The designer community on Reddit has a dark joke for this: "I Love It, It's Perfect, Now Change It."
It goes like this: you present the design. The client says "this is exactly what I wanted." You move forward. You build it out, refine the details, polish every pixel. Then, two weeks later, an email arrives:
"So we showed it to the team, and we're thinking we want to go in a completely different direction."
Not a revision. Not a tweak. A complete redo. And they expect it for free — because you're still on "the same project."
The Approval That Wasn't
Here's the uncomfortable truth: a verbal "looks great!" is legally and practically meaningless. So is a thumbs-up emoji in Slack. So is "love it, let's move forward" in an email, unless it's tied to a formal approval process.
Without a signed scope agreement that defines what "approved" means and what happens after approval, the client has an unlimited undo button. And they will use it.
A designer on r/graphic_design described a project where the client formally approved the logo design — in writing, via email. Three weeks later, the client's spouse saw the logo and didn't like the color. The client demanded a complete redesign. The designer had no contractual protection because their agreement didn't specify that post-approval changes constitute new work.
The redesign took 25 hours. The designer was paid for zero of them.
Why This Keeps Happening
The "Show It Around" Problem
Clients love to show approved work to people who weren't part of the approval process. Spouses, business partners, friends, that one colleague who "has great taste." Each new viewer has fresh opinions and no context for the decisions already made.
When the CEO's spouse doesn't like the homepage hero, the CEO doesn't say "my spouse isn't part of this project." They say "we need to rethink the hero section."
The Evolving Vision Problem
Some clients genuinely don't know what they want until they see what they don't want. Your deliverable isn't wrong — it's a stepping stone in their discovery process. Unfortunately, they're discovering their preferences on your dime.
The Internal Politics Problem
Your contact approved it, but their boss didn't. Or the board didn't. Or the new marketing director who started last week didn't. Internal politics killed the approved direction, and you're expected to absorb the consequences.
The Fix: Formal Approval Gates
The solution is structuring your projects with formal approval gates that have contractual weight.
Define Approval Milestones
Break every project into phases with explicit approval points:
- Discovery & brief — client approves the creative direction
- Concept presentation — client approves the chosen concept
- Design refinement — client approves the refined design
- Final delivery — client signs off on completed work
Each gate requires the client's explicit approval before you move to the next phase. Once a phase is approved, changes to that phase are billed as additional work.
Put It in the Scope Agreement
Your scope document should include language like:
"Each project phase requires client approval before proceeding to the next phase. Changes to previously approved phases will be treated as new scope and quoted separately."
Use our free Scope of Work Generator to build a professional scope document that includes this language by default.
Define Who Approves
This is critical: name the person who has approval authority. If only the marketing director can approve, then the CEO's spouse's opinion doesn't trigger a free redesign.
"All approvals will be provided by [Name], who has the authority to approve deliverables on behalf of the client."
The "Decreasing Complexity" Principle
Each revision round should involve smaller changes than the last. If revision round 3 is requesting bigger changes than round 1, something has gone wrong — and that something is usually a direction change disguised as a revision.
Call it out: "This looks like a direction change rather than a revision. Let me put together a change order for the new direction."
What a Complete Redo Actually Costs
Most freelancers underestimate the cost of approval reversals. It's not just the hours to redo the work. It's:
- The hours already spent on the approved direction (sunk cost)
- The opportunity cost of projects you could be working on instead
- The timeline delay and its impact on other commitments
- The emotional drain of having your professional work declared worthless
A $3,000 project with one complete direction reversal easily becomes $5,000–$6,000 in actual time spent. Use our Scope Creep Calculator to see the real numbers for your situation.
The System That Prevents Reversals
ScopeFlag creates formal, timestamped approval gates that the client agrees to before work begins. When someone wants to reverse an approved direction, the system automatically classifies it as a scope change — generating a documented change request with its own budget.
No awkward conversations. No wondering if you should charge for this. The system makes the cost visible, and the client makes a business decision.
Your creative work has value — including the work that gets approved. Make sure your process reflects that.