Stop unpaid revisions

Round three showed up as a Slack voice note on a Sunday. I was in a grocery parking lot, engine on, bags in the back. They wanted the logo in navy, “just to see.” I did it in the car. Saying no into a voice-note reply felt like starting a fight, and I am a coward about fights that live in chat.

The job was $7,500. Logo, two lockups, a one-page site. The email said: “Two rounds of revisions included. Additional rounds billed as needed.” I thought that was enough. “As needed” is how I donated the week after Sunday.

What I mean by a round

They send a batch of notes. I send a new file. That is one round. Not one Slack message. Not “navy real quick.” A batch, then a file. If you don’t say that out loud, every message becomes its own round and none of them count.

Round one was real — they had sat with it. Round two was navy or charcoal, which I counted even though it was mostly color. Round three was the parking lot. Then there were four or five “tiny” notes the week after. I did not count those as rounds, because I did not want them to be rounds.

The math I didn’t want to do

I had priced the job as about fifty hours, at $150. I keep a sheet. Nobody sees it. When I finally added the original work, the two included rounds, the Sunday, and the week of tiny notes, it was 178 hours. $7,500 divided by 178 is $42.

I am not proud of the arithmetic. I’m putting it here because “I kind of ate a round” is how you lie to yourself. The parking lot was the scene. The week after was the cost.

Where the $900 on the change order comes from: $7,500 / 50 hours is $150. A real round, if I’m honest, is about six hours. That’s $900. I used to invent a smaller number so the email would feel less awkward. Awkward is cheaper than 178 hours.

The sheet never left my laptop

Color-coded, even. The original “two rounds” line sat under twelve replies about kerning. They never saw it. A private spreadsheet cannot stop a public ask. The only version of a round count that has ever worked for me is one they already opened — a page, not a PDF in my files — plus a log I can paste back when someone asks whether we already did that.

Three things, in order:

1. Put “two revision rounds” on the scope next to the deliverables, like a line item, because it is one. They say yes on that page before I start.
2. Every round I log a date and one sentence. “Aug 20 — navy lockup, from Slack voice note.” When they ask if we already did that, I paste the log. I don’t reconstruct it from memory.
3. When we hit two, I send a change order for round three before I open the file. Not after. Before.

The sentence I send now

That’s round three. The two included rounds are done. Round three is $900 and I’ll start when you approve this page.

Most people pick: pay, or live with charcoal. Either is a good answer. Some still send the Sunday note. I still feel the pull to do it in the car. I don’t. I send the sentence. I used to think I needed more spine. I needed a sentence, written down, before the voice note arrived.