Revision rounds: how many, and how to keep them straight

Revision rounds are where the margin on a design job goes. The quote said two, the client remembers "a few tweaks", and by the time anyone counts there's a folder of files called final_v7 and nobody agrees which round this is.

The fix isn't a stricter contract. It's a clear idea of what a round is, a number written into the quote, and a way of working that makes each round easy to see and easy to close. This article covers all three.

What counts as a revision round#

A round has three parts, and it isn't a round until it has all of them:

1. You send a version.
2. The client sends back one consolidated set of feedback on it.
3. The round closes with a decision: approved, approved with changes, or changes requested.

That definition does a lot of work. A follow-up email with one more thought is part of the same round, not a new one. A colleague of the client's chipping in a week later is the same round too, if it's about the same version. And a request that changes the brief ("can we also do a version for the US market?") isn't a round at all. It's new work, and it gets its own quote.

Write the definition into the quote in a sentence, so it's agreed before the first version goes out: "A round is one version from us and one consolidated set of feedback from you."

How many rounds to include in a quote#

There's no correct number, but there is a sensible default. Here's how I'd think about it.

Two rounds per deliverable suits most design work. The first round settles direction: is this the right idea, the right tone, the right layout? The second refines it: the details, the copy, the colour. If the brief was clear and the right person is deciding, two rounds is usually enough to reach a yes.

Three rounds make sense where more people have a say: a brand identity, a website's key pages, anything a board or a managing director will see. More reviewers means more chances for a late opinion, and a third round gives you room for it without a difficult conversation.

One round is fine for production work: resizing a campaign into ten formats, or a template that follows approved guidelines. There's little left to decide, so a second round mostly invites new ideas.

Whatever the number, say in the quote what happens after it: extra rounds are charged at an agreed rate per round. Then, when a fourth round comes up, you're pointing at something the client already agreed to, not inventing a charge.

Decide who gives the feedback before round one#

Most extra rounds come from feedback that arrives in pieces: the marketing manager replies on Tuesday, their director on Friday, and the second set contradicts the first. Each piece feels like a new round to the client, and like scope creep to you.

Name who decides before you send the first version, and agree whether you need everyone's yes or just one. In Skybase that's part of the request: you name the approvers and choose Everyone must approve or Any one approver. With everyone, one request for changes sends the version back. With any one, the first answer decides. Either way the client knows, before they start, whose feedback closes the round.

Keep versions, not final_v7 file names#

File names are a poor way to track rounds. logo-final.pdf, logo-final-v2.pdf and logo-final-v2-FINAL.pdf tell you the order files were saved in, not which one the client saw, what they said about it, or whether it was approved.

What you want instead is a version number that means something: version 1 is what went out in round one, version 2 in round two. Each version holds its files, a note on what changed, and the decisions made on it.

In Skybase, an approval request on a job holds its versions in order. When the client asks for changes, you choose New version, add the files and write what changed. Everyone is asked again, and the earlier version keeps its files and its decisions, so you can always open version 1 and see what was said. The version number is your round count: if you're on version 4 of something quoted at two rounds, you know before anyone has to work it out.

Carry open comments forward#

Between rounds, feedback gets lost. The client pinned six comments on version 1, you fixed five, and the sixth only resurfaces when they spot it again on version 3.

The answer is to carry what's still open into the new version, rather than starting each round with a blank page. When you add a new version in Skybase, the open comments come across with it, each showing the version it was first raised on. Mark each one done with Resolve as you fix it, and anything still open on version 2 is plainly something you haven't dealt with yet.

If a comment needs real work, Make a task turns it into a task on the job, so it sits with the rest of the checklist instead of in a thread.

Compare versions before you ask again#

Before you send a new version, compare it with the last one. It's the quickest way to check you've made every change, and the only reliable way to spot the ones you made by accident.

In Skybase, Compare puts two versions next to each other:

• images Side by side, with a Slider across the two, or with Opacity to fade one over the other
• PDFs side by side, with their pages turning together (switch off Pages in step to move each on its own)
• videos side by side, each playing on its own

Clients can compare too, which helps them see exactly what moved since the last round, rather than reviewing the whole thing from scratch.

Close every round with a clear decision#

A round that ends with "looks good, a couple of thoughts" hasn't ended. You don't know if it's approved, and neither does the client.

Ask for one of three answers, and make the last two say what to change:

• Approve: this version is done.
• Approve with changes: a yes with small fixes, written down so they get made, with no need to ask again.
• Request changes: a no that says why, so the next version gets it right.

In Skybase those are the three decisions on every request, and the last two need a note. Each approver decides once per version, and the decision is recorded with who made it and when. Approve with changes is the one that saves rounds: small fixes no longer cost you a whole new version.

When the work is approved, you can download the sign-off as a PDF with every version, each file's SHA-256 fingerprint and every decision. That's useful when a printer, a developer or the client's finance team asks what was agreed.

A worked example at Harbour Studio#

Take a small studio, say Harbour Studio, rebranding a client called Northwind. Their quote for the brand guidelines says two rounds, and defines a round in one line.

Leo, a designer, asks Tom Becker at Northwind to approve version 1 of the guidelines PDF, with a due date. Tom pins four comments, including one on the palette page asking for a darker navy for print, and chooses Request changes. That's round one, closed.

Leo adds Deep Harbour (#0B2545) to the palette and fixes two more, resolving each. The fourth comment asks for "simpler icons", and he can't fix it without knowing which set Tom means, so he replies in the thread with two options and leaves it open. Before sending, he compares the palette page across the two versions to check nothing else moved. Then he uploads version 2 with the note "Darker navy for print, logo spacing fixed, misuse examples updated." The open icon comment comes across, marked as first raised on version 1, so Tom can see it hasn't been forgotten.

Tom answers in the thread and chooses Approve with changes: "Use the outline icons." Two rounds, as quoted, and the icon swap doesn't need a third.

If you're writing the emails that go with each round, the client approval email templates cover the first ask, the new version and the sign-off.

A checklist for your next quote and your next round#

• The quote says how many rounds, what a round is, and what an extra one costs.
• The approvers are named before version 1 goes out.
• Each round is a numbered version, not a renamed file.
• Open comments carry into the next version; fixed ones are resolved.
• You compare each new version with the last before sending it.
• Every round ends with approve, approve with changes, or request changes.

For the bigger picture, client approvals without the email chain sets out the whole process, and the design approval software page shows how Skybase handles each round.