How to Charge a “Pain-in-the-Butt” Fee for Difficult Clients
(Illustration by James Arnold)
Have you ever worked with a client who gave you more trouble and extra work than you bargained for?
If so, halfway through the project you probably wished you had either charged more or never taken on the project to begin with.
Enter the “Pain-in-the-Butt” fee.
In a recent article here at EFII called Things to Consider When Pricing Your Work, I touched on the concept of adding an extra fee to your overall rate to compensate for potential “problem clients”. In response to this article, artist Alexandra Bond asked for a clarification about this added fee for difficult clients, and I thought I’d share my discussion with her to help illuminate the concept.
Here’s a portion of our brief exchange from the comments section of that post:
“How much do you all charge for a pain-in-the-but fee? Is it a percentage or a flat fee? Do you use a range given how painful it is to work with them, or more like “I add 1% for every time the client tries to down-bid me”?
“Hi Alexandra. Of all the elements of pricing your work, the “Pain in the Butt” fee is probably the most personal. The basic idea is to charge enough to make sure that you won’t regret putting in the extra time and energy when all is said and done.”
“Sure, but what range of a percent off the total project can you usually -get away with- that the client wouldn’t balk at upon receiving the estimate or invoice? 5%? And in the estimate or invoice, do you include it in your base fee (before direct and related expenses, etc)?
“I would recommend just making it a part of your base fee, without any need to disclose that to your client. As for the amount, I generally gauge/estimate how much extra work I’ll be putting in and balancing that with what else is going on in my business at the time (other clients, workload, etc). As far as what you’ll “get away with”, every client is different and it all comes down to communicating your value to them when negotiating price.
In the case of a pain-in-the-butt fee, it’s kind of a last measure to make the project worth working on at all. If the “problem client” isn’t willing to pay the rate, then I generally would rather not take on the hassle if I’m not comfortable with the compensation.”
“Ok, that makes sense – especially estimating how much extra work it might be (such as if they’re a bean-counter, or wanting a lot of extra revisions, and taking up a lot of time by phone or in meetings) and balancing that against what else is going on in one’s business.”
Thanks to Alexandra for engaging in this discussion with me.
As I mentioned in my conversation with Alexandra, the “Pain-in-the-Butt” fee is a very personal choice. In my opinion, it’s a last-resort measure to make a project actually worth your time in a case where the client would otherwise make you want to run far, far away. Of course, part of the challenge is recognizing a potentially difficult client early on, but in many cases they make themselves known pretty clearly.
As for the actual fee, the best way to approach it is to do your best to predict how much extra time you’ll be devoting to the client, and charge accordingly. There’s really no way to get it exactly right, but hopefully you’ll at least come up with a price that makes you more comfortable working with them.
If they’re not willing to pay your rate, it’s probably not worth your valuable energy, and your talents are better used in some other way or with some other client.
What’s your approach to the “Pain-in-the-Butt” fee? Please share your thoughts in the comments section of this post.
Special thanks to James Arnold for providing the artwork for this post.
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About James Arnold: James uses watercolors,ink and color pencil to create his illustrations. Imagination and humor are always included in his work. He Graduated from University of the Arts.
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Related Posts:
- Things to Consider When Pricing Your Work
- How to Spot a Problem Cient
- What to Do About a Problem Client
- How to Work with a Client’s Tight Budget
- Is Your Client Clean or Dirty?
- How to Protect Yourself with a Solid Contract
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We have, on a few rare occasions, added $$ to a proposal when we suspect a client will be a “pain-in-the-butt”. How much depends on the project – maybe 30%. The thinking is, if they give their business to someone else because we charged too much, no big loss. If they accepted the high proposal, the extra money made it worth our while.
But as a general rule, we opt out of working with pain-in-the-butt people. Life is too short and there are so many great clients out there for us, we’d rather spend our time with them!
(PS: A friend of mine used to work in a deli on Long Island. The owners instructed the workers to add a 10% A@$-Hole tax for rude customers – it was literally a button on the cash register and labeled “ASS-TAX”!)
That’s a hilarious example about the deli. It’s nice that the owners offered that option to their workers. I’m sure it make their jobs a little easier, and I wouldn’t be surprised if that button had to be replaced once in a while due to being pushed (or pounded) harder than the other buttons.
I agree that it’s better to only work with clients that you’re comfortable working with. Sometimes though, charging more can help you to tolerate an otherwise frustrating client if you want to work on the project.
Thanks for your comment, Maria!
What’s difficult sometimes is knowing whether to charge someone a PIA fee when you’ve just met him or her.
A design professional we know says she always looks at how a potential client is dressed. If everything is very matchy-matchy, she suspects that person will be demanding. Then she charges enough for the project that it will be worth her while if her suspicions prove out, as they almost invariably do.
That’s an interesting way of predicting a client’s actions. I’m glad it works for her. It is indeed difficult to say what type of interactions you’re going to have with a client, but the extra fee comes in handy when you see red flags start popping up in your initial conversations.
On the other hand, when extra work is called for in “ordinary” projects, it’s important to stand your ground and require further payment for the additional time and energy.
I had an on-going client and while some of the reps were easy-breezy others were more difficult and if they really put me through changes, usually to exercise their own ego or some such nonsense, I couldn’t adjust my concept & design fee at that point without a big, nasty stink so I’d tack on more production hours as a PITB fee. It was the only way to make up for the headaches they caused.
Several years ago I had a very difficult client. No matter what I did, he constantly accused me of cheating him. Finally, I’d had enough and I decided to get rid of him. I did so by an unorthodox method.
I fired myself.
What I did was to send him a letter raising my minimum price from $25.00 to $100.00. Shortly after that, I got a phone call. He was incensed and told me that if I was going to charge that much he was going to go with someone else.
When I hung up the phone, I was thrilled.