It depends. I have a few clients who do a lot with me. Most of their jobs are similar, so they have an idea how much it will cost them up front. For those, they call me, I do the job, then I bill them.

But, for anyone else (especially new clients) I give them a quote up front. I do a lot with businesses just starting out, and they usually have a limited budget, so it's nice for them to know going in about how much it's going to cost them.

For your situation, I'd contact the client and explain to them that what you had been working on up until this point was the direction they wanted you to go in, and since everything is changing, it's basically a new job and will be billed as such. Also, I find it's always better to have both parties agree on the dollar amount up front.

However, this may be a case where it's a very valuable client and you may want to accommodate him. So, it's really a judgement call.

i'll also give them an hourly rate, which does fluctuate based on how much volume they do with me. i'll quote them a number of hours, and then let them know if i'm going to go over that.

It depends. There are a few clients that I have a long-standing relationship with and usually they just say do it and bill (invoices are generally about the same price so they know how much to expect). Since I've gotten Curdbee I usually send an estimate they can accept. My contracts all have new content built-into the verbiage (rates). With new clients they get a quote and contract upfront.

Yeah I have hourly rates built into them, and normally that is more then suffice. However this client pretty much wanted a re-do, which essentially took the starting cost and doubled it. I know this is probably not a normal situation, but I was just wondering if people typically quoted before or after.

Seems like everybody does it before, and then gives notice to the client if increases are expected; thats how I've been rolling.

I quote upfront, then require a deposit (35-50%, depending on the project).

It sounds like the problem you're facing is scope creep. When you're quoting a client you want to make sure that you very carefully outline the scope of the project in as much detail as possible so that you've both agreed to what the client is getting for their money (including # of concepts, # of revisions, etc.). Then, in a situation like yours you can refer them to the quote (and your contract) and say "what you're asking for is outside of the scope of the project. To do this additional redesign will add $X to the budget."

I've got much the same answer as most of the others here.

For new clients, there's always a specific contract outlining in detail the scope of the project and what is expected of both parties. If any work exceeds what's been specifically agreed upon, an hourly rate kicks in, but I don't proceed down that road without written acknowledgement from the client that it's okay to do so — even if it's an emailed authorization.

For these clients I bill in 30-day increments (also specified in the contract) for whatever work is completed during that period. If I'm skeptical of a new client, I'll ask for a deposit, but I generally avoid working with clients that I feel uneasy about, so it doesn't come up often.

All this said, I have a small handful of longer-term clients with whom a mutual level of trust has developed into more of an informal partnership and friendship. With them, the relationship, work orders and billing tends to be correspondingly less formal and simply based on earned trust and our mutual certainty that the job will be done right, billed fairly and paid on time. For these clients, I'll bust my butt and go the extra mile, as will they.

Most of my 'long-standing' clients just tell me to get on with the job and bill them at my usual hourly rate afterwards.

With new clients, I generally give a comprehensive quotation with specification of the job (ie, what they get for their money!), followed by a contract and payment terms if they want to proceed.

Thanks for the help guys. Luckily I always build my contracts in 3 parts, a formal scope / overview, an accurate invoice X amount of time spent on ____ for $XX.XX hourly, and then the legal stuff. I was able to actually increase the jobs net by 40% drawing up a new invoice. The guy couldn't contest it because of the overview and invoice.