Client wants it by Friday 5pm: the rush-fee reply
It’s Friday evening and the client needs it live by Monday. The reply below quotes the rush and the non-rush option in the same breath, so the client is choosing between two prices instead of reacting to one. Then the multipliers, and what usually happens next.
The reply
Script 9 · The urgent Friday 5pm request
When: “need this live by Monday morning.” It’s Friday evening. The work is either out of scope, or in scope but not due yet.
Hi [Name], I can make Monday work. Weekend turnaround is outside normal hours, so it’s billed at my rush rate: [1.5x / 2x], which for this comes to [$X]. If you approve by [7pm tonight], you’ll have it by [Sunday 6pm / Monday 8am]. If Monday can slip to [Wednesday], it’s [$Y] at the standard rate. Reply with “rush” or “standard” and I’ll get moving. [Your name]
Chat version: “Can do Monday. Weekend work is at rush rate ([1.5x]) = [$X], approve by [7pm] and it’s yours by [Monday 8am]. Or [$Y] standard rate for [Wednesday]. ‘Rush’ or ‘standard’?”
“I can make Monday work” is the first line because the client’s actual fear is that the answer is no. Once that’s settled, the rest of the email is a menu rather than a refusal. The approval deadline (“by 7pm tonight”) is doing something specific too: it stops the request from sitting unanswered until Sunday afternoon, when the weekend is gone either way.
The rush menu
Rush means one of three things has to happen: you move something else, you work outside your hours, or you skip the buffer you normally leave for testing. If none of those apply, it isn’t a rush and you shouldn’t bill it as one.
| Multiplier | When it applies |
|---|---|
| 1.5× | Same week when your week was already full, or anything that needs an evening. |
| 2× | Weekends, holidays, or anything due in under 24 hours. |
The multiplier applies to the priced job, and the priced job starts at the half-day minimum. Worked through with a $120/hr change rate: a small change is a half day, so $480 standard. Over a weekend that’s the 2× rate, $960, with the Wednesday alternative offered at $480 in the same email. The arithmetic is deliberately boring — it means you’re reading a number off a rule you set in a calm moment, not inventing one at 5pm on a Friday while annoyed.
Two things not to do. Don’t apply a rush multiplier to work that was already late through your own scheduling; that’s billing the client for your calendar. And don’t quote the rush price alone. The standard option is what makes the rush price look like a service instead of a penalty.
Half the time the urgency evaporates
Roughly half of these come back as “actually, Wednesday is fine.” That is the useful outcome, not a failed sale. Monday was never a real deadline; it was the earliest date someone could think of, and nothing was weighing against it until a price appeared. Pricing the rush is the cheapest way to find out which deadlines are real, and it costs you nothing to ask.
The other half say rush and mean it, and you get paid properly for a weekend you were going to lose anyway. Both answers are fine for you, which is the whole reason to put both on the table.
A few mechanics that keep this working. Get the approval in writing before you start, even if it’s one word in a chat — “rush” is enough. Put the delivery time in the same sentence as the price, so the client is buying a date and not just paying a surcharge. And if the client is a good one who has never done this before, you can waive it once and say you’re waiving it: “no rush charge this time — flagging it so you know weekends normally carry one.” That sentence buys you the fee next time.
Try it on the real email
Paste the client’s email
Paste the Friday email and it applies the rush multiplier on top of the half-day minimum and writes both options into one reply. Three a day, no signup, nothing stored.
Open the full tool in its own tab if the frame feels cramped.
All fourteen scripts, the pricing rules behind these numbers and a rush-fee clause for your next proposal are in the $12 kit.
The other three situations
- How to tell a client something is out of scope (email template)
- Client keeps asking for extra work: what to say
- Client wants more revisions than the contract says
Or read the three full scripts on the free page, or paste an email into the reply tool.
Questions
How much should I charge as a rush fee?
1.5× your normal price for same-week work when the week was already full or something needs an evening, and 2× for weekends, holidays, or anything due inside 24 hours. Apply the multiplier to the priced job, which starts at your half-day minimum — so on a $120/hr change rate, a weekend version of a half-day task is $960.
What if the client refuses to pay a rush fee?
Then they take the standard-rate date, which you quoted in the same email. That’s a normal outcome, not a lost negotiation: about half of urgent requests turn out to be flexible once a price is attached to the urgency. What you should not do is drop the fee and keep the deadline, because that teaches the client that Friday-evening requests are free.
Should I charge rush for work that was already in scope?
Only if pulling it forward costs you something — moving other work, an evening, or skipping your testing buffer. In-scope work that simply isn’t due yet still gets a rush fee when the client wants it early. In-scope work that’s late because of your own scheduling does not.