Most freelance contracts are boring until one clause costs you a month of work.
I wanted a number instead of an anecdote, so I generated 100 contract samples — written the way clients actually write them — and ran every one through the same clause checker freelancers use.
Method (so you can judge the number)
- 100 samples across 5 professions: designer, developer, photographer, consultant, video editor
- Payment terms varied: due on receipt, net 30, net 60, net 90 after acceptance, 50% milestone
- IP varied: assigned on creation, assigned on payment, provider keeps copyright with a licence
- Liability varied: uncapped indemnity, capped at fees paid, third-party only
- Revisions and termination language varied too
- Every sample went through the same analysis pipeline the product uses
These are generated samples, not real client contracts. The percentages describe how the checker behaves on this corpus, not how the market behaves. That distinction matters, so I am putting it before the numbers rather than after.
What came back
| Metric | Value |
|---|---|
| Contracts analysed | 100 |
| At least one high-risk clause | 95% |
| Issues per contract (average) | 6.31 |
| Risk score out of 10 (average) | 7.06 |
| High-risk issues in total | 275 |
Score distribution: 43 contracts landed in 4–6, 29 in 7–8, 28 in 9–10. None scored below 4.
What got flagged most
- Revisions — 48
- Payment terms — 29 (plus 19 more filed under "Payment")
- Confidentiality — 26
- Liability — 26 (plus 17 "Liability cap")
- Termination — 22
- Intellectual property — 20
The revision clause was the surprise. Payment is what people complain about online, but "revisions until the client is satisfied" is the clause that quietly turns a fixed-fee project into an open-ended one. It does not show up as a bill; it shows up as three extra weeks.
Three lines worth checking tonight
- Revisions — does it cap the rounds, and does it price the next one?
- Payment — does the clock start at the invoice date, or at "acceptance"?
- IP — does copyright transfer on creation, or on payment?
If a contract says the work is "assigned upon creation", it stops being yours before the invoice is paid. That sentence is short enough to read past, and it is the one that decides whether you can put the project in a portfolio.
Why I wrote this up instead of just shipping the tool
A clause checker that says "this looks risky" is a black box. A clause checker that publishes its own test corpus, its numbers and its limits is one you can argue with. I would rather be argued with.
Full method, distribution and limits: https://tidycontracts.com/en/study
If you want to try it on an actual contract: https://tidycontracts.com — 3 free checks, no account needed.
General information, not legal advice. Contract law varies by jurisdiction.
