The line in every quote
"Includes two rounds of revisions." It appears in nearly every website proposal and almost nobody asks what it means until a third round is needed and the invoice grows. Here is what it means in ours, why the number is two, and how to make two rounds plenty.
What a round is
A round is one consolidated set of feedback on a deliverable, followed by one set of changes in response. Deliverable, feedback, changes. That is one round.
The deliverables that get rounds are the design direction (the home page mock-up) and the built site (on the staging address). Each gets two rounds by default. So the schedule looks like: design shown, you comment, we revise; you comment again, we revise again, design agreed. Then the same for the built site.
The key word is consolidated. Everyone with a say looks at the deliverable, the comments are gathered into one list, and the list arrives once. Five emails over three days from three people is not one round; it is a project running on drip feed, and it is why the two-round limit exists.
What counts as a revision
Changes to what was delivered, within the agreed scope:
- Colour, spacing, type size, image choice, layout adjustments.
- Copy edits to text that exists.
- Moving sections, reordering pages in the menu.
- "The button should say Book, not Enquire."
- "Can the team photos be round instead of square."
- Fixing anything that does not match what was agreed.
All of that is revision work and it is what the rounds are for.
What does not count
Changes to what was agreed:
- A new page that was not on the page list.
- A new feature: a gallery, a blog, a members area, a second language.
- A different design direction after one was approved. "Actually, can we see what it looks like with a dark theme."
- Replacing the copy wholesale after it was signed off.
- A new logo mid-project.
These are scope changes. They are legitimate, they happen on most projects, and they are quoted separately before the work starts. Calling them revisions would mean the fixed price was never fixed.
The test: is this a change to the thing we delivered, or a change to what we agreed to deliver?
Why two
Because two is enough when the feedback is good, and no number is enough when it is not.
Round one catches everything you notice on first sight: the things that are wrong, the things that surprise you, the preferences you did not know you had until you saw the alternative. Round two catches the things that only show once round one's changes are in. After that, further rounds are usually one person's evolving taste, and there is no version that ends that.
Two rounds also keeps the project to its timeline. Each round is a day or two of your time and ours. Five rounds adds a fortnight.
How to make two rounds enough
Get everyone in the room for round one. The partner who sees it for the first time in round two and wants the colours changed is the most common cause of round three. Whoever has a veto sees the first version.
Comment on the deliverable, not the dream. "The heading is too small on my phone" is actionable. "It doesn't feel premium enough" is a conversation, and one worth having, but have it on a call and translate it into specifics before it goes on the list.
One list, in one place. A shared document or the review tool we provide, numbered. Not email, not WhatsApp, not both. We answer each numbered item so nothing is lost.
Say what to keep as well as what to change. "The hero is right, do not touch it" saves us from adjusting it while fixing the thing next to it.
Look at it on your phone. Most of your visitors will. Most feedback given from a desktop misses what phones show.
Sleep on it once, not five times. Look, sleep, look again, send. Feedback given in the first ten minutes is reactive; feedback given after a week has drifted into redesign.
Trust the brief. If the design does what the kick-off agreed, the question in review is "does it do that well", not "is this what I would have made". You hired someone to make it.
When a third round is needed anyway
It happens: a genuine misunderstanding, a stakeholder who could not attend, a change in the business mid-project. A third round is quoted as a small fixed item, usually a few hours, and it is not a fight. The line in the proposal is not a threat; it is a description of how projects go when they go well, and a way of making sure the ones that do not are priced honestly rather than absorbed silently and resented.
Where this sits
Every website project we scope includes two rounds on the design and two on the build, described this way in the proposal, with the scope-change process next to it. Clients who use the method above almost never need the third, and the ones who do know in advance what it costs.