How many revision rounds should a website project include?

By the HTMLAnnotate team14 November 20263 min read

Unlimited revisions sound generous in a proposal and turn painful by week six. A clear number of rounds protects your time and, just as much, helps clients give better feedback. Here is how to pick the number, define what a round is, and write it down so it holds.

Why a number helps both sides

Without a limit, feedback arrives one thought at a time. A client spots something on Monday, emails it, then notices something else on Wednesday. Each small message restarts your work, and the project drifts. With a limit, clients know each round counts, so they look properly, gather the team's views and send everything together.

A limit also protects the client. It keeps the project on budget and on schedule, and it makes them part of finishing it.

Picking the number

Two or three rounds per stage is a common starting point. A typical pattern:

1. Round 1 is for direction: layout, structure, tone and anything else that changes the shape of the page.
2. Round 2 refines wording, images, spacing, colours and the phone layout.
3. Round 3 is a final check with small fixes and sign-off. If it brings big changes, something was missed earlier.

Adjust for the project. A one-page site for a sole trader may need two rounds. A 40-page site with a marketing team, a founder and a legal reviewer may need more, or a rule that each stakeholder group reviews in a set order.

Setting rounds for each stage

Revisions work best tied to stages, so approved work stays approved:

Once a stage is signed off, changing it later is new work. That one rule prevents most "can we go back to the old homepage" moments.

Define what a round is

The number means little unless everyone agrees what a round is. A definition that works:

• The client gathers feedback from everyone on their team and sends it together.
• The feedback sits in one place, ideally as comments on the page itself.
• It arrives within an agreed window, for example five working days from when you share the stage.
• You work through all of it, reply to each point and share the next version.

Pinned comments make this much easier to hold. When every note sits on the exact element it is about, you can see the whole round at once, reply to each point and resolve it, and the client can see what was done.

What doesn't count as a revision

• Fixing something that doesn't match the approved design, or doesn't work. That is yours to fix.
• Dropping in final copy or photos the client sends later.
• Answering questions about why something was designed a certain way.

Wording for your proposal

Something like this, adjusted to your process:

• "Each stage includes two rounds of revisions. A round is all feedback from your team, collected on the review link within five working days."
• "Once a stage is approved, changes to it are quoted as additional work."
• "Additional revision rounds are charged at a fixed price per round, agreed before work starts."
• "Fixes for errors on our side are always included and don't count as a round."

When they want one more round

It will happen. Keep it friendly and factual: remind them what was included, say what the extra round costs, and offer to roll small items into the next stage instead. If you priced extra rounds in the proposal, this is a two-line email rather than a negotiation.

Most extra rounds come from feedback that was vague the first time. Our guide to vague client feedback helps turn "make it pop" into a change you can make in one round, and our feedback request email templates set the expectations at the start of each round.

Questions