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Your Client Used AI. Now They Want You to Fix It. How Should You Charge?
9 min read
TL;DR: When a client brings you AI-generated work to fix, assess what is there before promising a price. Agree any paid assessment first, define the repair and its limits, and record investigation, correction, and checking as they happen. Your invoice should reflect the work and price the client approved, including the time needed to understand what went wrong.
The client has already made a start.
They used AI to build a website, draft a report, create a design, or put together an automation. Most of it looks right. There are just a few things they cannot get working.
Could you take a quick look?
Sometimes the remaining work really is small. Sometimes the draft hides missing requirements, broken connections, or decisions that need to be made again before you can finish it.
The pricing conversation starts with finding out which situation you have.
Fixing AI-generated work is becoming a normal client request
Upwork reports that job posts asking people to fix, refine, or finish AI-generated work increased 70% year over year, measured using a trailing 12-month average.[1]
The September 2026 PYMNTS Intelligence and WorkWhile index found that 36.6% of surveyed digital freelancers had been asked to fix or finish AI-produced work. It also found that 28.7% had faced requests to lower their rates because AI could do the work more cheaply.[2]
Those findings describe particular platforms and surveyed workers, rather than every freelance business. They do point to a familiar commercial problem: a client can see a nearly finished result while the freelancer sees work that still needs assessing.
The client may have saved useful time with the draft. Your job is to establish what can be kept and what the remaining work involves.
Start with what the client needs to finish
Before discussing the fix, ask what the finished work needs to do.
A website that looks complete may still need a working enquiry form and a usable mobile layout. A report may need its claims checked against original sources. A design may need editable files and versions that work in print.
Useful questions include:
What result does the client need, and who will use it?
Which parts already work, and which parts have failed?
Can you inspect the source files, settings, and relevant accounts?
What needs to be checked before the client can accept the work?
Is there an existing brief, deadline, or budget to work within?
Keep this initial conversation proportionate. You need enough information to decide whether you can quote the work or need a closer assessment. You do not need to start repairing it during a free introductory call.
Agree the assessment before doing the investigation
Some requests are clear enough to quote immediately. If the client needs one supplied image resized, a separate paid assessment may add more process than the job needs.
Use an assessment when the unknowns could materially change the work or price.
That assessment should have its own agreed limit and a useful outcome. You might inspect the supplied files, reproduce the reported problem, and return a short list of repairs with a recommendation and estimate.
For example:
I can review the supplied site for up to 30 minutes at the agreed hourly rate. I will send you the findings and an estimate before starting any repairs. If it needs a larger rebuild, we can decide how to proceed at that point.
Confirm that the assessment is paid, what the client will receive, and when you will stop. If you choose to offer a free assessment, set its limit just as clearly.
An assessment can conclude that the existing work is usable, that only part of it is worth keeping, or that starting again would be more practical. Give the client a reason they can understand and a choice about the next step.
Quote the repair you can define
Once you understand the problem, describe the work in terms the client can recognise.
For a small website repair, that might mean:
correct the enquiry form and confirm that test submissions arrive
fix the layout on the agreed mobile screen sizes
check the pages affected by those changes
include one review round against the agreed requirements
Also name the limits. A new booking system, rewritten copy, or unrelated page redesign would need a separate agreement.
A fixed price can work when the repair and acceptance checks are clear. Hourly work with an agreed spending limit can fit a job where further problems may appear during investigation. You can also price a defined repair separately from approved extras.
Whatever the model, agree what happens if you reach the limit. Pause, explain what you found, and get approval before continuing beyond it.
The same applies to your promises about the result. If you have agreed to repair a form, be clear about the checks you will perform. A working form does not establish that every other part of the website has been reviewed.
For the broader choice between hourly and fixed-price work, see our guide to billing when AI changes delivery time.
Record the investigation, repair, and checking
The visible edit may be the smallest part of the job.
You might spend time reproducing the failure, reading unfamiliar files, checking assumptions, making a correction, and confirming that the result works. Record those activities as you do them, against the right client and project.
Short descriptions are enough:
Review supplied site and reproduce enquiry form failure
Correct form delivery settings and error handling
Check mobile layout and test enquiry submissions
Review completed changes with client
Whether those activities are billable depends on the agreement. Recording them makes it easier to apply that agreement and to understand how much time the job actually took.
For hourly work, record the time you spend on the client's work. For a fixed fee, keep the internal time record while invoicing the agreed amount. That gives you something useful to compare when the next repair request arrives.
A quick fix that takes three hours and fifteen minutes
Suppose a client brings you an AI-built website with a broken enquiry form and an awkward mobile layout.
You agree an initial assessment of up to 30 minutes. After receiving your findings, the client approves up to three further hours for the listed repairs and checks.
For this example, both stages use an agreed rate of $100 an hour before tax, in the same currency. This is an illustration, rather than a suggested market rate.
| Approved work | Time spent | Amount |
|---|---|---|
| Assess supplied site and identify the repairs | 30 minutes | $50 |
| Repair enquiry form and mobile layout | 2 hours | $200 |
| Test submissions and check affected pages | 45 minutes | $75 |
| Total | 3 hours 15 minutes | $325 |
The repair and checking took two hours and forty-five minutes, within the three-hour limit. The separately approved assessment brings the total to three hours and fifteen minutes.
The client's draft gave you a starting point. Your records explain the work needed to turn it into the agreed result.
If the form had revealed a larger problem, you would pause before exceeding the approved limit and discuss the options. The estimate gives both sides a point to make that decision.
Write an invoice the client can connect to the work
Use the same descriptions on the invoice that you used when agreeing the repair.
For the example above, assessment, form and layout repairs, and final checks are recognisable items. A line called "AI cleanup" gives the client much less information about what you delivered.
If the job was fixed-price, invoice the agreed repair fee. You can keep the time breakdown for your own records without turning the fee into an hourly charge after delivery.
If you agreed to credit the assessment fee towards a later repair, show that credit clearly. Otherwise, keep the assessment as the separate service the client approved.
Treat a genuinely new request through your usual process for approved extra work. Give the client the price or billing basis before starting it.
Where DoubleTime fits
DoubleTime helps keep the work record connected to the invoice.
You can organise tasks by client and project, track the time spent on assessment and repairs, and keep notes about what you found and what was agreed. Those notes are useful context when you return to the job or prepare the invoice.
When billing time arrives, you can create invoice lines from tracked work or add manual line items for an agreed fixed fee. Review the descriptions and amounts before sending, so the invoice reflects the arrangement you made with the client.
The assessment and approval still happen between you and the client. DoubleTime gives you a place to record the work and prepare its billing.
Start with the next repair request
When a client asks you to fix something they made with AI, start by understanding the result they need.
Check whether you can quote it from the information available. If you need a paid assessment, agree that first. Then define the repair, set a limit, and keep a record as the work happens.
That gives the client a clear decision before spending more and gives you a sound basis for the invoice afterwards.
You can read how DoubleTime works or start with the free Core plan to keep your next piece of client work connected to its billing.
Sources
[1] Upwork Research Institute - AI-generated work is creating more work for humans
Read the Upwork research
[2] PYMNTS Intelligence and WorkWhile - The Wage to Wallet Index, September 2026
View the September findings
