Ten91

3y

Questions to other freelances out there.
I suppose it's a common occurrence to be involved in some project, asked to add some feature or modify something, and then looking at the source and find an unmanageable burning mess.
If upon such a discovery you decide you're not taking the job - for example, given the situation you need to charge quite a lot more and the customer cannot pay the appropriate amount - how do you go on explaining your reasons?
You just go out directly telling them about the dire situation of their codebase? Try to find a nice way of telling the truth? Make some excuse (cannot because personal reasons)?

Just curious

question

relations

customers

freelancing

technical debt

mess

Ranter

Comments

1

react-guy

1504

3y

"after looking into the code I realized that it's much more complex than initially expected. I can still do it but I'm afraid I'm going to ask you 3x the price than initially announced. If it's too expensive for you, I'll understand."
You let them decide, although most of the time 3x is enough for them to refuse the new deal.
1

Eklavya

1768

3y

You must tell the customer of messy code, on which he should regret. Try to assure him that you and your team can complete this task. Keep customer update with a major fix(if you can). Don't ask for more than what he actually can pay, directly send him "This project will cost you $suchandsuch"

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