Agree or disagree: as a developer guaranteeing your work, when you accept a deposit from a client as a milestone payment, you should not spend that money until the client signs off on the milestone in case they decide your work is unsatisfactory and want to go elsewhere.

I think you should hold the money until work is complete

I don't see it any different than construction. If they are paying you for incremental deliverables, you spent that money on the increment. You're demoing as you go, right?

@nblackburn that's how I roll.

@yamatoman I think as long as a developer is up front with the client that he is using the money to fund the development of the code, that's fine. If, instead, he uses it to pay his personal bills before writing a single line of code and then has no way to back up his money-back guarantee, it makes him seem shifty. Just my take on it, though.

@stackodev yep. Absolutely depends on the contract. Seems strange to pay for something like that with the expectation of a refund, but I don't freelance.

@stackodev good man, the reason i say that is because clients are a little like wildcards and if shit goes south then you can get out quick.

@nblackburn another good reason to ask for a deposit. Some clients aren't actually as committed as they let on, wasting our time. Asking for a significant financial commitment is a way of vetting the time wasters.

I earn money to pay my rent and food. I also don't take payments unless I'm sure the client is okay with the work. If they want to cancel the work, they don't get a refund because they already approved the work.

Everything is wrong with this post

Most of the time (if I freelance outside of websites like Upwork), I ask 50% as a down payment and 50% upon approval.

The down payment gets paid when the milestone has been discussed. Everything will be implemented as discussed. If the client decides that he is not happy after paying the down payment and wants to leave, he will not get anything back. That is the point of a down payment imo.

I can't afford wasting my time and effort by giving back money that has been agreed upon.

Deposit, to me, is usually non-refundable except in extreme circumstances, and at the discretion of the contractor.