Revisions

[adamd1]

Can those of you who produce renderings for clients as a service, share your policies on revision requests.

 

How many is too many before you charge additional fees

What do you consider a small vs. large change

etc. etc.

 

Thanks!

[John Dollus]

You really should address alterations to the image(s) in the contract beforehand. There are usually milestone steps for client signoff to prevent scope creep such as approving the model before getting too far into the rendering etc. Also, the client usually has little to no understanding of what constitutes a small vs large change so make sure it's understood that a change is a change and therefore considered an additional service fee unless it was something agreed to and spelled out in the contract such as optional flooring or landscape schemes etc.

The alteration request that always makes me chuckle is when they review a night image and ask if they can see it in a day setting by tomorrow. after all, it's just a button, right?

[Jason Matthews]

I agree. I typically outline the stages of the process (modeling, rendering, post production) and then breakdown what goes into these stages. I also stipulate that I will not continue to the next phase until client approval. Sometimes this does not work out well because the client does not read the proposal so they are unaware of the repercussions of changes made. Then again, you can't save everyone from themselves.

[leobreault]

+1 to outlining this in the contract. I often find myself re-iterating the terms constantly to the client. This way when they hopefully understand when they get the invoice

[M V]

+1 on getting it in the proposal up front and discuss it over the phone so they are clear. I give 3 rounds of revisions as my standard. Anything beyond that is add services and means hourly rates. I am all for making 300 design changes until the client is happy but I want to be paid for it. Just because you don't know what you want doesn't mean I am going to spend 100 hours modeling (for free) so you can figure it out.

[artmaknev]

Its close to impossible to make your old clients who are used to a lot of revisions to suddenly abide by a new contract, I typically try to make stricter rules with new clients, by strict I mean the common sense rule that client is entitled to say 3-5 revisions for free and then its extra charge. Things like color change I normally say is minor, but furniture change, design change is major revision. With old clients, I am more lenient, and don't push for or point out that their are already over board with revisions, but I should do that because it is risky business when you allow your clients to have large number of revisions for free... I learned it the hard way, especially after all those revisions they hold the payment for long time...