Hello

I would like to work as a freelance.  I have been doing mates rates for friends and families to build up my portfolio.  What I am finding difficult is getting across that once the site is live I don't want to keep doing work on it for free.  There seems to be an expectation.  How do people deal with this?  I know for the future I can be very clear in the initial contract what future work will cost and that any future work will need to be quoted for, but I just wondered if people have strategies for this kind of request?  In some instances I have specified saying it'll be £20 per hour for future work, but they still email and ask as though it's free.

thanks for any advice

Vicky

2 hours ago, protest said:

What I am finding difficult is getting across that once the site is live I don't want to keep doing work on it for free.  There seems to be an expectation.  How do people deal with this?

You put it in your contract. You give them the option of paying for support or doing it themselves. Build a bit of a buffer into your quote to cover minor post-launch tweaks (there is always something needs fixing). After that I charge by the hour.

Graham

In my experience  clients will always be doing this, no matter what. They do know and realize what the contract may say but they won''t hesitate to keep asking things for free.

During my career I've encountered myself with clients that once the final project is finished keep asking you for new features from time to time, expecting them for free.

I've even found clients that contracted the services of other agencies/freelancers that messed up the initial design, and came back to me in order to fix those errors... guess what, yes, expecting me to fix them for free.

So in my humble opinion, you just have to gather patience and keep on. The web design world is pretty much a stressful are to be in, so you really have to enjoy what you are doing and keep on surpassing those "toxic" clients.

 

 

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Light up your journey

Edited August 21, 20188 yr by alfarsl

If the changes are not much then I think you should do it. Consider it as cost of customer retention. Otherwise they will go someplace else. 

Web Design unfortunately is so over saturated so many designers and developers. unless you are in a niche area, you cannot afford to haggle with maintenance. 

Hi....

On 10/5/2018 at 1:50 PM, rallport said:

That's some of the the worst advice I'd read on this forum in a long time. You basically told someone looking to get in freelancing to work for free.

<shakes head>

I'm still shaking my head at the god awful advice from @prateekshawebdesign  

Not free..... But tactful.

Charge clients your regular fee at all times... and if your client is happy then everyone is happy.

But when the client is  fussy about spending more...or in principle, does not want to spending much for "small" changes...then at that point, you should avoid any friction or misunderstanding...and help your client. 

Customer retention is less costly then getting a new client

retaining bad  customers who don't want to pay  for your work e.g. small changes aren't  worth retaining. you can do the occasional quicktwo minute edit for free but if there are too many better to collect them —5 minutes here, 10 minutes there— into interval payments when they makeup say an hour. even then a quick edit stills takes more time than you think and takes  time away from paying clients who respect your work and pay for your time just as they would any other service.  

I'm sure if your client is getting lots of little edits for free they are happy, but you won't be and you'll be getting poorer.

8 hours ago, prateekshawebdesign said:

Customer retention is less costly then getting a new client

But if they aren't paying then they aren't a customer the're a PITA.

Clients definitely pay.... maybe not at that particular time......or for that particular job

but when they come back, you can always charge them. 

3 hours ago, prateekshawebdesign said:

Clients definitely pay.... maybe not at that particular time......or for that particular job

but when they come back, you can always charge them. 

Except when they come back they will expect more free work.

It’s very simple, if they don’t pay you don’t do the work.