Delayed timeline clause

One component in contracts that is usually missing for freelance creatives is a clause about delayed timelines. What often happens is a freelancer’s contract will have a set number of revisions and deliverables, but no overage cost if the timeline gets delayed. 

This matters because it’s very common for clients to delay timelines by taking days or weeks to send notes back on deliverables. They technically didn’t add revisions or deliverables, but now, instead of your project being a neat and tidy two-week turnaround, it extends into a third, fourth, and fifth week. This makes it more difficult for you to book other clients, because you’re still working with this old one. It makes every project less profitable for you.

Now in my contracts, especially for post-production, I add a clause that states a weekly overage charge for every “week or part thereof” that the project is delayed beyond seven days. So they have a little bit of buffer, but if it goes past seven days, they have to start paying extra. I rarely exercise this, but a gentle reminder that this clause is in the contract they signed usually gets them to straighten things up.