Scope Creep
Scope creep is a job growing past the quote, one small request at a time, with no extra charge agreed. Each request looks minor. The total over a whole job is often large.
What it means
A client rarely asks for a whole extra job in one go. It arrives as "while you're here, could you also...", a handful of times in the same visit or week. None of it was in the original quote. None of it gets billed unless you say so at the time.
State a boundary before the job starts and not partway through. Say what the quote covers. Say plainly that anything outside it changes the price. A short note or a quick re-quote for the extra keeps the job on record as agreed. Without it, the extra becomes a favor nobody remembers giving.
A quoted bathroom re-tile grows to include moving a light switch, patching an unrelated crack and swapping a tap. These are three small asks, none in the original quote, added up over two visits. Priced separately, that is a real amount of extra, unbilled work.
Saying yes to each small extra because refusing feels petty. You then absorb the whole total at the end of the job. Raise each request as it comes in.
See also
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