Is It Out of Scope? — Web design
Is creating a new brand color palette out of scope for a web design project?
Usually yes. Once a color palette has been approved as part of the visual direction, a request for a genuinely new palette is a new exploration round, not a revision within the one that was already signed off.
The visual direction — including a color palette — went through the agreed revision rounds and was signed off. Later, sometimes after seeing the site live, or after a stakeholder change, the client asks for a different palette entirely, not a tweak to specific shades. That's a meaningfully bigger ask than it might sound: a new palette means re-checking contrast and accessibility, re-applying it across every component and page, and often re-approving the whole visual system again.
Is it out of scope?
Usually yes, once the palette was formally approved. Minor adjustments within an approved palette (a shade of the accent color feels off) are normal revision work; a request for a genuinely different palette is closer to restarting the visual exploration than refining it, and falls outside the revision rounds the project priced for.
Clause typically implicated
Clause typically implicated
Revision limit clause→ — Caps the feedback-and-revision rounds included in the fee — a request for a new palette after approval is a new exploration, not a round within the existing one.
Example contract wording
Example contract wording (illustrative, not legal advice)
The color palette was part of the visual direction we signed off on, and we've used our included revision rounds on it. A genuinely new palette means re-applying it across every page and component and re-checking contrast throughout — I'd like to scope that as an additional design round ([$X] or [X hours]). Want me to put together an estimate?
How MarginFlow flags it
MarginFlow checks the request against the revision allowance and what's already been approved — a request for color adjustments within an unused revision round reads as inside scope, while a request for a new palette after sign-off (or after the revision limit is used up) is flagged outside_scope, with a suggested charge scaled to the fact that a palette change touches nearly every page.