[fareesh]

It happens all the time.

The development scope is feature X with A,B,C. Customer asks for D and E. Technically D and E will add maybe 3 hours and Y cost to the total.

Your choices:

a) Bring it up which almost always leads to some haggling. Emails turn into calls, calls turn into meetings. Meetings turn into negotiations, negotiations lead to some compromise, in the end you have spent 3 hours just reaching an agreement, which nobody will reimburse you for. If you don't reach an agreement you stand your ground in numerous ways, most of which result in getting stiffed or losing business.

b) Spend the extra 3 hours.

A lot of times it's just simpler to choose (b), and like the author says, give in to tyranny. It's a genuine problem.

[hobofan]

If you follow the authors other advice of not charging to little (which is strongly connected to how much your client values you), that's rarely a problem in my experience. My client knows my hourly rate, so when I tell them that the extra features take 3 additional hours they know exactly how much that would cost them. No haggling, no negotiations, no meeting.

Of course that only works with time-based billing, and a lot of people would advise against it, but it's one of the reasons why I love it.

[fareesh]

This is definitely the case with "good"/recurring clients, and it's very painless. Not so much with others.

[codingdave]

Then you don't want those others. I know it is hard to turn down work when you are getting a consulting business going, but there are "good" clients, and "bad" clients. You are not doing your future self any favors by rewarding bad clients with free work.