Scope Creep Examples — Web design
Emergency weekend work, with no after-hours terms in place
The client emails Saturday morning needing an urgent homepage banner change before a Monday launch — the agreement never addressed weekend or after-hours work.
A promotional campaign is launching Monday morning, and the client realizes Saturday that the homepage banner needs an urgent change to match a last-minute pricing update. They message the designer directly, expecting a quick weekend turnaround since the deadline is real and urgent from their side — but nothing in the agreement addresses whether weekend or after-hours work is included, expected, or priced differently than normal business-hours work.
Clause typically implicated
Clause typically implicated
Timeline clause→ — Usually assumes standard business hours implicitly by not saying otherwise — worth checking whether this specific agreement has any after-hours language at all before responding.
Suggested change-order wording
Suggested change-order wording (illustrative, not legal advice)
I can make this change over the weekend to hit your Monday launch. Since our agreement doesn't include after-hours or weekend work, this would be billed at a weekend rate of [X] — let me know if that works and I'll get started right away, or if Monday morning first thing works instead, I can do it at the standard rate.
How this usually resolves
Genuine emergencies are usually worth accommodating for goodwill even at a premium rate — the bigger risk is doing weekend work for free once, which quietly resets the client's expectation that the agency is reachable and working outside business hours by default.
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