Good Seal
Notes

27 August 2026 · 2 min read

What to put in a freelance contract

The clauses that actually prevent a dispute later, not a wall of boilerplate nobody reads.

Most freelance disputes are not about bad faith. They are about a contract that never specified the one thing that later turned out to matter. Five clauses handle almost all of it.

Scope of work

As specific as the work allows: what is being delivered, in what format, by when. Vague scope is the single largest cause of freelance disputes - not because either side is dishonest, but because "a website" and "a website with the five pages we discussed on the call" are different promises, and only one of them is written down.

Payment terms

The amount, the schedule, the method, and - this is the clause people skip - what happens if payment is late. A flat late fee or a pause-work clause costs nothing to include and changes the conversation entirely if it is ever needed.

Ownership of the work

Intellectual property typically transfers on final payment, not on delivery. If that is not written down, the default assumption differs by jurisdiction and by the type of work - which means it is exactly the kind of thing worth not leaving to a default.

Revisions

How many rounds are included, and what counts as a revision versus a new request. Without this, "just a small change" has no boundary, and the boundary is where most scope-creep arguments actually live.

Termination

How either side can end the engagement early, and what is owed at that point - work completed to date, a kill fee, or nothing. Every contract ends eventually; the ones that end badly are usually the ones that never said how.

  • Scope: specific deliverables, format, and deadline.
  • Payment: amount, schedule, method, and a late-payment consequence.
  • Ownership: when intellectual property actually transfers.
  • Revisions: how many rounds, and what counts as one.
  • Termination: how either side exits, and what is owed.

Save the layout once as a Good Seal template, and every new client contract starts from the same five clauses in the same place - only the names and numbers change.

Good Seal is a free DocuSign alternative: upload a PDF, place the fields, email a link. The other side signs in the browser and everyone gets a sealed copy.

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