Contracts for Freelancers & Consultants
You are usually the smaller party, working from the client’s paper, with the least leverage and the most to lose from a bad clause. These are the terms worth pushing back on.
A freelancer needs a client agreement covering scope, revisions, payment schedule, IP ownership, and a kill fee. NDAs are common for client data, and a formal legal notice is the standard route when an invoice goes unpaid.
Your contract stack
Roughly in the order you’ll need them. Each links to what our lawyers check in that document.
Every engagement — including the ones that start informally
Larger or longer engagements where the client expects formal paper
Client gives you access to systems, customer data, or unreleased work
A retained client sending repeat projects
Invoice overdue and the client has stopped responding
Where freelancers & consultants businesses actually get caught
100% on delivery means you financed the project
Taking full payment only at the end makes you the client’s creditor for the entire engagement. An upfront portion or milestone structure moves that risk back where it belongs.
Unlimited revisions
Without a defined number of rounds and a definition of what counts as a revision versus a new request, an agreed fee can quietly become an open-ended commitment.
The client goes quiet
The most common cancellation is not a notice — it is silence. If the contract does not say when prolonged inactivity counts as cancellation, you may have no trigger for a kill fee at all.
Being treated as an employee in substance
Fixed hours, exclusivity, and close supervision can undermine genuine contractor status regardless of what the contract calls you, with tax and benefit consequences in many jurisdictions.
A non-compete that outlasts the engagement
A broad non-compete slipped into an otherwise standard client contract can restrict who else you work for long after this project ends — and as a freelancer, "who else you work for" is your entire business, not one clause among many. Check the scope, duration, and geography before signing, not after another client turns you away citing it.
Clauses that matter most here
Plain-English explanations of the terms that carry the most weight in this industry.
Frequently asked questions
Scope with explicit exclusions, deliverables and acceptance criteria, a defined number of revisions, a payment schedule with an upfront portion, IP ownership terms, portfolio rights, a kill fee, and how disputes get resolved.
Not sure which contract you need first?
Upload whatever you have for a free Contract Health Check, and a lawyer will tell you what’s missing as well as what’s wrong.