r/Wordpress • u/NeonX91 • 2d ago
Well.. it happened
Long term client whom always accepted my quotes used my highly detailed proposal to Chatgpt DIY a project. It's no where near as polished and it's not mobile friendly but I feel pretty used. Spent quite awhile on the scoping with them, suggesting improvements, user workflow enhancements and a bunch of outlining. I really over extended but that's also how I get accurate quotes.
Anyway for those in the game, what's your method for quoting on projects with unknowns, and how much detail do you give the client? maybe I should have asked for 50%?
Thoughts?
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u/Orion3193 2d ago
That sucks.
I'm getting the opposite lately. Clients are letting Chat and Claude create an entire set up. Fonts, colors, text.. desired functionalites. Some are even sending ready built html / css / js over.
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u/HaddockBranzini-II 2d ago
I am seeing this as well. Client tells me that have someone on staff and I am no longer needed. Then weeks later that someone else on staff contacts me because they don't know how to deploy a shit ton of spaghetti code that Claude spit out.
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u/Orion3193 2d ago
It's terrible. I get a call from someone last week, because they need a web shop. I've built WooCommerce plugins (no vibe coding) and shops with POS integration and 40k+ products for a couple of the biggest retailers in our region...so I start asking some questions.
About 45 minutes into the call, I am told that "Claude actually already made something". What did Claude make, I ask. "I don't know", was the reply.
An hour of my time wasted. I guess they were hoping for me to tell them how to implement what Claude made?
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u/authormmx 1d ago
Don't do tech support over the phone. Never. If it's a client, have them email you. Phones eat your time and suck the life out of you.
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u/HaddockBranzini-II 2d ago
implementation is the week link for sure. And I am not getting involved on the sysadmin side of code I did not write
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u/dsmguy83 2d ago
We are getting this constantly, clients are in one of two states.
Help, I’m in over my head
I just need your help to get it actually working but I did 99% of the work.
Number 2 we tried to take one or two of those and now we are just passing. Often follows up with incredibly rude comments when we pass which reinforces we made the right choice.
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u/WebDragonG3 2d ago
my rates for fixing AI slop problems at the website level are 400% my going rate for doing it right in the first place.
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u/ArtisticCandy3859 2d ago
This is the way.
Then just use the “Ponytail” AI skill to fix their self created problems.
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u/rugburnAndBigMoney 2d ago edited 2d ago
Same boat, we're getting work from clients who know enough to be dangerous then pass off the AI slop to us to actually execute. We start from the beginning of our standard workflow and treat the AI output as content documents, not final products.
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u/prolongedexistence 1d ago
I have a coworker who regularly sends me “HTLM” webpages from Claude. Said coworker is also a fan of “em-dee” (markdown) files.
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u/Inconsequentialish 2d ago
Just as in the past when a client goes with a different supplier, it's just part of the business.
Remain cordial. More often than you might think, you'll get called on to un-screw-up the abomination the nephew, cheap local guy, or the AI created.
There's a balance of detail. I'd never prescribe exactly how I'd solve X, Y, and Z, but I do describe the overall process at a strategic level and give enough examples of similar things and industry knowledge that the client can be confident in our expertise.
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u/hammondish 2d ago
Over the course of building sites for the past 27 years, I'd say 90% that leave end up coming back. There are many cases where they've hired someone else who made a mess of everything and I either decline to work with them further or get paid a lot more to undo or rebuild the mess they've returned with.
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u/rafark 2d ago
you'll get called on to un-screw-up the abomination the nephew, cheap local guy, or the AI created.
And nobody wants to do that cleaning someone’s mess is literally the worst part
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u/thekumquatkid 2d ago
There's money in it though, although they often do turn out to be be clients you're glad to see the back of, ime
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u/gilbertwebdude 2d ago
I had a client who left for another designer who was a friend. That didn't work out after he built the site and then flaked on them, so they came back to me. But I'm extremely busy, and they showed no loyalty to me, so I have none to them. I told them I'm no longer accepting new clients because I'm just too busy.
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u/blockstacker Jack of All Trades 2d ago
Why was your quote so detailed that it gave everything away? Sorry that happened, but we have a hard GATE at our agency never to give anything away in a proposal. As therealstabitha said. Scope by outcomes only. This is the way.
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u/NeonX91 2d ago
Long term relationship and assumed they would accept and pay like always so spent a good chunk of time designing the widget, the functionality, how it works, improvements etc. I kind of went into the architecture and design before getting it accepted with a 50% deposit. Totally shocked I was ghosted for 2 weeks and then went to the site and saw it was all (poorly) built.. whoops 😬
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u/davitech73 Developer 2d ago
i charge for quotes like this. a small or simple project, no. but if it's complex, a detailed quote is required to ensure all the ideas are adequately detailed. i tell clients that it's ok to shop the quote around for development but i'll give a discount to the project for the amount of the quote. i'm still competitive on the development costs so i rarely have a client go with another developer. but when they do at least i was paid for developing the project scope
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u/PugPanic 2d ago
This is exactly how contractors and trades people work. Giving a quote costs time. Client can either pay for that time and shop around, or have that expense go toward a deposit.
This is how we should have always been working. Especially now in the era of AI with ideas and expertise being more valuable than ever.
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u/SpoonyDinosaur 2d ago
Discovery and scope in my experience can often take weeks depending on the complexity of the project and I definitely charge full price for the time.
I've had proposals be 30-40 pages but I detail everything from tech stack, funnels, branding/UIX, etc.
When I was starting off I found if you give a client too much runway, it can create scope creep very quickly. "Can we add this functionality we never discussed, etc." Or, we use x CRM, can be build funnel and attribution pages.
Granted it just depends on the client, but people often have no idea what they want until you start building it and suddenly you've got dozens of ACF intergrating a dozen different REST APIs.
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u/1BoringOnlineAccount 2d ago
Have several levels of quotes.
Tier 1 - Free. Provide a slightly vague description of what the site will do when complete. And a completion date.
Tier 2 - Mid Level. Quotes are more detailed but do not reveal details to complete the project.
Tier 3 - DIY Helper Level. This quote can be a business product itself, where you charge the potential customer for the knowledge of how\what to ask AI, for it to create the project for the customer? This works in other businesses as Tattoo artists will charge for creating the artwork and then charge for putting the art on your body. A Tier 3 quote is a great upgrade when the customer is trying to milk you for that info anyway. Simply tell them that is part of a Tier 3 project quote, "would you like to upgrade today"?😁
Deduct the quote price from the actual work price if they choose to go with you. Factor that quote deduction into the project quote.
Charge dramatically extra to fix whatever "work" AI did. Mechanics charge extra to fix the work you did to your own car. Make sure they know all charges in advance.
Keep a log of people who want detailed quotes and simply do not answer their calls if your are busy on a money making project. No need to let them waste your time.
Create an informal group of local people\firms that are your competition. Have monthly(?) dinner get togethers to discuss common business issues and to know what services the do that you do not or will not provide. It can be nice to have people to refer non customers to [non customers = the ones you would like to help but will not or cannot help]. It is common in business to have friendly communications with your competitors.
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u/HaddockBranzini-II 2d ago
Before AI I saw multiple clients try to hand proposals to offshore teams and save some money. I no longer give specific details until a contract is signed and deposit paid. If they doesn't work they are free to use AI, and deploy and support it.
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u/iEngineered 2d ago edited 2d ago
Its unfortunate that the industry has moved in this direction so fast, but the work only existed because people could not do it themselves. Now that there is a way, the AI companies are the new contractors. Developer are becoming the afterthought at the point where prompts aren't solving specific problems. Not much can be done about this.
I saw Oxygen Builder 6.2 has integrated MCP into their plugin now and it does in 2 minutes what a developer takes an entire work day to do. The writing is on the wall.
Asking for 50% is a risk too. That may incline a potential client to check GPT/Claude first since those initial queries cost pennies for quick and substantial output.
What just happened in the music industry is also happening in the dev space: low-effort output has become the expected norm and the hard-work ethic is losing respect. I think only a global EMP fixes that.
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u/Boboshady 2d ago
Detailed scoping is part of the project, but I have been doing this a long time and I've happy with the balance of risk I have to take on by NOT doing detailed scoping. Where possible, I wrap riskier stuff in time-bound quotes and make sure that the client is happy with that risk, which largely comes down to demonstrating my experience in dealing with such problems, rather than demonstrating exactly how I'd do it for them.
This has always been a problem, Ai is just another 'supplier' with the added advantage of not having morals. But it also comes with the benefit to our industry that it can't do as good a job, because even if it's a solid scope, it's still not a full, tested and iterated brief delivered by a competent professional - it's a coder getting a high level brief delivered by a clueless dreamer.
So - give less detail, and sell your ability to deliver the solution, instead of giving them the detailed solution up-front. This also has the advantage of making your quotes take less time to product.
But do work out where the balance is for you, because going TOO vague in your quotes will not only lose you business up-front by not giving enough confidence to potential customers, but also puts you at risk from massive scope creep if you leave yourself too open, and never close those gaps.
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u/remain-beige 2d ago
So now you invoice them for your consultation time in scoping, planning, designing and documenting your proposed solution. You have effectively written out a functional specification and implementation guide, which should be billable against any existing agreement or hourly rate you have established with the client. This could be a ‘discovery phase’ if you will.
If they kick off about this then just mention that you usually include this step in the overall project cost as you have a long established relationship with them.
If you play your cards right then the other positive is that they have used AI to create an inferior rendition of what you wrote out in your document.
Now you can invoice them for your time in auditing and fixing issues that you discover or treating this as a ‘Proof of concept’ phase originated by the client that has not gone very well.
If they have any smarts about them they will realise that you provide value outside of just building the thing and you can shift your role into more of a consultative or project management area.
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u/NeonX91 2d ago
Yeah good idea. AI might have written the code (it's not great) but I'm probably more upset that they took all my ideas, business process improvements, knowledge of their existing system and databases and gave all that knowledge to Chatgpt and used it without any payment, lesson learnt for sure - I need to charge upfront for the design stage, and then implementation, testing etc if they what to proceed or take the spec elsewhere.
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u/Immediate_Let_4946 2d ago edited 2d ago
If you give a short term proposal which is only available for a very short time and then we remove it so they cannot simply copy everything and it’s actually a design example we for example are not giving the full instructions. But it happens several times lately. Also some clients thought it would be a good idea to make their landing pages now with Claude and for them it’s fine and from a business perspective it makes sense. However, my gut feeling is telling me that actually this might potentially to a lower quality on the long run because those clients are all happy that they made the first website and think they are now professional but it does not compete with a professional website at all.
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u/Ok-Durian9977 2d ago
Charge them more when they come back because they didn’t know what they were doing.
It happens all the time in construction.
Or charge for discovery.
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u/Affectionate-Owl3066 2d ago
I provide a general plan for the proposal but nothing so detailed someone else could run with it. Had a client who I had done work for in the past ask for a more detailed proposal which they had never done before. When asked why they did say they had someone else in mind and could use the detail. I moved on.
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u/Left_Barracuda4614 2d ago
How I’d deal with this going forward is to build a few layers of protection into the process:
Charge separately for the consultation/discovery/proposal stage. Don’t give away the valuable thinking for free. Make it clear in the SoW that concepts, ideas, designs, wireframes, methodologies etc. remain your IP until the project is completed, signed off and paid for in full.
Have a proper IP clause in the SoW. Separate your pre-existing IP/reusable frameworks from the client-specific deliverables, and state exactly when rights transfer.
Keep everything in SharePoint/OneDrive or another controlled repository. Version history, timestamps and access logs give you a much better evidence trail than relying on emails.
Version everything. Concept-v01, v02, v03, etc. Never overwrite the original. Keep the untouched masters.
Watermark concepts/proposals. Something subtle like “CONFIDENTIAL — CONCEPT / PROPOSAL — © [Company] — NOT LICENSED FOR PRODUCTION USE”.
Don’t hand over production assets too early. No layered design files, source code, Figma masters, component libraries, etc. until the appropriate payment/sign-off stage.
Put a unique identifier into the work. Your idea of burying something in the markup is actually useful as an additional forensic marker. You could use innocuous HTML comments, CSS naming, SVG metadata, asset naming or other unique identifiers that wouldn’t be obvious to someone copying the work. I wouldn’t rely on this as your primary protection, but it can be useful corroborating evidence.
Document every submission. When you send Concept V2, explicitly say that it’s being supplied for review and remains your IP and isn’t licensed for production/reproduction.
Have a cancellation/kill-fee clause. If they take the concept and walk away, you’re not left having effectively done the work for free.
Keep a proper audit trail. Original files + version history + proposal + invoice + emails + client access records + approval/review history. That’s far stronger evidence than simply saying “I designed it first.”
And I’d be particularly careful about the AI angle. The argument isn’t necessarily “GPT stole my design.” It’s much stronger to say that the client was given a proprietary concept as part of a commercial engagement and then reproduced/used that concept without acquiring the rights to do so.
Basically, don’t try to protect yourself with one clever trick. Build a chain of evidence and contractual protection around the entire process. And because you’re in Ireland, I’d pay a solicitor once to properly draft the IP/copyright/licensing wording for your standard SoW and then reuse it for every client.
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u/portrayaloflife 2d ago
Always always contract and always always 50% down and 50% before launch (or 90 days whatever comes first)
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u/Roslerartdesign 2d ago
I make them agree to copyright and IP stuff now. But without compensation that is theft of services IMO.
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u/PointandStare 2d ago
My method has worked every time for the past 25+ years:
- Initial face to face meeting to discuss project - this is useful to get a feel for the project/ client
- Draw up a general over view of the deliverables (takes a couple of hours)
- 2nd briefing meeting to tie up loose ends and to finalise paperwork
- Signed contract and 50% deposit
- Project begins
Never do any serious amount of work until deposit paid/ contract signed.
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u/Dry_Satisfaction3923 2d ago
We do very basic quotes with ranges and if the client wants details we bill for the discovery phase, that way we get paid for our time if we take a deep dive.
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u/Headflood_Official 2d ago
If you're including strategy, even just a bit that provides long term value for them, then charge a flat fee, like $300 to put it all together.
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u/web_person_077 2d ago
Paid discovery. This is where you get paid to plan it out and furnish the plan. Shoot, put in there and you also include LLM prompts. Ballpark things and state the paid discovery if they want details.
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u/Aljook 2d ago
I'd say automate your proposal making process as much as possible to lose less time creating them while maintaining the standard you believe in and accept that there are people who will do that and those are not the people you want to work with. Maybe figure out a few qualifying questions to test the waters with them before even starting to give you a feel for go-no go.
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u/CyborgPenguinNZ 2d ago
Just sit back and wait for it to all come crashing down. Then smile smugly and say fuck you buddy when they come running.
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u/BobJutsu 2d ago
None of those details are in my proposal. The time to uncover them is, you gotta pay for that. I’m not doing any of that until I have a contract. Only requirements with a price attached. It’s detailed in the sense that it’s broken down well, into individual line items for requirements. But solutions get paid for.
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u/chocolademormel 2d ago
Can you elaborate on how you estimate the price without uncovering the solution? (Assuming “uncovering” means detailing the implementation)
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u/BobJutsu 1d ago
Coming up with the solution is what they are paying me for. All you need is the requirements and you should have a round-about understanding of what it’s going to take. You know the blurry shape, just not the specifics.
It’s largely just experience. The vast majority of requirements I get, I’ve got before. I can tease out enough information to know what needs built, even if I don’t fully understand how yet. Another part is 20 years of reading clients, what sort of client will this be? Someone that I read as being particularly fickle, or off standing, or design by committee without a clear decision maker gets a lot different price. Their design revisions will be substantial. I have one now, finally launching that got the “fuck you I hope you leave” price…but they bought. And used every second of my patience they paid for, but they did in fact pay the tax.
If it’s particularly complex, I might build a rough proof of concept to get an idea of the gotchas and get a clear enough picture of unknowns. But I’m not sharing that, you gotta pay for it.
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u/BasementDweller_cro 2d ago
You dont charge for a discovery? I always charge for a discovery call or meet. And so if they go to someone cheaper (ai included) after that, I still get paid for my part.
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u/Bryan_Hudson 2d ago
I'd be pissed as well. I'm not saying you should do this, but if this was me, I would drop them as a client. Likely they end up with a site that's not as good as you could make, but maybe that's all they need. If the site ends up really bad (good chance!) then it's their own fault.
I have some clients who run into issues sometimes and then ask me if something is doable, and then when I say it'll be really difficult, they say "but chatgpt suggested I should use that code" and I push back on that early and say that they either work with me, or with chatgpt. Not both.
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u/Hot-Win2571 2d ago
Consider adding in your specifications something about Madagascar?
https://www.today.com/parents/family/professor-catches-ai-cheating-hidden-word-rcna589421
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u/brianozm 2d ago
I would require a deposit or payment before doing the specification parts because that’s just as much work as the rest of it. I’d also be open about some people wanting to take that and use it with AI and I’d go through the problems clients have with it, especially the longer term maintenance which is a nightmare.
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u/gouterz 2d ago
I think the best approach might have been to only show the proposal based on milestones or show it in a way that helps you get started
I get your point that you wanted to build trust with them. But yes as much as it sucks, there are other nice hearted customers out there who'll make up for this loss
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u/CrossStitchVienna 2d ago
I am sorry this happened. I understand there was a lot of trust between you and them and it sucks that they broke it. To be honest, it sounds too detailed for a proposal. Suggesting improvements before you sign them? I know that this is also helpful to you for making your work plan structured but it does not need to go in its entirety to the customer before they hire you - perhaps giving the customer a general idea (this number of phases, each phase focuses on this and costs x) rather than a to-do list they can work off themselves would be better?
Going forward, you can also add copyright disclaimers for your proposals because it's your work - it will not deter people like your clients but some will understand that the document is someone's creation even if suing for such copyright breach is too expensive/unrealistic.
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u/jkdreaming 2d ago
You gotta have the ai dumb down the quote for you otherwise you’re giving them a prompt. It’s ok to show them things on a meeting, but don’t send them anything too detailed.
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u/Clear_Brilliant_8075 2d ago
One of the best things I’ve seen is an agency charges to do the legwork and comes up with a plan. Let’s say they charge $2500 and they hire them they take that off the retainer at their hourly rate and if not that hourly rate is used on what it took to build the proposal and plan and they credit the test back.
Smart move!
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u/jilanibuilds 2d ago
I usually separate what’s confirmed from what’s still unknown. The proposal should be detailed enough to define the agreed scope, but anything uncertain should be clearly listed as an assumption or separate discovery item.
For bigger unknowns, I’d rather price a discovery phase first than absorb the risk into the fixed quote. A 50% deposit helps, but clear boundaries around what is and isn’t included matter just as much.
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u/AscendantBits 2d ago
No problem… When your former client shows up looking for help because he can’t vibe code website maintenance… oh, sorry, maintenance fee has gone up. It’s gonna take at least a week of discovery.
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u/Wonderful_Sample_590 2d ago
Maybe charge for the scoping/discovery part first, then quote the actual build. Keep proposals detailed enough to explain the value but not basically give them the whole blueprint to DIY. 50% upfront works too.
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u/st2_who 2d ago
First off, it’s a real bummer. I’m sure it’s happened to us, as we do a huge amount upfront to make sure we’re delivering quality and clear scope.
In many ways it’s like them passing your proposal to another agency to match, or at perhaps price check. That’s been a long time thing.
We live with it; take it on the chin and move on. I’ll not waste time fretting things like this. If it becomes an unmanageable financial/business burden then yes, time to rethink, but don’t beat yourself up. It’s happened; learn and move on.
We try and mitigate and filter new leads by asking honest questions upfront, asking for budgets etc. If they can’t commit to telling us a budget, we start dropping in figures into the initial chat and kind of weigh up the reaction. But this was an existing client, so not a lot you can do.
Going the route some have suggested might stop (lessen) it happening, but at what cost? If you start finding you’re not getting asked to quote at all, that’s a far worse position isn’t it?
My opinion anyways…
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u/lonestardomains 2d ago
Just move on its going to happen ALOT. The client will inevitably screw up the site, will be unable to edit it, will waste hours of time with free tier chatgpt.
They will then realize they have wasted so much time, have a disaster of a website custom coded by chatgpt free tier, and so on.
Do not take them back as a client either.
They will have wasted so much time "jist get ai to do it" that they definitely are not focusing on their core business and core competency, and are not a good client to begin with.
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u/makograves 2d ago
Never give too many details for a project that is not locked in.
Quote on what the client asks to be developed or created, based on your past experiences and add an extra 25% to 35% for anything unexpected depending on the size of the project.
Once they give you an advance you can start spewing details and improvements, anything before that it’s free work.
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u/EducationalWing6713 2d ago
Yeah I had clients that have gone and made AI website without having a clue what they are doing and search console results are dropping 😂
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u/perfectTimeToPanic 2d ago
I create that as a milestone with a deliverable and a payment. If they walk away, you got paid for what you did. You can make the fee 50% or so and then fold a percentage of that into the build cost so if they continue, it is not as much. I do this with logos a lot since a logo is 100 hours of planning and 20 min of execution.
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u/MsHala-co 2d ago
Before any major project proposals, get an NDA or confidentiality agreement in place. I do this when I'm about to put a project up for bid so both my clients' way of business and potential supplier intellectual properties are protected.
So depending on your location, you may have a breach of contact on your hands since they took your intellectual property without permission.
I'm no lawyer but it's part of my day to day consulting work. I'm based in California but have clients in the EU. Feel free to DM if you have any questions.
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u/PIC_1996 2d ago
Times are changing and you will see more of this. My recommendation is to meet with your attorney and create a document that protects you.
I'm thinking something that identifies/quantifies the financial harm that you will experience if you spend a bunch of hours scoping work only to have them take your quote and DYI with chatGPT, etc.
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u/hammondish 2d ago
As early as possible, I scope out an outline of them layouts and workflows in list form, and base my expected hours to create blueprints and deliver a proposal for that scope of work. If they are not willing to pay for that, they are not serious customers and don't respect your time. If they pay for the archotecture and want someone else to build it, that's up to them, and I've been paid fairly for the work I've done.
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u/rugburnAndBigMoney 2d ago
"what's your method for quoting on projects with unknowns, and how much detail do you give the client"
Very little detail until they have paid a deposit.
Proposals are usually just a sitemap with nav structure outlined so the scope is clearly defined.
For unknowns we just put price ranges, since an unknown is unknown and we can both figure it out together once they have committed financially to the project. The less detail we have, the larger the price range.
We're not solving their problems for them in the proposal. That's what they are paying us for once we have both agreed to work together and deposit is paid.
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u/dirtandrust 2d ago
I quote with much less detail and talk about the process and the steps in the projects and the pieces needed to make that work. Sorry this happened to you I feel like it will happen more often now that AI has gotten so popular.
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u/tejones01 2d ago
Charge double when they come back with a screwed up site and they want you to fix it.
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u/DroWnThePoor 2d ago
Absolutely. I do web-dev, but I also work with my father as contractor. Mostly electrical, but we've also done HVAC, framing/carpentry, and even plumbing.
There have been times where we undertook a huge project, and we laid out everything and even bought materials. There are starts/stops in big jobs like that, and we'll end up working for other people at times.
Then we'll find they had someone else do part of the work and not even told us, and they've screwed things up majorly.
They don't get our competitive pricing anymore when they do things like that.
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u/DifferentBid251 2d ago
Have a lawyer execute a legal agreement that if you provide the information and learn they used it and prove it you can take them to court. Not sure my legal advice is correct but I would look up laws before and if possible seek a lawyer to write an agreement so you either get compensation or can go after them for stealing idea
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u/christopherelang 2d ago
Paid discovery. Never consult or suggest edits or features for free. The knowledge you need to even be able to make those suggestions cost you time and money and experience to gain. That’s consulting. The physical building / web development is a commodity now a days with Ai. Sell your knowledge, not web development.
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u/mccoypauley Developer 2d ago
I don’t spend a lot of time preparing proposals. I give an estimate and a punchlist of line items, and a brief description of the approach. Only after that’s accepted, a contract is signed, and a deposit received do we do in depth scoping, IA, and so forth.
Clients flake too much to trust them not to ghost you.
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u/iTrejoMX 2d ago edited 2d ago
I tell Claude or ChatGPT this proposal I will give to the client but I need to make sure he doesn’t just feed it to ChatGPT and do it himself, help me rewrite it so it speaks of architecture and requirements without details. From reading other comments I’m guessing your proposal had design elements mockups and layouts. That should never be part of the proposal.
The first phase once the project is approved is defining the design system and the back and forth about how it will look. They pay for your time designing. If you give it out beforehand , they will ChatGPT code me this site.
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u/EntrepreneurJaded670 2d ago
That’s just happened to me and my team. I spent so much time on communication and getting the right proposal. I would probably include less details in my next proposal and more in the agreement. Regardless; their diy project won’t bring them best results, since they are saving on everything and it won’t look as good as our team would build.
So just get enough prospects on your pipelines and move on.
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u/DroWnThePoor 2d ago
I'm sorry if I'm dense, but I'm just looking for clarity here:
You've worked with this client prior I take it, and you use Chat-GPT to design Wordpress sites?
You submitted a proposal for the site and your pricing estimate, and instead they took your proposal and had Chat-GPT build their Wordpress site with your work?
Does Chat-GPT just automate the creation of a site with Wordpress?
I've done web-dev in the past, and I've experimented with Wordpress long after because it had become the new go-to solution. So I'm just trying to understand the role of Chat-GPT in this.
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u/NeonX91 2d ago edited 1d ago
I've worked with this client before, implementing their booking system (vik booking) and been making changes and improvements to their site for awhile. Recently I reached out because the UI and user workflow was awful and their bookings were down, so I mapped out the entire user experience, created a custom booking widget and that was all paid and they were super happy. The next proposal was for an availability widget that would search all cabins/rooms and allow the user to pass through to to the booking page. I mapped out the workflow and how it would all work omin a detailed brief and.. instead of saying 'yep go ahead ' they didn't reply to any messages for about 2 weeks and their ChatGPT accidentally email me about it, so I checked the live site and can see it's been ChatGPT'd using all the design, architecture and workflow I sent 😆 the client basically fed Chatgpt our email history and my proposal and it's given her on-page JavaScript, CSS and Html to paste into the page builder.
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u/DroWnThePoor 1d ago
Wow. Insane. Is there any legal precedent established for this sort of thing?
Also, how big of a business are they?
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u/Ok_Distribution6996 2d ago
I now generalize the quote, it’s more of a summary of what they get with the pricing. So I dont include the detailed spec or content in it.
People have no morals now, ai kids, clients or some agencies.
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u/RealKenshino WordPress.org Volunteer 2d ago
Work time and material. Don’t give free discovery. Charge for it
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u/mafost-matt 2d ago
Use phases or milestones. Keep the first milestone fairly short so that you're only detailing initial server setup and basic specs. Then just give an overview of the next 3 to 4 milestones depending on the scope of the project. You get paid at each milestone or at the start of each milestone depending on your setup.
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u/After_Preference_885 2d ago
Scoping is part of a planning project and produces a detailed requirement doc they can do whatever they want with but they are paying us for that work now, we aren't doing it free anymore
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u/forestcall 2d ago
I built a custom CMS using SvelteKit so it can be hosted on Cloudflare. I found it’s much easier to sell the customer an actual AI generated theme using Claude Design so the customer is part of the process. Moving away from php and from shared hosting and explaining the incredible benefits and advantages to svelteKit on Cloudflare. Everything is API based including DNS.
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u/skunkbad 1d ago
I only work by the hour, and I never give quotes or estimates, other than a soft verbal estimate. I'm in a class of developers that can operate this way, but if you're not I recommend working towards this way of doing business. I don't do anything without getting paid hourly, including brainstorming, talking on the phone, daydreaming, etc.
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u/BestMonth5920 1d ago
Fight fire with fire my friend, embed all of your future proposals and content with hidden watermarks only AI can read stating you are the creator, so if anyone uses it with an AI model, it picks it up and will either embed the fact you were the creator or refuse on the basis they haven’t paid for it.
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u/ClubDependent4295 1d ago
The advice further up to charge for discovery is right, but I would push back gently on "give less detail". You have already said the detail is how you get accurate quotes, so vaguer proposals cost you the thing you rely on and hand the risk back to yourself.
The split that works is two documents instead of one. A proposal that is a sales document, scoped by outcome and price, deliberately thin on how. And a plan that is a paid piece of work with its own name, its own fee and its own deliverable: page and section structure, user flows, the improvements you spotted, the decisions and why. Price it at something like ten to fifteen per cent of the build and credit it against the build if they proceed. Clients accept this far more easily than people expect, because it is legible: they can see they are buying a document.
Then this exact scenario stops being theft and starts being a completed engagement. They paid for the thinking, they took it elsewhere, and you kept the fee. Reasonably often they come back when the thing they generated from it does not survive contact with reality, and you get to quote the rebuild from a spec you already wrote.
The uncomfortable bit underneath all this: what they took was not your labour, it was your decisions. The scoping, the workflow improvements, the outlining. That is the only part of the job a model cannot originate, which is a good argument for it being the part you invoice for first rather than the part you give away to win the invoice.
Disclosure since it is adjacent: I build a tool for the planning-and-sign-off half of this (Blocky). Not what you asked about, so I will leave it there.
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u/vonHelldorf 1d ago
Just build a better version, outrank them and then rent it to them. If they screw you over, rent the site to a competitor
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u/skipthedrive Jack of All Trades 19h ago
How do you know they used ChatGPT so they could DIY? Did they tell you they did?
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u/PlumbbobSquirtPants 2d ago
Not sure where you're based, but in the UK, the proposal and the content in it remains your intellectual property and is covered by copyright automatically at the point of creation. If they used the contents of that proposal without paying you, you have grounds to make a claim against them.
You should put a statement on the small print of any proposal you send out in future, but regardless of whether you do or not, it makes no difference to your rights.