The cheapest client I ever had cost me the most

Author

Kevin Szabo
February 26, 2026

In partnership with

A while back I took on a project I knew I should have turned down.

The budget was low but I told myself it was fine.

Quick job, easy scope, good for portfolio.

The kind of reasoning you do when you're not yet enough to say no.

Within the first week he had emailed me eleven times..

Not with feedback exactly, more like anxiety dressed up as feedback.

Can we tweak this.

Actually can we go back to the first version.

I showed my wife and she thinks the font is wrong.

What if we tried something completely different.

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I kept showing up because I'd made a commitment.

But every morning I'd open my laptop and feel something sink in my chest when I saw his name in my inbox.

The project that was supposed to take two weeks, took six.

The rate I'd agreed to, already low, ended up being almost nothing when I divided it by the actual hours.

And by the end I didn't even want to put it in my portfolio.

The work had been revised into something I wasn't proud of.

The thing nobody tells you about cheap clients.

Price isn't just the number they pay you.

It's everything that comes attached to it.

People who undervalue your work from the start will keep doing it in a hundred small ways throughout the project.

They'll ask for more than was agreed because they don't really respect the boundary the contract represents.

It take longer to give you what you need and then expect you to turn things around immediately.

And you'll let them, because somewhere in the back of your head you feel like you don't have the standing to push back given what they're paying.

That guilt is the hidden tax of undercharging.

I've talked to enough freelancers and copywriters and designers to know this isn't a me thing.

It's almost universal.

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Projects that caused the most damage, professionally and personally, were almost always the low budget ones.

Not because cheap clients are bad people but because the price set the tone for the entire relationship before a single word of work was written.

When someone pays a real rate they show up differently.

They've made a significant decision and they respect what that decision represents.

They give you room to work.

They trust your judgment more. They understand that revisions are part of the process but not an unlimited resource.

The whole dynamic is just healthier.

I raised my rates about 3 months ago and braced for work to dry up.

The opposite happened. I got fewer inquiries but the ones I got were more serious.

Projects moved faster. Clients were easier to communicate with. I started actually enjoying the work again.

The math that sounds counterintuitive is actually just true.

Two clients paying well will leave you with more money, more time, and more energy than five clients paying badly.

You just have to be willing to sit with the discomfort of the gap while you make the transition.

One thing that helped me was stopping thinking about my rate as a price and starting to think about it as a filter.

The number isn't just what you earn. It's who you work with.

Set it low and you'll attract people who will make you regret it.

Set it where it reflects what you actually bring to the table and you'll find people who already understand the value before the first call.

The cheapest client I ever had cost me six weeks, my confidence, and a portfolio piece I still don't talk about.

I haven't made that mistake again.

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