Scope Creep Examples — SEO & marketing
One more round of content revisions, after the limit is already used up
Two rounds of edits on the quarter's blog content were included and closed out. The client's new marketing hire asks for a full third pass on tone.
The retainer includes two rounds of revisions per content piece — factual accuracy and light edits, essentially. Both rounds happened on this batch of four articles, and the client approved them for publishing. A newly hired marketing manager on the client side then asks for a third pass to "make the tone punchier" across all four, which is a stylistic rewrite request, not a correction. It's a reasonable thing to want; it's also a third round the contract doesn't include.
Clause typically implicated
Clause typically implicated
Revision limit clause→ — Covers content deliverables the same as design/dev deliverables — a fixed number of edit rounds per piece, not per stakeholder who reviews it.
Suggested change-order wording
Suggested change-order wording (illustrative, not legal advice)
These four articles have completed the two included revision rounds and were approved for publishing. A tone rewrite across all four is a substantive third pass — happy to take it on as additional scope, estimated at [X] hours, or we can apply the new tone direction to future content going forward at no extra cost. Which works better?
How this usually resolves
Offering the "apply going forward, not retroactively" option resolves this well in practice — it acknowledges the new stakeholder's preference without agreeing to redo already-approved work for free, and it's usually the option the client picks once it's on the table.
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