c/freelance-contracts

Overheard a designer at a coffee shop say they never sign a contract without a kill fee clause.

They were telling their friend about a project that got canceled halfway through, and the client refused to pay for the work already done. I always thought a deposit was enough, but now I'm adding a 25% kill fee to my own contracts. How do you guys handle project cancellations in your agreements?

Pro tip: I thought a kill fee was a bad idea until a project got cancelled after 40 hours of work

Now I put a 25% kill fee clause in every contract, and it saved me from a total loss when a client's budget got cut. How do you guys handle project cancellations?

Update: My client's 'simple' contract change turned into a 4-hour legal review

They wanted to add a clause about owning all preliminary sketches, which meant I had to dig through old emails and call my lawyer. Has anyone else had a tiny edit blow up like that?

I just saw my 50th contract revision this month and it made me stop

I was putting together my monthly report for my bookkeeping and the number hit me. Fifty separate rounds of edits on client contracts, just in March. It wasn't one big job, it was a bunch of small things adding up. A marketing client wanted to add a new social media platform, a web dev project had a scope shift after the first mockup, and a regular client needed their standard agreement updated for a new law. Each one was maybe 15 minutes of work, but together they ate a whole day I hadn't planned for. I realized I was giving away too much time on admin without charging for it. Now I'm adding a line in my proposals that says the first two revisions are free, but after that it's a $75 fee per round. Has anyone else put a hard limit on revisions, and did clients push back?

Spotted a 'pay per hour' menu at a food truck festival in Seattle, made me think about project quotes

Tried two different contract templates for a client in Portland

I used a free one I found online for a web design job, and then a paid template from a site called ContractCafe for a similar job after. The free one was missing a clear part about who owns the final files, which caused a big fight with the first client. The paid one had a full section on rights and saved me so much trouble, it was worth the $45. Has anyone else found a good template site they like for this stuff?

A project in Phoenix showed me a common mistake in scope of work sections.

I just finished a six-month website build where the client kept adding small features, like extra contact form fields, that weren't in our original agreement. I realized the contract's scope section only listed 'website development' without any details on what that included or excluded. How do you all write your scope to prevent this kind of slow creep without sounding too rigid?

I finally took a friend's advice about my payment terms

Honestly, a buddy who does freelance video work looked at my contract and said 'Ngl, your 30-day net payment term is killing your cash flow.' He was right, I was waiting over a month to get paid on every job. I changed my standard agreement to 'payment due upon project completion and delivery of final files.' Tbh, it was awkward to bring up with a new client in Tucson last week, but they agreed to it. Has anyone else had to push back on long payment windows and how did you phrase it?

My accountant insisted I add a kill fee clause after a client ghosted me for 3 weeks, and it just saved me $1200.

I finally got paid for the project they abandoned because the contract said they owed 50% if they canceled after the first draft.

My contract tracker hit 100 active clients this morning and I had to check it twice

I was just looking at my project board, like I do every Monday, and the client count said 100. I thought it was a bug! I started freelancing full-time just over two years ago, and my first contract was for a simple website fix for $200. To go from that to managing 100 active agreements, even small ones, feels wild. How do you guys handle the mental shift when your freelance work scales up like that?

My last two clients had totally different contract styles

One sent a simple two-page agreement with clear payment terms, while the other gave me a 15-page legal document full of jargon. The short contract got signed in a day and the project ran smooth, but the long one caused a week of back-and-forth questions and delays. Has anyone else found that simpler contracts actually work better for getting projects started?

A client's 'handshake deal' fell apart on me last month over a logo design

We agreed on a price, but when I delivered the final files, they claimed we never settled on the payment terms. I had to walk away from the $800 because I had nothing in writing. How do you all handle clients who resist signing anything at the start?

My payment terms used to be 'net 30' and I got paid late half the time.

Switched to '50% upfront, balance on delivery' last quarter. Now I get paid for 9 out of 10 jobs before I even start the work. What's the best way you've found to get a new client to agree to upfront payments?

Switched from a simple email agreement to a real contract for a $1500 logo job

The client asked for six extra rounds of changes after the first two we'd agreed on. My old email chain had no clear limit, but the new contract said 'three rounds included' right in section 4. Has anyone else had a client try to push way past the agreed scope?

Rant: My 'simple' contract template cost me $1200

I used a free one I found online for a client project and it didn't have a kill fee. They ghosted me halfway through and I had no way to get paid for the work I'd already done. What's a good place to get a solid contract that covers this?

Just had to choose between a fixed price or hourly rate for a 3-week web design gig

The job was for a local bakery in Portland, they needed a full site refresh with 8 pages. They offered me either $1500 flat or $45 an hour with a 40-hour cap. I went with the hourly because I know how these projects can balloon. It took me 52 hours total, so I billed $2340. Honestly, the flat fee would have left over $800 on the table. How do you guys usually decide which way to go on a new project?

Just had a project scope creep from 5 pages to 15 without a new contract

A regular customer asked for a simple website update last month, which we agreed on for 5 pages. After I started, they kept adding 'just one more' page over email. It snowballed to 15 pages before I noticed. I stopped work and sent a formal change order for the extra 10 pages at my normal rate. They signed it, but it was a close call. Has anyone else had to shut down a 'just one more thing' situation mid-project?

Can we talk about how everyone pushes for kill fees?

I was working on a branding project for a brewery in Denver last fall, and the owner ghosted me after three rounds of sketches. The common advice is to have a kill fee in your contract, but mine didn't. Instead, I had a clause that said all work delivered up to the point of stoppage was owned by me until final payment. I sent a polite email saying I'd be licensing the unused concepts elsewhere. He called within an hour to pay the full project fee so he could keep them. Has anyone else found that holding onto the work itself is a better motivator than just charging a partial fee?

I thought a kill fee was just a way for clients to back out, but it saved me $2,000 last month.

A client in Phoenix hired me for a big website copy project and we signed a contract with a 50% kill fee clause. Halfway through, their funding fell through and they canceled the whole thing. I was sure I'd have to fight for any payment at all. But because the kill fee was clearly written in the contract, they paid the 50% without any argument. That was $2,000 I would have lost for three weeks of work. Now I see it as essential protection, not just optional legal stuff. Has anyone else had a kill fee actually work in their favor?

Just read that 40% of freelancers don't have a late payment fee in their contracts

Saw it in a survey from a freelance union site. How many of you actually charge for late payments?

I keep seeing people put 'work for hire' in contracts without knowing what it means

Just read a contract from a new customer that said 'work for hire' but then listed a bunch of rules about how I couldn't use the work in my portfolio. That's not how that works at all. A real work for hire clause means they own everything from the start, but I can still usually show it off unless we say otherwise. I've had to explain this three times this month alone. It matters because if you sign a bad one, you could lose rights you didn't mean to give up. Has anyone else run into this mix-up lately?

Heard a client at a cafe say they 'don't need a contract, it's just a handshake deal' for a $5k project

The other person just nodded and said 'sounds good.' I almost choked on my coffee. What's the most casual way you've seen someone walk into a major freelance problem?

Warning: My first freelance contract was a single text message

Honestly, I agreed to build a website for a friend's band in Portland with just a 'sounds good' text and a handshake. Took me three months and they kept adding stuff, like a merch store I never planned for. Now I use a simple two-page contract from a site called Docracy that lists exactly what's included, and it saved me last week when a new client asked for five extra pages for free. Anyone else have a go-to template they swear by?

Vent: I used to write my own contracts from scratch versus using a template service

For my first year freelancing, I drafted every contract myself, thinking it saved money. Last month, a client in Portland tried to add three extra revisions after the final payment, and my homemade agreement didn't have a clear clause to stop it. I spent $80 on a template from a freelance lawyer site, and the new contract specifically limits revisions to two rounds. Has anyone else switched from DIY contracts to a paid template and had it save a big headache?

Got burned on a project in Austin because my contract didn't cover scope creep

I was doing web design for a small brewery there, and the owner kept adding 'just one more small page' every week. After the third addition, I checked my agreement and realized I only had a vague line about 'deliverables' with no limit. I ended up doing almost 40 extra hours of work I couldn't bill for. How do you guys write your clauses to stop this from happening?