Stop doing unpaid revisions by default
Free revisions are a legitimate commercial tool. They stop being one when nobody counts them. MarginFence counts them and shows what they cost.
The default that quietly costs the most
Ask most creative or development teams whether they do unpaid revisions, and the honest answer is usually yes, more often than they'd like. It is rarely a deliberate policy. It happens because saying 'that's outside your included revisions, here's what an extra round costs' feels awkward in the moment, so the default becomes doing it anyway and hoping it does not happen too often.
Counting revisions against a baseline
MarginFence does not track a revision counter automatically, but it gives you the structure to manage one. Your project baseline reflects the deliverables and included revisions you quoted. When a client asks for a revision beyond that count, you log it as an out-of-scope request with the estimated hours involved, and MarginFence prices it the same way it prices any other extra: internal cost, retail estimate and a recommended quote.
A worked example: the fifth revision round
A project quoted with four included revision rounds gets a request for a fifth. Estimated at 3 hours, a $32 internal cost rate puts the internal cost at $96. At a $90 billable rate, the retail estimate is $270. With a 50% target margin, the recommended quote lands close to $192, well below full retail but still covering cost with margin. You can charge that, charge full retail, comp it, or decline and hold the line at four rounds. The point is that it is a choice you can see, not a habit you fell into.
Comp is not the same as invisible
There is nothing wrong with comping a revision for a valued long-term client, or as a relationship investment on a new one. What causes margin damage is not comping itself, it is comping without knowing the cumulative cost. Logging every extra revision and choosing Comp when that is the right call means, at the end of the month, you can see exactly how much retail value went to goodwill and to which clients.
Frequently asked questions
Do we need to define 'included revisions' precisely before using MarginFence?
It helps. Most teams already have a rough sense of how many revision rounds are included per deliverable; making that number explicit in your baseline and your client communication is what makes the extra-revision conversation clear later.
Can we give some clients more free revisions than others?
Yes. Each project has its own baseline and its own decisions, so a long-term client can be comped more often than a new one without that being a system-wide setting.
Will pricing revisions upset our clients?
Every agency handles this differently, and MarginFence does not make that judgment for you. Clients are only shown a fee when you decide to charge; comped and declined requests never generate a client-facing price at all.
How is this different from just adding a revisions clause to our contract?
A contract clause sets the rule. MarginFence helps you apply it consistently, by giving you a fast way to price and record each individual instance instead of relying on someone remembering the clause and doing the math from scratch.
How MarginFence works
Set the financial baseline for a project, log each extra request, see what it costs and what it should be quoted at, then choose Comp, Decline, Trade, Charge Recommended or Charge Custom. Charged work becomes a plain-language proposal your client approves from a secure link.
Related
- Scope managementRecord deliverables and included revisions, then measure new requests against them.
- Creative agenciesBuilt for branding and design studios where extra rounds erode a fixed fee.
- Scope creep softwareCatch out-of-scope requests as they happen and turn each one into a priced, approved decision.
Protect the margin on every client project
Create your workspace and log the next out-of-scope request in under a minute.