What to do when a Client changes the Rate on you
Last week, I dealt with an interesting situation. A client that I had been working with for many years got in touch and needed a few web articles. As always, I quoted him the rate that we always work at. Soon enough the project was underway, and everything seemed to be progressing as usual.
A day or two after our first conversation the client emailed and asked me to send my best quote. As you can imagine, this confused me for a couple of reasons. First off, I thought we already agreed to the same price as always. Along with this, the job had already begun.
After sending an email back, he responded that he was hoping to spend less money this time around. I never saw this coming, and was having a difficult time understanding what he was trying to do.
In the end, things worked out as the client decided to pay his “usual rate†and leave well enough alone. Of course, this didn’t change the fact that the entire situation was quite strange from start to finish.
When a client attempts to change a detail like this, it is important that you do the same as me. First off, communicate your feelings with the client. In some cases, this is all you need to do in order to get back on track. Along with this, don’t back down just because you want the work. If details were agreed upon upfront, both parties should be willing to stick with them throughout the project.
While it would be nice to avoid situations like this altogether, doing so is not always as simple as it sounds. The best thing you can do is be 100 percent prepared for anything that comes your way.
