Hey everyone,
I run a small design and development agency, and I just ran into a deeply frustrating situation.
A potential client approached us for a project, asking for a detailed proposal. To show our competence, we spent 2 days crafting a solid breakdown—including technical architecture, creative concepts, and scope. After receiving the document and having an initial call, the client completely ghosted us.
Yesterday, I saw that their project officially launched. It was built EXACTLY on top of our blueprint and structure. It’s obvious they just took our comprehensive proposal and hired someone cheaper to execute it line by line.
I feel completely burned. Sending a standard PDF or Notion link feels like giving away free consulting and intellectual property.
How do you guys handle this during the pitching phase? Do you heavily blur your blueprints, omit technical details entirely, or use some specific tools to share documents with restricted access?
Would love to hear how you protect your hard work from being stolen. Thanks!

I’m looking for advice and a sanity check on how to handle an escalating situation with a former freelance client. A few months ago, I worked as a freelance designer for a client. We never had a formal written contract; it started as small individual projects and moved into an informal retainer. She was verbally abusive and extremely difficult to work with, so I resigned.

Upon resigning, I provided links to her project files on my personal cloud drive with a 30-day window to download them. Since I pay for my own cloud storage, I cleared the files off my drive once the window passed. I was also listed as an admin on her website builder, so I removed myself as a contributor. She later forgot her login credentials and began accusing me of "stealing" her website.

The client failed to download her files during the notice period and began texting, calling, and insulting me non-stop. She sent me my home address, threatened to send people to beat me up, used slurs and obscenities, and treated me terribly because I chose not to engage. Without a contract, I fulfilled my duties prior to resigning, and in my country, independent creators retain asset ownership without an explicit transfer contract.

When I maintained total radio silence, she escalated by emailing threats directly to my immigrant father at his place of work. Her husband, who works for a prominent corporate firm, was explicitly CC’d on the email sent to my father. Following this escalation, I reached out to his employer with screenshots documenting all of the harassment. His boss responded confirming that they take the matter seriously and assured me they instructed him to stop all contact with me and my family.

Despite this warning, in her latest email to my father, she makes threats that have no legal standing, lies about contacting my "past employers" (I don't even have a public resume or LinkedIn), and explicitly claims that her husband's corporate CEO personally advised them to pursue legal action against me.

I have not replied to any texts, calls, or emails from the client or her husband. I have saved all text logs, voice messages, cloud link receipts, and emails in a secure folder.

Because the husband was explicitly CC’d on the email harassing my father and their CEO's name was invoked, should I forward the email directly to the husband’s CEO/HR strictly as a neutral, non-demanding administrative update ("For your records... no response or action is required")?

Has anyone dealt with an ex-client harassing family members over their own administrative failure to download deliverables post-resignation?

Edit: I’m in Mexico, calling the policy will get me nowhere. The husband had called me 30+ times and also sent messages threatening me that’s why I reached out to his employer. The aggressors are Americans, I’m looking for alternatives to make the harassment stop.

TL;DR: Resigned from a toxic freelance client months ago after delivering all files via temporary cloud links. Without a contract, she failed to save them and is now making physical threats, accusing me of stealing her site, and emailing threats to my immigrant father at his workplace. Her husband (a corporate employee) was explicitly CC'd on the latest email to my father, which falsely claims their CEO advised legal action. Should I forward this to his CEO strictly as a non-demanding record update to protect myself since they are threatening to send people to my house? 

I run a small web development business in Texas, and I’m dealing with a client situation I’d like some advice on from other business owners.
We agreed on a $500 website project, with $250 upfront and the remaining $250 due upon approval, before launch. We both signed a contract outlining the payment terms.
The client verbally approved the website over the phone, so I went ahead and published it in good faith, expecting the remaining payment.
About a week later, they mentioned wanting to add some more images. I told them that was completely fine and gave them additional time to send everything over.
Fast-forward almost a month, and I’ve received neither the images nor the remaining payment. I’ve followed up multiple times, and they’ve completely stopped responding.
The website is still live and fully accessible to their customers.
I’ve now sent a final follow-up giving them 24–28 hours to respond. I’m considering Texas small claims court, but filing and service could cost around $150 just to pursue $250.
I genuinely don’t want to damage the relationship. My intention was always to provide a professional website that would help their business grow, and I feel I’ve been more than reasonable.
I’m debating three options:
Take the $250 loss, leave the website up, and move on.
Temporarily suspend the website until payment is received, assuming I’m legally allowed to.
Pursue the balance through small claims court based on our signed agreement.
For those who have dealt with nonpaying clients, what would you do?
Is $250 worth pursuing on principle, or would you consider it a business lesson and move on?
I’d especially appreciate advice from other agency owners, freelancers, or anyone who’s dealt with something similar.

Hi all,

I am quite new to freelancing. A friend of mine requested that I do a small coding project for someone they know and I completed it a few months back. The client was on vacation and we were waiting for their feedback. Some time ago, the client responded saying they wanted to test a prototype version on Arduino before investing time on the actual project. Honestly, I had not spent much time on the project, however, at least I was expecting a linkedin recommendation vouching for my work. Now the client has ghosted us and I have no clue what to do. To get more projects obviously, I need referrals and my friend says it doesn't make sense for him to write the recommendation in this case (plus I already have a recommendation from him on my linkedin). What can I do now? Any inputs here are welcome. TIA!

Just started a remote copywriting role (contractor) where time is tracked in Clockify with screenshots. A lot of the work isn't typing: reading reviews, watching competitor ads, sketching angles on paper, thinking through a brief. On screenshots that can look like idle time or random YouTube. For anyone on screenshot-based tracking: how do you handle that kind of work? Manual entries with notes, a running work log next to the timer, or just agreeing upfront with your manager what research looks like? Also, any tips on keeping personal stuff out of screenshots? Separate browser profile, second desktop, something else?

This weekend I saw an envelope in my mailbox, which I knew would contain a check from a major publisher. I needed the $350, so I was glad the check had arrived quickly.

I opened the envelope to find a check for $600. Turns out I sent an invoice addressed to another major client to this newspaper. They paid it in full. Two completely different clients, two completely different assignments.

Has this ever happened to anyone else? What happened after you reported the error?

so Im 1 month into a freelance gig doing community marketing for early stage SaaS, contract is 20 hrs/week. then i found an error in one of the paid tools the founder bought for me to use, and long story short my contract got put on pause.

where Im stuck: should I go look for another freelance marketing gig while its paused? most roles like mine ask for more than 20 hrs a week. so if i take one and the pause get lifted, im scared Ill be drowning trying to juggle both.

anyone been in similar spot? what would you guys do

I’m quite irritated right now and need some perspective from the community on how to handle this.

I am self employed as a software engineer and I applied to a project via a freelance platform. Most of the projects are via a staffing agency as was my last project, so that's normal.

The first project I got a response for was in my top 5. After some messages I got on a call and everything is fine. In the end the recruiter told me to fill out a few questions which he will send per mail.

The questions included parts of the interview like availability, rate etc. but in addition a table for references and for current applications in progress. I added the team lead of my current project and my friend, I helped with his start-up as references after I asked them. I did not fill out the current applications with the note that's not feasible. I have applied for about 30 projects most of which I do not know the customer yet.

So the recruiter calls my friend for a reference and everything is normal but he pitches his own company as the best staffing agency with the best freelancers and says to contact them when they need someone. My friend did not think much of it but I think this is ethically very wrong. It wasn't a hard pitch but alone the mention of their services does not belong in a reference check call.

I really would like to get the project they offer, but I also do not want to get in trouble later when they are not trustworthy.

I am in the beginning of my applications and have enough other leads but the market is not the best and I have a family to support. I am really torn.

I am not afraid of my standing with my references. That I am sure I can smooth over. It's basically just my ethics. What would you all do?

freelance marketer here, content and SEO for small DTC brands mostly. had a skincare client on retainer for about a year, we wrapped last summer, final invoice paid, handover sent, all good. hadn't heard from her since.

then two weeks ago she emails me a screenshot a customer sent her. the customer asked ChatGPT for a serum for sensitive skin, got two competitors recommended, and when they asked about her brand specifically it quoted a price that's been wrong for over a year. her whole message was "this is still showing the old pricing from when you did our SEO, can you sort it."

my first reaction was honestly irritation, because I haven't touched anything of hers in eight months. but I also had no idea what was actually going on so I went and looked. ran the site through Pallas, then typed in the questions her customers would actually ask to see it for myself. old price, yes. a product she discontinued after I left still being listed. and on Gemini she doesn't come up at all for sensitive skin, which is literally their whole thing, even though the site still ranks fine on Google. so not a website problem, more that there's a year of stale info floating around in old posts, the product feed, a couple of marketplace listings, and none of it is stuff I set up.

I wrote back and said the engagement ended in the summer, what I delivered was correct at the time, and everything wrong here comes from changes made after that. happy to quote it as a new project. her reply was basically "but you set all this up so it's kind of on you." I'll admit I sat on that for a day because part of me did feel a bit responsible, it was my SEO, it's my name attached in her head. but the more I thought about it the more it felt like being asked to come back and repaint a house because they bought new furniture.

sent the quote. she hasn't said yes, hasn't said no, it's been quiet for a week. wouldn't be surprised if she just finds someone cheaper, and honestly that's fine.

what it did change is my handover doc. there's now a paragraph saying anything that happens to the brand's info after we stop working together is not covered, including how they show up in ChatGPT or wherever. and for the clients I'm still working with, checking this is now a separate line in the retainer, priced on its own, because I'd rather find a wrong price myself than get it forwarded to me by an angry customer of theirs.

anyone else had an old client come back expecting you to cover things that changed long after you left.

Been at this 6+ years, and this is something that has radically changed in my thinking over the past year - and it's been super beneficial.

I used to think I needed to figure out the “right” way to build a freelance business and then execute on it.

That's sort of conventional advice portrays a business - as something to optimize toward a predetermined ideal, like a machine. But lately I've been thinking of it more like a living organism that evolves.

Which has led me to think of my freelance business as gradually evolving around my natural skills, preferences, curiositites, habits, and ways of working.

Better for me (obviously).  But I think it’s also better for the whole of society - ‘cus when we force ourselves into standardized ways of working, we flatten the differences that make our contributions uniquely valuable.

Maybe that’s a hopeful idea of what work can evolve into – giving more room to individual differences, because different people notice different things, care about different problems, and have different contributions to make.

Understanding how other people have built their businesses is still incredibly useful – it gives you more possibilities to test, borrow from, and learn from in your own..

And evolution needs variation and feedback. You try things, notice what fits you and what the market responds to, keep what works, discard what doesn’t, and let the business slowly take shape from there.

hope this helps someone

Here's my situation: I work as a freelance musician, and there's one bar that I've been playing at regularly for a year. The fee is a bit low, costs around me are going up, I know that the bar manager trusts in my abilities to bring a good vibe at the weekends, and the regulars like me, so I'd like to raise the fee. The dates when I play there are booked month by month individually.

But - if I communicate a 15% or 20% increase to my fee and the manager rejects it, I don't think I'd actually be willing to lose the gig. It's been a steady source of work for me and I like the stability of having it without the overhead of always having to find new venues. I'm not too confident that I could quickly find another venue to fill its place in my schedule if I were to stop playing there.

What would you do in my situation?

All this when they call you at the 11th hour btw

I’m a freelance web designer and developer working on a website project for a clients. I always set my conditions before starting.

The thing is, I’m wearing a lot of hats on this project. I’m not only doing the design/development — I’m also doing copywriting, photo editing, product uploads, content organization, etc. Basically, I’m covering several roles that would normally be split between different people in an agency.

The project itself is actually going well.

But some tasks are taking much longer than expected.

For example, they asked me to upload a large number of products. From their perspective, I think it sounds like “download the photo and upload it.”

But for every image I’m downloading it, cropping it, resizing it, changing the format, adapting it to the store requirements, uploading it, assigning the color, etc. And there are hundreds of images.

I brought this up during a call because I wanted them to understand this was taking so much time. Expecting understanding for my hard work.

Instead the client responded:

“You can’t complain, because when you complain it makes us feel bad as clients. I keep getting complaint after complaint from you.”

That really threw me off. I had never complained before this???

Then we got into additional work. They asked me to write/upload product descriptions, which were explicitly excluded from the original proposal. When I said that would be additional work, they said:

“But with what we’re already paying you, how can you charge extra?”

At that point I started crying.

I cry pretty easily, but I really didn’t want to cry in front of a client.

I’ve already added several things that weren’t originally included — a quiz, a size calculator, a map, etc. — without charging extra because I thought they would make the final product better.

So from my perspective, I’m actually very flexible with what we do.

They then said “you are not being flexible”. I feel like I’ve been extremely flexible.

And that’s what I can’t figure out: if the scope is clear and they know additional work costs extra, why does charging for that work become a personal issue?

After I started crying they turned nicer and in the SAME conversation, they basically said:

“Okay, if you’re charging for additional things, just tell us how much and we’ll pay you.”

The weirdest part is that they actually told me they don’t want me to leave the project and want me to keep helping them for the next few months.

Obviously, I like getting paid.

But this conversation has made me question whether I want to continue working with them.

After the call, I sent them an email summarizing everything and reiterating the scope and my boundaries. I also made it clear that I value the relationship and want the project to succeed.

Now I’m wondering how other freelancers handle this.

Have you ever had a client who understood the scope and agreed to the terms, but still made you feel guilty when you charged for additional work?

How do you communicate that something is taking a lot of time without it sounding like you’re complaining?

And if you were in my position, would you continue working with them — perhaps at a significantly higher rate — or take this as a sign to move on?

Hello my name is Mostafa, I'm a Roblox game developer for 3 years working as a freelancer

There's this dude I used to consider as my friend, he hired me to work on several projects, been working together about 4 months

About 4 days ago, my school started which is about 11 hours a day, I told him already I wouldn't be that active during most week days, so I came home and was tired asshell and couldn't work or respond immediately

He was asking me to create a custom UI animation but I forgot to respond so he went like this

So yeah, it kinda pissed me off, I thought we were good friends/colleagues, but I guess some stuff must come to an end

I have a former client who owes me less than $500 and is now ghosting my requests for payment. It's not worth my time and energy to take them to small claims court for such a small amount, but it is extremely irksome that a supposedly successful "Christian" businessman would take advantage of a poor disabled person in this unethical manner. Do y'all have some creative ideas (that are not illegal) of how to pay them back for not paying me?

Not saying every client who asks about pricing is a red flag — that’s normal. I’m talking about the ones who push hard to lower your rate, then act surprised when you don’t go above and beyond for less money.

Logically it doesn’t add up: someone who fights you over a fair rate is signaling they value your work less than you do. So why would that change once the contract starts? If anything, it usually gets worse — “quick favors,” extra revisions, slower payment, more complaints.

Meanwhile the clients who accept your rate without a fight almost always turn out to be the easiest to work with.

Genuinely curious if others have data that contradicts this, or if it’s as consistent as it seems.

I am frequently declining contracts. I decline more contracts than I accept because they are often from returning clients who believe that their contracts should take priority over anything else. Especially if they are time-sensitive. And especially if the client does not want to find someone else to do it. I do not interface with my clients directly but returning clients will often continue to make demands on my services even after I’ve declined to offer them.

Referrals are out of control. I have an administrator who handles these things so I do not know how it all looks on his side of it, or what he is doing to create the yield. These are referrals from referrals, and even the new clients are making proposals with the same kind of deserving expectation. The expectation seems to be that I will fly across the country, or out of the country(!), at a moment’s notice, and that their contract will go exactly according to their timeframe. I have had to threaten to withdraw once or twice in the middle of a job because the client kept making rearrangements or their information kept changing. This cannot happen if the job is overseas but these clients do not seem to understand that. To my limited knowledge they are individuals with international influence and borders do not exist for them.
If I am presented with multiple contracts at the same time, much of my time is spent deciding among them. Should I start charging for that? It’s not realistic, but my work is difficult enough.
So it happens that I am frequently thinking about and comparing contracts when I am on break, and should be resting. Such as right now.

Potential client***

I (25 F) used to work at a design studio and also freelance simultaneously. A client (US) reached out to that company and me and I found out about this because my boss was telling us. I've left that company now a month ago to focus on my study abroad.

This client told me she loved my work and wanted to go through. So my hopes were high because it would've been a big financial support for me considering I'd earn in USD as an Indian. But then she disappeared for 2 months. I followed back twice and she told me she's putting the project on hold because of some health issues.

Today she's reached out to my boss and not me. Again, I know because of a colleague who told me.

I feel so devasted. Like I'm not good enough. Like I've lost big money. It was a potential $8-10K project and the biggest one ever considering I'm just 2 years into my career and a year into freelancing.

😞😞😞

I have a client who is on an automated, monthly retainer with me but he rarely ever gets back to my messages.

Again, payment is not an issue.

However, I feel like I'm not making as big of an impact because he never follows up with my emails. There are a few projects that have not launched yet since he has not done x, y, x on his end.

I am able to see that he reads my emails. He'll maybe get back to me once a month saying he'll schedule some time with me and never does.

Anyone deal with a client like this? What did you do?

I have a client who works with me regularly. They asked me to quote them for an e-commerce site. This is an extremely complicated site with over 1,200 products. Many of the products are similar, so I structured my contract around creating 500 products and then training their team to add the remaining products.

Their current site looks like it is from the early 2000's. The quote I provided was what I felt was fair for the amount of work we would be doing (SEO optimization and building all the products, categories, etc.).

They came back and said they had a friend who could do it cheaper. I understood completely, as my cost wasn't cheap, but that is because I knew I would do a good job the first time.

Well, it's been almost a year now, and the site hasn't changed at all. I've followed up a few times, and the responses I got were "Our guy is working on it." I get it is a lot of products, but my outline had us soft-launching within 3 months.

Since we are approaching the one-year anniversary, should I follow up again or just give up? Feels like an opportunity to go, "Your guy was cheaper, but looks like you aren't getting any results."

Hey community i have been freelancing for a while, and lately i have been feeling pretty discouraged.

It feels like a lot of the work that used to be available to freelancers is either being replaced by AI or clients are expecting one person to do what used to take several people in less time and for less money.

Especially in tech, I’m seeing more and more clients asking, “Can’t AI just do this?”

And I get it. I use AI too. It’s an amazing tool, and I don’t think it’s going away. But there’s a difference between using AI to make your work better and watching the demand for your actual work slowly disappear.

What worries me most is that it doesn’t seem to be only affecting beginners anymore. Even experienced freelancers with years of skills and a solid portfolio seem to be feeling the pressure.

Maybe I’m just going through a rough period, but I genuinely feel like the freelance market has changed dramatically.

I’m curious if other freelancers here are experiencing the same thing.

Has AI noticeably reduced the amount of work you’re getting? Are clients asking you to use AI instead of hiring you? Or has your business actually benefited from it?

I’d especially like to hear from people in tech, development, design, writing, data, etc.

Would be good to know I’m not the only one feeling this way..

As we all know, we don’t have consistent income. Some months we earn double or triple, while other months we only make an average amount. I’ve been working as a freelancer for over four years, and every year when the low season comes, I still don’t feel great, even though I have an average income and have mentally prepared myself for it.

How do you cope with this? I’d love to hear your thoughts."

I'm working for a much larger company, and they sent an updated contractor agreement. A lot of the updated language is to protect them (I get it), but nothing really benefits me. In fact, I have to do more to list them as an insured and such on my general liability insurance. All the work I do is internal, and I don't interact with their clients directly, but the contract says they could still expect me to file a claim if they mess up and somehow find a way to pin it on me.

Would it be fair to ask for a pay increase with the updated contract? They pay me way too little, but have been a good, consistent client as I'm getting established.

When I started money was the whole thing. I was scared honestly. My cousin told me to only think about billing. Are you getting billed or not. That was the advice and it was the right advice at the time.

Went freelance a few years later with the same mindset. Nothing changed except who was paying.

then somewhere around year four or five I got fascinated with architecture. Frameworks, tooling, how the thing was structured. I was proud of that work. The clients never cared, which is fair, they were never going to. But I did, and for a while that was enough.

After that I stopped caring so much how it was built and started caring whether the clients business actually grew from it. That shift came from working with small businesses where you can see the difference directly.

Now I mostly think about the person using it. Not in a UI sense, I was always thinking about UI and UX. More like, if a client asks for a feature, does the end user actually benefit from it or is it just something the client wants.

So the order was money, architecture, clients business, user. Roughly eleven twelve years.

What I do not know is whether that order is normal or just mine. Did anyone here start out caring about the client's outcome or the end user, and pick up the billing discipline later? Or does money always have to come first when you are starting out on your own?