1. Having such negative experience pushes you to make a harder, but better, decision in the future. Embrace this, it will happen repeatedly in different ways to you forever.

It is the power base of personal change.

2. It's ok to make the client responsible for everything in writing. Especially if you do not have a deep committed relationship with them.

I have clients I have worked with for over 15 years and they don't even need a quote from me to start work, and they send me a check for any reasonable amount up front.

I have other clients where I spell out every single detail before I start and I do not deviate (add or subtract) from this list (for both our benefits) without written request from them and possibly a fee change.

3. I give away free work to many clients for many reasons. Some I don't even let them know, and others I make sure to put it on the invoice as a discount and rate. This way they know that I did the work, I did it for free, and they should recognize that. Also so that it's easy to charge for this work in the future.

A lesson I learned hard was a few failures:

1. When to start: I did a bunch of work when a client said ok on the phone. When I invoiced he was mad because he didn't remember saying "ok" to start work. So, now I only start work with an email record, period. Even if it's annoying, even if it delays work, even if it makes the client annoyed. Every single time I ask "can you send me an email with the ok to start this work?" (or I prompt them with an email and they reply) Again, some clients verbal is ok, but only if I know them really really well. (ie, lots of previous work with them)

2. Extra work: I did a bunch of extra work/features on one project, and they wanted me to support the extra work also for free forever. (forever... sigh) And were angry when I said I couldn't...

3. Accountability for timelines: I had a project that every weekly meeting more features got added to the project. We spent half to over half our budget in meetings. (yes that bad) So I made sure to document all time spent on everything one month. The next month the lead project manager started cutting back the meetings instead of us devs complaining about not having enough time, the project manager _knew_ we didn't.

4. Specs and Expectations: Numerous times I "imagined" what the client actually wanted because I knew better than them. I would build something expecting to be paid for it (or at least appreciated) and it would be presented and the client would ask for it to be _removed_ from the project.

This was the last kick in the teeth I would ever take from this, ever, ever again.

Then later a new client (a state university) had visual layouts of interfaces given to me. I had learned some lessons about being screwed over before, so I was going to stick to their layouts no matter what. After it was built, they were _really_ pissed, and had the gaul to say to me:

"Why did you build it this way?" And I said "Because it was how it was designed and specced out". Their reply?

"That isn't what we wanted, you were supposed to make what we wanted."

Unreal, but I won this argument hands down. No one can read minds and people who expect you to don't have a reasonable argument if you provide your experience on why you will never do this again. What can they say to you?

My long term clients _never_ give me a hard time about anything extra I do, ever. I know them, they know me and they say "make something that solves this problem the best way you can", and we may tweak, but we respect each other and I fix my errors, and they pay for theirs and we meet happily in between no matter what.

Also, I will no longer support software for free indefinitely, I say I offer free bug fixes for 6 months. Any new features is paid work. And support after 6 months will need to be negotiated. (all this depending on the client and project)

I state as much as possible up front about everything (in writing) so there are as few arguments as possible (I hate arguments with clients they really suck). Doing this extra work kinda sucks sometimes, but the older I get the less I have to do this. The first time it saves your ass you will be happy. And as soon as you write it and hand it over you will have instant peace of mind.

It may take you a few projects to get the handle of these ideas, but it's obvious you recognize there is a problem. But communication and clear expectations is the solution. I have also learned to say "Sorry, I meant to state this up front, I failed to do so, so I will give you X for free for my screw up, but I still need Y to do Z"

Keep at it, what you are facing is normal, and your desire to do good work is commendable and will pay off in the long term in ways you can't imagine.

Cheers!