Clients you should avoid

I think all of them can be fixed with a proper contract and negotiations. Most clients are stereotyped like this, simply because they don't know anything about the web and it's your job, as a web developer, to educate them. If you sit down and figure out what the client wants, put it on paper and place a price tag on it, you will effectively get rid of the first 4 client stereotypes listed in the article.

This should always be done before any photoshop work or code occurs. If a client wants a demo design first, you're certainly welcome to charge for it, and if a client doesn't like the fact that you're charging for a demo design, there are plenty more fish in the sea. It's not wrong to be selective of the clients you work with. You can also charge for tech support and for those extra calls/emails once you ship the product, all this goes into contract as well.

I know many studios who take 50% of agreed sum for the final product before they start any work. Cheapskate have no basis for making you do extra work if there is a clearly outlined set of deliverables in the contract. You can always dispute them in court if you feel that the terms of the contract have been violated.

Add to the list any client that tells you how easy a project should be: "I need a widget that does A, B, and C; it shouldn't be too hard, just a couple lines of JavaScript." No matter how low the estimate you give them, it will be too high because it's "such an easy project."

meta comment:

Although I get annoyed by these frequent semi-spam articles on HN, this one is interesting because there are at least 6 copies of it found by Google, but I'm completely unclear who has copied from whom.

https://encrypted.google.com/search?q=%22web+developer%2C+Th...

I really like this list, but it's also rather painful to read because I can imagine concrete examples of these archetypes from my own history.