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Free revision cost calculator

Creative Revision Cost Calculator

Every extra revision round is billable time you're giving away. Enter your rate, team size, and hours per round to see exactly what unstructured client feedback is costing you — and what a capped, structured process would save.

Use the tool free Sign up to save your work

Your rate

£50/hr

Revision workload

4 rounds

Most agencies see 3–6 rounds when feedback isn't consolidated.

3 hrs

Include reading feedback, chasing clarification, and re-doing the work.

1

Designer, editor, account manager — anyone whose time is spent processing the round.

Total cost of revisions
£600
across 4 rounds
Cost per round£150
Hours per round (all staff)3.0 hrs
Total hours spent12.0 hrs
2 rounds vs. 5 rounds
2 rounds (structured)£300
5 rounds (unstructured)£750

Going from 2 rounds to 5 rounds costs an extra £450 per project — pure margin erosion with no extra value delivered.

At your current settings, going from 2 rounds to 4 rounds costs an extra £300 per project.

Capping revision rounds in your contract is the single biggest lever for protecting margin on creative work.

Build an approval workflow

Figures are estimates based on the inputs you provide. Actual costs vary by project complexity and client behaviour.

See the real cost of revision rounds, not just the time

Turns vague frustration about 'too many rounds' into a number you can put in front of a client or a partner.

Hourly or day rate input

Use whichever rate you actually bill at — the calculator converts day rates to an hourly equivalent automatically.

HourlyDay rate

Per-round and total cost

See the cost of a single revision round, and the running total across however many rounds the project ends up taking.

Team size factored in

Revisions rarely involve just one person — add designers, editors, and account managers who all spend time on each round.

2 rounds vs 5 rounds comparison

A direct side-by-side showing what a tightly-scoped project costs versus one that drifts into open-ended feedback cycles.

Margin erosion, quantified

The gap between 2 and 5 rounds is pure cost with no extra creative value — useful for justifying a revision cap in your contracts.

No sign-up, instant results

Adjust any slider and the numbers update immediately. Nothing is saved or sent anywhere.

How to calculate your revision cost

Takes under a minute. Use real numbers from your last project for the most accurate picture.

01

Set your rate

Enter your hourly or day rate — whatever you actually charge or would bill internally for this kind of work.

02

Estimate hours per round

Include reading feedback, clarifying anything ambiguous, and making the actual changes — not just the edit time.

03

Add your team size

Count everyone whose time gets spent processing a round — not just the person making the final changes.

04

Read the comparison

See your total cost, and how it compares to a tightly-scoped 2-round project versus a drawn-out 5-round one.

Who this calculator is for

Anyone who bills for creative work and wants a number to back up a conversation about scope.

Agencies pricing revision policy

Use the output to set or justify a revision cap in your standard contract terms — show clients exactly what extra rounds cost.

Contract termsScope conversationsClient pitches

Freelance designers and editors

Work out whether your current revision allowance is actually sustainable at your rate, or whether you're quietly subsidising scope creep.

Rate reviewsProject quotingScope creep audits

Studio owners protecting margin

Quantify how much unstructured feedback is costing across your whole project roster, not just one job — useful for process changes.

Margin analysisProcess changesTeam capacity planning

Frequently asked questions

How much does a revision round actually cost?

It depends on your rate and the hours involved, but the formula is simple: hourly rate × hours spent × number of people involved. A designer at £50/hour spending 3 hours processing one round of feedback (reading comments, clarifying ambiguity, making changes) costs £150 — and that's before accounting for context-switching cost, which studies suggest adds another 20–40% in lost productivity on the surrounding work.

Why do revision rounds cost more than they should?

Most of the cost isn't the editing itself — it's the overhead. Feedback scattered across email, Slack, and verbal notes takes time to consolidate. Vague comments ("make it pop") need clarification round-trips. Conflicting feedback from multiple stakeholders means redoing work twice. A structured, consolidated feedback process removes most of this overhead without changing the actual creative work required.

How many revision rounds should be included in a contract?

Most agencies and freelancers cap included revisions at 2 rounds, with additional rounds billed separately (often at the same hourly rate, sometimes at a premium). This protects margin and gives clients a clear incentive to consolidate feedback rather than trickling it in over multiple loosely-defined rounds.

What's the difference between a "round" and ad-hoc feedback?

A formal round is a defined checkpoint — the client reviews a complete draft and returns one consolidated set of changes. Ad-hoc feedback is what happens when comments arrive piecemeal over days or weeks via multiple channels. Ad-hoc feedback is far more expensive per change because it fragments your time and forces repeated context-switching, even though it doesn't show up as a distinct "round" anywhere.

How do I get clients to give feedback in fewer rounds?

Set the expectation up front in the brief or contract: a fixed number of included rounds, a deadline for feedback per round, and a single point of contact who consolidates input from all stakeholders before sending it to you. Using a dedicated review tool instead of email also helps — pinpoint comments on the actual file are far less ambiguous than written descriptions, which cuts down clarification round-trips significantly.

Does this calculator account for client-side cost too?

No — this tool calculates the cost to you or your team (the people producing and revising the work). Client-side cost (their staff time spent reviewing and consolidating feedback) is real but separate, and is actually one of the strongest arguments for a structured process: it saves both sides time, not just yours.

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Cut the cost of revisions — not the quality of the work

FileFeedback consolidates every stakeholder's feedback into one pinpoint-accurate thread, so rounds get resolved faster with fewer clarification round-trips.

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