Scope Creep Examples — Web design
A full competitor teardown, treated as part of the retainer
The design retainer covers ongoing site updates. The client asks for an in-depth competitive design audit of five competitor sites, expecting it included.
The retainer covers a set number of monthly hours for ongoing site updates and small design tasks — the kind of work priced for quick turnarounds, not deep research. The client asks for a full competitive teardown of five competitor websites, with detailed analysis of their design patterns, UX decisions, and recommendations for how the client's site should respond, and expects it to come out of the existing monthly hours since it's "just research."
Clause typically implicated
Clause typically implicated
Deliverables clause→ — The retainer's scoped hours are priced for the kind of quick-turnaround tasks it lists — a deep research deliverable like a competitor teardown is a different kind of work entirely.
Suggested change-order wording
Suggested change-order wording (illustrative, not legal advice)
A full competitive teardown across five sites is a genuinely deep research project — closer to a strategy engagement than the kind of quick-turnaround updates our monthly hours are scoped for. I can put together a proposal for it as a standalone deliverable, estimated at [X] hours, separate from the regular retainer work. Want me to send that over?
How this usually resolves
It helps to offer a lighter-weight version within the existing retainer hours (e.g., a quick two-competitor comparison on one specific question) as an alternative to the full standalone deliverable — the client's underlying need is sometimes much smaller than what they initially asked for.
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