SCOPE & CLIENT CHANGES / RUNBOOK BUREAU
How to Charge Clients for Extra Work
Confirm what changed, estimate the additional commitment and send a clear fee with its effect on timing. Get written approval before starting. If the request is already included in the brief, or corrects your own missed requirement, treat it as part of the agreed work.
Acknowledge the request without accepting the extra work
“Happy to look at that. I’ll confirm how it affects the scope, timing and fee before we proceed.”
Then ask for enough detail to make a decision: the new output, format, audience, deadline and who will approve it. A useful reply separates willingness to help from a promise that the work is included.
Show the difference from the agreed brief
Refer to the relevant deliverable or review allowance, then describe what is being added or replaced. Keep the explanation factual: one additional report, another revision round, or adaptation for a new audience. Avoid presenting the client with an accusation about scope creep.
Where the original wording is ambiguous, resolve that ambiguity together before quoting an extra. Do not invent a boundary after the work has been done. For a genuine change, explain what remains in the original fee and what needs a separate decision.
Estimate the whole addition, including its knock-on effects
- Break down production, research, coordination, review and handover time.
- Use an appropriate selling rate to build an estimate, or quote a fixed fee for clearly defined additional work.
- Include new direct costs once. Check whether an existing allowance already covers them.
- Check available capacity and dependencies before promising a revised delivery date.
- State the number of review rounds, required client inputs and any assumptions behind the extra fee.
A faster deadline may require moving other work or arranging help. Assess feasibility first; an extra fee does not create hours that are unavailable. If you cannot deliver safely within the requested time, offer a later date or smaller scope.
Turn the estimate into a clear choice
Illustrative example: a client requests a second report format outside the brief. You estimate three hours of adaptation, one hour of review and coordination, and £30 of additional licensed material. At an illustrative £70 selling rate, the estimate is 4 × £70 + £30 = £310, before any applicable taxes. These figures are an example, not a suggested rate.
The proposal should name the second format, its review allowance and the revised delivery date alongside the £310 fee. Explain whether the original delivery can continue independently. If the budget cannot move, offer to remove a genuinely comparable piece of work or schedule the extra as a later project.
Do not automatically add another profit or contingency percentage if the same allowance is already in your rate. Price identifiable uncertainty deliberately rather than stacking unexplained uplifts.
Get approval for the work, fee and timing together
- Send the revised deliverable, boundaries, fee and schedule in one concise record.
- Ask the person responsible for the budget and scope to approve that version in writing.
- If anything changes during the discussion, send the updated version before starting.
- Record the approval, update the project scope and budget, and use the agreed billing arrangements.
Silence is not a useful working approval. If the change is awaiting a decision, tell the client what is paused and what can continue. If you have already performed the extra without agreement, explain the situation and discuss a resolution; do not present an unagreed fee as if it had been authorized.
Common mistakes that make the conversation harder
- Sending an extra invoice before the client has seen and approved the fee.
- Saying “that will cost more” without specifying what the extra fee buys.
- Estimating production only and leaving out another review or handover.
- Keeping the original deadline after accepting more work without checking capacity.
- Giving a discount without recording the reduced scope or deliberate concession.
- Using a friendly chat response as approval when the scope, fee or timing was still undecided.
Keep the quote and decision in the same record
For the next additional request, capture the original scope, proposed change, impact and approval together. The Scope Control System helps track those records and their commercial impact across a project.
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