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Out of Scope

is travel to a client site out of scope?

Yes — if your agreement describes remote delivery and the client now wants you physically on site, the travel day and the hours spent there are new work outside the original fee. The exception is an agreement that explicitly lists on-site days or a kickoff visit.

Why this answer

Most freelance agreements are written around the deliverable, not the venue. They say what you will produce and when, and they quietly assume you produce it from wherever you normally work. The moment a client asks you to travel, they are adding a constraint that was never priced: a full or half day removed from your calendar, real transit cost, and the loss of any work you would otherwise have done in that window. None of that is captured by a deliverable-based fee. An on-site request is therefore best read as a request for a different kind of service entirely — your presence, attention, and time in a room — rather than a logistical detail of the same job. The deliverable may be identical, but the way the client wants it delivered has changed, and a change in delivery method that costs you a day is a change in scope. Treat the trip as its own line item with its own rate, not a favor folded silently into the existing number.

When the answer flips

The verdict moves toward In Scope when your agreement actually anticipated travel — a named kickoff visit, a fixed number of on-site days, or an all-in fee that the brief described as covering presence at the client's office. It also softens when the location is trivially close and the ask is genuinely small: a thirty-minute stop on a route you already travel is rarely worth a fight. The picture turns ambiguous when the original conversation referenced 'occasional check-ins' without defining the medium, since the client may reasonably have pictured those as in-person. And if you priced the engagement at a premium specifically because the client described it as collaborative and hands-on, a reasonable on-site expectation may already be baked in. Outside those cases, an unplanned trip is added work.

What to do next

Separate the two questions the client has merged: will you attend, and what does attendance cost. Confirm you are happy to come, then state the terms plainly. Quote a day rate for on-site time that reflects the full day lost, not just the hours in the room, and pass through travel costs — mileage, fare, accommodation — at actuals with receipts. Offer a remote alternative in the same message, because a video call often solves the underlying need and lets the client choose. If you expect more visits, propose a small block of on-site days at a set rate rather than re-pricing each trip. Put the new terms in a one-paragraph change order and get a yes before you book anything.

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Frequently asked questions

The client says the trip is 'just an hour' — should I still charge?+

An hour in the room is rarely an hour out of your day. Add the travel each way, the buffer you'll keep clear, and the focus you lose around the trip, and a one-hour meeting routinely consumes half a working day. Charge for the day you actually lose, not the time on the client's clock. If the location is genuinely on your doorstep, a goodwill exception is fine, but make it explicit so it doesn't become the new baseline.

Should travel time be billed at my full rate or a reduced one?+

Both approaches are defensible. Some freelancers bill transit at half rate because they can answer email on the train; others bill it at full rate because the day is gone regardless. Pick one, say it up front, and apply it consistently. What you should not do is absorb travel time silently, because that trains the client to treat your calendar as free.

Can I refuse to travel entirely if it was never in the agreement?+

Yes. If the engagement was scoped as remote, on-site presence is something you can decline without breaching anything. The professional move is to decline the trip while offering the outcome another way — a recorded walkthrough, a live screen-share, a detailed written handover. Refuse the venue, not the goal, and most clients are satisfied.

Who pays when the client cancels an on-site day at the last minute?+

You do not, if your terms say so. Travel commitments tie up a date you could have sold to someone else, so a late-cancellation clause is fair: full fee inside twenty-four hours, partial fee inside a week, plus any non-refundable bookings. State this when you quote the visit, not after a cancellation, so it reads as standard practice rather than a penalty invented on the spot.

How do I price recurring on-site visits without renegotiating each one?+

Bundle them. Offer a block — say four on-site days across the project — at a set per-day rate, with travel costs passed through separately. A block gives the client budget certainty and gives you a clean number to invoice against. It also stops every individual trip from becoming its own negotiation, which is where goodwill quietly erodes.

What if the client expected on-site work but it was never written down?+

Then you have an honest mismatch rather than a violation, and the fair response is to split the difference once. Acknowledge the gap, agree terms for travel going forward, and put a travel clause in writing now so the assumption is shared from here. Re-litigating who imagined what is a waste of energy; setting a clear rule for the rest of the engagement is not.

Related reading

Answer scope creep from your actual contract — not a template.

Settled reads your contract and the client's request, gives you a verdict (In Scope / Out of Scope / Ambiguous), and drafts the email grounded in your specific clause.

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