You are thinking like an engineer not like a businessman. I'm speaking from experience here as I have been (recently) guilty of the same thing and I assure you

You are thinking like an engineer not like a businessman. I'm speaking from experience here as I have been (recently) guilty of the same thing and I assure you my case was much, much worse. Engineers love to solve problems. They love it SO MUCH that they very often do it for free (see: opensource). You yourself said you 'underbid' the project. You were trying to solve a problem with logic, reason and an attempt to deliver a clean, well functioning, properly designed product. Business do not care about those things. They care about 2 things: 1. Money 2. They want it to work Your best defense against stupidity that has money is to collect money as often as possible. Get a deposit, stop working if they are late on payment, changes cost more, phone calls where I'm consulting to you costs money. It's hard to hear, but the other guy kind of did it right. Save yourself a lifetime of lessons that I have learned (or stay in corporate) by simply treating every single client like you are running a business. Be transparent about your unwavering focus on payment. You can do that and still be friendly by the way. You (and I) think "I'll do an amazing job, this product will be clean, fast and standards compliant AND cheaper!" And when you are done all they will say "does it work?" The unclean truth is, customers don't care about well functioning, well designed code until NOT having it costs them money. See #1 above. Of course you have the choice to not continue working with these types of clients, but, the truth is there's going to be some insanity in any business. Lessons are hard to learn and the best you can do is protect yourself and be honest, meaning, "This isn't the right way but it'll work and save you a few bucks, is that OK?"