Is It Out of Scope? — Web design
Is auditing a newly acquired competitor's site out of scope for a web design project?
Yes. Competitive/site auditing is research work outside a design deliverable list, even when the acquired site will eventually be redesigned by the same agency.
A client who's just acquired a competitor sometimes asks their design agency to take a look at the acquired site — assess its design, flag what's worth keeping — before any redesign work has actually been scoped.
Is it out of scope?
Yes, as a standalone ask. A design audit of a new site is real analysis work — worth doing well before a redesign, but not something the current project's scope already covers.
Clause typically implicated
Clause typically implicated
Out-of-scope clause→ — The current project's scope was defined around the original site; auditing a newly acquired one is a separate piece of work.
Example contract wording
Example contract wording (illustrative, not legal advice)
Happy to take a look at the acquired site, but that's outside the current project's scope — I'd suggest a short paid audit ([$X]) that could also double as the discovery phase if a redesign of that site ends up happening.
How MarginFlow flags it
MarginFlow flags requests to assess a site not named in the contract's scope as outside_scope, since the audit is real deliverable-level work regardless of whether a future project might build on it.