A Custom Request Is Not a Favour

Nearly every custom order begins the same way: a clear, specific, entirely reasonable request, priced fairly, agreed by both sides. What sometimes happens next is smaller and easier to miss. A follow-up message asks for one small addition, framed as barely anything, and because it genuinely is small, it feels petty to raise the price over it or even to mention that it counts as extra.

The trouble is that "barely anything" tends to arrive more than once, and each individual ask really is minor on its own. It is only when you look at the order as a whole, after the fact, that you notice you delivered considerably more than you originally priced, for nothing extra, because no single request felt large enough to justify saying so.

The useful habit is not suspicion of every buyer who adds a request. Most additions are entirely innocent. It is simply naming the extra the moment it is asked for, plainly and without drama: "happy to add that, it will be an extra [amount] on top." Said early and lightly, this rarely causes friction, because a genuine buyer expects extra work to cost something and is not offended to hear it stated. Said late, after you have already done the work for free twice, it becomes an awkward conversation about money that did not need to exist.

If a request specifically comes with the words "it's such a small thing" or "you wouldn't even need to think about it," treat that as the cue to price it rather than the reason to wave it through. The buyer describing it that way is usually being entirely sincere. It is still work, and naming it costs you nothing except the brief discomfort of saying a number out loud.