FREELANCE BOUNDARIES EMAIL TEMPLATES Free resource from SoloStack — solostack.madethis.app No signup required. 4 ready-to-send emails for setting and maintaining professional boundaries. Customize the bracketed fields before sending. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ EMAIL 1: SETTING OFFICE HOURS WITH A NEW CLIENT (Send in your first email or welcome packet) ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Subject: Working together — a few things to know Hi [Client name], Really glad we're moving forward. Before we dive in, I want to share a few notes on how I work — this helps set us up for a smooth project. My office hours are [Monday–Friday, 9am–5pm [your timezone]]. I respond to messages within one business day during those hours. I'm not available in the evenings or on weekends, but anything that comes in outside hours goes to the top of my queue the next morning. For urgent project questions, [email / Slack / your preferred channel] is the best way to reach me. For anything time-sensitive, flag it as such and I'll prioritize accordingly. You'll hear from me [X times per week / on your update schedule] with project status. Outside of those updates, I'll reach out proactively if anything needs your input. Looking forward to working with you. [Your name] ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ EMAIL 2: DECLINING A RUSH JOB PROFESSIONALLY (When a client requests faster turnaround than your schedule allows) ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Subject: Re: [Project name] — timeline Hi [Client name], Thanks for reaching out. I want to make sure I deliver this at the quality it deserves. I'm not able to turn this around by [their requested date] — doing so would mean compressing the [research / writing / design / review] time in ways that would affect the final quality, and I don't want to do that. What I can offer: Option A: I deliver by [realistic date] at the current scope and rate. Full quality, no shortcuts. Option B: I deliver by [rush date] with a 50% rush fee added to the project total. This covers the rescheduling and additional hours required to reprioritize my current workload. Let me know which works better for you — happy to discuss either option. [Your name] ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ EMAIL 3: RAISING A CLIENT'S RATE TO REDUCE WORKLOAD (The trade: fewer hours for the same pay — or same hours, higher pay) ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Subject: Quick note on our retainer / engagement Hi [Client name], I wanted to touch base about our working arrangement going forward. As my business has grown, I've been restructuring my client work to stay at a level I can sustain without compromising quality. That means I'm adjusting my rates for ongoing work. Starting [date — give 60 days minimum], my rate for our engagement will be [new rate]. Here's what that means in practice: [For retainers: "The deliverables stay the same — the rate reflects my current market value and the depth of work involved." / For hourly: "My hourly rate moves to $X. At your average monthly volume, this comes to approximately $Y/month."] I genuinely value our work together and want to continue it. I wanted to give you plenty of notice so there are no surprises. If you'd like to discuss the new arrangement or talk through options, I'm happy to jump on a call. [Your name] ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ EMAIL 4: OFFBOARDING A BURNOUT CLIENT GRACEFULLY (Keep the relationship positive while closing the engagement) ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Subject: Our engagement going forward Hi [Client name], I've been reflecting on my workload and the direction I want to take my business, and I've made the decision to [reduce my client roster / shift focus to [specialty area] / restructure my practice]. As part of that, I'll be wrapping up our current engagement after [final date or project milestone]. I want to make this as smooth as possible for you: — I'll complete [current deliverables in progress] by [date] — I'm happy to document [process / handoff notes / logins] so your next person is fully set up — I can recommend [a colleague / a platform where you can find someone] if it would help It's been genuinely good working with you on [project / area]. I wish you and the team well with what's ahead. Please let me know if you have any questions about the transition. [Your name] ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ NOTES ON USING THESE TEMPLATES - Always give at least 30–60 days notice for rate increases with ongoing clients - For offboarding, more notice = more goodwill. 4–6 weeks is standard - Never apologize for having boundaries or pricing correctly - "I can't take this on" is a complete sentence. You don't owe a detailed explanation - Rush fees (typically 25–50% of project total) are standard and expected in most industries ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ More free resources at solostack.madethis.app/resources