Guide · Extra revisions
Extra revisions have a cost, even when the price doesn’t change.
A revision can look small and still add hours: reading the feedback, editing, checking, sending it again. When the price is already agreed, those hours come out of your profit.
Same price, five more hours
Start from the example in the free calculator: 20 hours at an hourly cost of 15, 50 in direct costs, 50 in overhead and a 10% contingency. Expected cost: 440. With a payment fee of 5% plus 0.50 and a 30% target margin, the price is 677.70 before tax and the expected profit about 203.32.
Now the client asks for a third round of changes and it takes five hours. At 15 an hour, that is 75 of extra cost. Nothing else moves: the price stays at 677.70 and the fee stays about 34.39. Profit drops to about 128.32, and the margin falls from 30% to 18.93%.
| Original plan | 5 extra hours | |
|---|---|---|
| Price | 677.70 | 677.70 |
| Costs | 440.00 | 515.00 |
| Payment fee | 34.39 | 34.39 |
| Profit | 203.32 | 128.32 |
| Margin | 30.00% | 18.93% |
Why such a big drop? The price was set so that 30% of it stayed as profit, but every hour beyond the plan is paid at full internal cost with nothing on top. The five hours sit beyond the expected cost, contingency included, and no new contingency is added to them. The table shows rounded amounts, so a sum of the visible figures may differ by a cent.
Decide what counts as one round
One round can be one consolidated list of comments from the person who signs off. That avoids a stream of separate messages that keep reopening the same work. You don’t need to call every conversation “extra”; you need to agree what fits inside the price, and revisit that when it changes.
Tell a tweak from a new deliverable
Swapping a photo or fixing a typo is a tweak. Adding a page, a format or a feature is new work. Give examples that fit your service, and agree in advance how extra work will be priced.
Price the extra work before doing it
There are two honest ways to charge, and they give different numbers.
Revise the whole quote. To keep the 30% margin on the full project, recalculate with the new cost: (515 + 0.50) ÷ 0.65 = 793.08, rounded up. That is 115.38 more than the original 677.70. The fixed fee is counted once because there is still one payment.
Charge the extra work on its own. If the client pays the addition separately, price just that piece: (75 + 0.50) ÷ 0.65 = 116.16. It is slightly more than 115.38 because a second payment carries its own fixed fee.
Separate charge: (75 + 0.50) ÷ (1 − 0.05 − 0.30) = 116.153… → 116.16
Either way, do the math before the work. After the hours are spent, a number is a negotiation. Before, it is a quote.
A mini template for the change
Keep it short, and keep your costs and margin out of it. The client only needs to see:
- Change: what will be delivered and in which format.
- Includes and excludes: tasks, quantity and what stays out.
- Revisions: how many rounds this change includes.
- Additional charge: amount before tax, and the revised total.
- Approval by: date and time, and the new delivery date once approved.
“Thanks for the update. Adding the third round of changes is 115.38 before tax, for a revised total of 793.08. If you approve by Thursday noon, the new delivery date is the 30th.” Adapt the wording and check the figures.
The free scope-change worksheet has the full client message in English and Spanish, ready to adapt.
Not sure where the original 440 came from? The fixed-price quoting guide builds it step by step. And if you are tempted to add a percentage to cost instead, markup vs. margin shows why that is not the same as a 30% margin.
Check the five-hour example for freeThe free calculator shows the five-hour case with your own figures, no account needed. The optional toolkit, US$19 one-time before tax, lets you set the extra hours and their cost yourself and save the quote.
Illustrative figures, before tax. Not tax, legal or accounting advice.