Scope Creep Examples — Web design
Website copy the agency never agreed to write
The design proposal assumed the client would supply final copy. Deadline approaches with no copy delivered, and the client asks the design team to just write it.
The proposal's assumptions section states the client will provide final copy for all pages by a specific milestone, with design built around placeholder text until then. That milestone passes with no copy delivered, and as the deadline nears, the client asks the design team to "just write something" so the project can move forward — copywriting was never quoted, never scoped, and the design team may not even have the product knowledge to write it well.
Clause typically implicated
Clause typically implicated
Assumptions clause→ — States what the client was responsible for providing — copy, in this case — and what happens to timeline and scope when that assumption doesn't hold.
Suggested change-order wording
Suggested change-order wording (illustrative, not legal advice)
Our agreement assumed final copy would come from your team, and design was built around that. I can write placeholder-to-final copy as an add-on service for [X], though it'll need your input on key messaging to be accurate. Alternatively, we can launch with the current draft copy and swap in finals once ready — which would work better for your timeline?
How this usually resolves
Offering the "launch with draft, swap later" option is often the fastest path to actually hitting the deadline, since it decouples the launch date from the client's own copy-writing bottleneck — the copywriting add-on can still happen in parallel if the client wants it.
Related reading