---
title: What's your 'profit to pain' ratio for client management?
description: Even the best-paid projects become too much if they affect your personal life or threaten your professional integrity. When is it time to walk away?
image: https://geekboss.com/hubfs/pexels-pixabay-163427.jpg
---

[Entrepreneurship](https://geekboss.com/blog/tag/entrepreneurship)

# What’s your ‘profit to pain’ ratio for client management?

[ By Matthew Stibbe ![Matthew Stibbe](https://app.hubspot.com/settings/avatar/c0fe13642b2329271b9ce0a5b41d744a) ](https://geekboss.com/blog/author/matthew-stibbe)

 Published 24/Apr/2018  Updated June 3 2026

![Chess board with chess pieces](https://geekboss.com/hs-fs/hubfs/pexels-pixabay-163427.jpg?width=1600&height=1000&name=pexels-pixabay-163427.jpg)

I love my current clients – **this isn’t about them.** But in the past, mainly when I was a [freelance journalist](https://www.stibbe.net/writer), I have had to deal with a few clients that were very difficult. They went from profit to pain.

## Bad client behaviour

- Asking for more work **without paying** more
- Paying very **late**
- Insisting on **changes** even when I had strongly recommended against them
- Being uncommunicative or **hard to reach**
- Epic **delays** in giving feedback
- Feedback that was **difficult** to implement or (sometimes) understand
- Insist on **impossible deadlines**, even while delaying their own part in the process until the last possible moment
- Getting me involved in their **office politics**

## What to do?

Usually, bad clients and bad projects involve a combination of these problems. They cause me a lot of stress.

Over the years, I compiled [40 Essential rules for stress-free client management](https://geekboss.com/blog/client-management) but the ability to walk away is very valuable.

In a couple of cases, I’ve walked away from clients or projects, even at the risk of a big cut in my income, because the **profit : pain ratio **was too bad. I made these decisions based on emotion – the pain side of the equation – and I only came up with the idea of this ratio the other day.

Certainly, I can tolerate a lot more stress and inconvenience when I’m being well paid. I’ve heard this described as an ‘arsehole premium’. Ultimately, though, even the best-paid projects become too much if they affect your personal life or threaten your professional integrity.

The profit : pain ratio gives me a way to think about these situations in a more rational and less emotional way. **What are your red lines?** How much pain will you accept before you walk away from a project? What do you do when clients don’t treat you right? What’s your profit : pain ratio?

[![How to choose an agency for your new website](https://no-cache.hubspot.com/cta/default/289742/aab369e3-a371-48eb-a47f-85895833e378.png)](https://cta-redirect.hubspot.com/cta/redirect/289742/aab369e3-a371-48eb-a47f-85895833e378)

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