so say it out loud.

Changing a colour takes three minutes. What takes an hour and a half is reopening the project, finding where you were, rereading the brief, getting back into it, doing the three minutes, re-exporting, checking, sending it back and writing a message. The change is the smallest part of a round.

Hence the consequence clients understand immediately once it is explained: twelve remarks in one email cost far less than three remarks in three emails. That is not an organisational preference, it is a ratio of about one to four.

The right number

Two rounds for the large majority of jobs. The first corrects the direction, the second settles the detail. That is what actually happens when things go well.

Three when there are two approvers, or when the project runs long enough that the client will inevitably see things along the way. Which is also why you should have asked who signs off besides the person you are talking to before writing the quote: the answer decides this number.

Not one, however tempting on a small piece of work. Nobody gets it right first time, and promising a single round is a promise you will not keep, so it becomes an unbilled extra round that arrives anyway.

Not five. If you are planning five, you are billing for a scoping problem instead of solving it. Five rounds means the brief did not decide enough, and an extra round is a poor remedy for a question that was never asked.

The sentence that halves the number of rounds

It is not in the quote, it is in the message that accompanies what you send:

Take your time looking at all of it and send me your remarks in one go, including the small details.

Without it, a well-meaning client writes to you three times in two days, because they reply as they notice things, and they think being responsive is doing you a favour. Each of those three messages triggers the reopening described above.

And if there are two approvers, the same sentence with one addition: "gather your remarks together with your partner". Otherwise you receive two sets of remarks that contradict each other, you arbitrate on their behalf, and you are wrong whichever you choose.

The lever that matters more than the number

Showing something unfinished, early.

A round spent on direction costs an hour: three sketches, a choice, carry on. A round spent on finished work costs a day, because it has to be undone.

So the real saving is not in the limit, it is in the timing: a deliberately rough first pass, at a point where changing your mind destroys nothing. Plenty of freelancers avoid this out of fear of showing unfinished work. The opposite is what happens: a client shown something early feels involved, and an involved client signs off faster.

How to write it

Three lines in the quote, in ordinary language:

Two rounds of feedback are included. A round is your remarks gathered in one go. Beyond that, each additional round is charged at :amount.

The third element is the most important and the one most often left out: the price of the extra round is agreed in advance. An overrun whose rate was written down from the start is an option the client chooses; the same overrun priced at the moment it happens is bad news, and bad news gets argued with. On that conversation: billing an extra revision.

And on what is outside the scope rather than one more round: saying no to an out-of-scope request.

Frequently asked questions

How many revisions should you include in a quote?

Two rounds for most jobs, three when there are two approvers. One is a promise nobody keeps, and five means you are billing for a scoping problem instead of solving it.

Why not write "three revisions included"?

Because nobody knows what a revision is. An email with twelve remarks is twelve changes to you and one revision to the client, and you discover the disagreement on the third email. Count rounds instead: a round is you show, they reply once.

How do you avoid cascading rounds of feedback?

One sentence in the message that goes with the work: ask for remarks gathered in one go. A responsive client who writes three times in two days costs you four times as much as one who waits until they have seen everything.

Should you show unfinished work to a client?

Yes, and it is the most effective lever there is. A round spent on direction costs an hour; a round spent on finished work costs a day, because it has to be undone.

What do you do when two people sign off on the client's side?

Plan one more round, and explicitly ask them to gather their remarks together. Otherwise you get two contradictory sets, you arbitrate on their behalf, and you are wrong whichever you choose.