What 'unlimited revisions' actually costs you

You added “unlimited revisions” to the proposal because you needed the signature. It worked.

Then the project started.

What the client heard

You meant: revisions until the project is right.

They heard: revisions with no ceiling.

These are different contracts. When the client sends round eight — and the brief has drifted three times since sign-off — they’re not being unreasonable. They’re taking you at your word.

The numbers

A fixed-fee project: €3,000. You estimated 30 hours.

The project runs eleven revision rounds. Average time per round: 2 hours. That’s 22 hours of revision work on top of the original delivery. You worked 52 hours on a project budgeted for 30.

Effective rate: €57/h instead of €100/h.

The loss doesn’t appear anywhere until you look at the calendar. Without records broken down by project, the gap between estimated and actual hours stays invisible.

Why unlimited revisions produce worse work

When revisions have no limit, clients don’t consolidate feedback. Changes arrive as they think of them. Round three has three items. Round six revisits round three. A new stakeholder joins at round eight with a different set of priorities.

When revision rounds are finite and cost something, clients prepare. They pull the right people into the review before submitting. Feedback arrives in one document, considered and complete. The project moves faster. The output is better.

Unlimited revisions don’t just cost you time. They cost the client a better project.

Why freelancers offer them

Competition. A client who pushed back on the price. The fear of losing the project to someone cheaper.

“Unlimited revisions” removes an objection at the proposal stage. The cost is deferred to the end — when the hours are already spent and renegotiation is nearly impossible.

It’s scope creep written directly into the contract.

What works instead

Three revision rounds, clearly defined. One round = one consolidated set of feedback submitted in a single message or document.

One line in the proposal: “Additional rounds: €[X] per round.”

The price doesn’t need to be high. It needs to exist. When a client has already seen the rate, billing for round four is a reference to something they agreed to — not a surprise.

If you’re already in a project where the requests keep arriving, a change order after round four is uncomfortable. It’s still better than absorbing rounds five through ten without a word.

The right place to prevent it is the scope of work, written before anything starts. One sentence about revision rounds changes the project dynamics completely.

The hours you spend on extra revision rounds show up in your calendar. Timescanner reads your calendar and shows time by client and project — so you can see exactly what each round cost, and price the next project accordingly. Works with any iCal-compatible calendar.