The client who argued my invoice over a 15 minute email chain

I was on-site at a coffee shop in Austin last Tuesday when a client called me confused about a $75 charge for email updates. Turns out he forgot he asked me to rewrite three drafts of his pitch deck over a week. I pulled up the timestamps on my email replies and showed each one took about 5 minutes. He paid the full amount after I read him the exact times, but now I add a line item for 'revision time' on every quote. Has anyone else had clients push back on small charges like that?

3 comments

3 Comments

martinez.paul5d ago

@val974 your point about screenshots is fair, but reading the times out loud actually made him pay faster.

the_elizabeth6d ago

Wait, you actually read him the exact times out loud? That's wild. I would have just sent a screenshot and been done with it.

val9746d ago

Ha yeah that's exactly what I would've done too @the_elizabeth. Screenshot and move on, no need to narrate the whole thing out loud like you're reading a bedtime story. I had this one guy last week who kept asking me to "describe" the tracking numbers instead of just looking at the photo I sent him. I ended up just saying "look at the picture bro" and he finally got it. People really overcomplicate stuff sometimes.