The invoice records the price. It rarely records every clarification call, custom report, repeated explanation and urgent exception that made the work possible.
That invisible effort can distort how you evaluate an account. A customer who pays promptly may still require far more work than the proposal assumed.
Count the work between deliverables
For a representative period, group effort into planned delivery, communication, rework and exceptions. Use a light record that your team can maintain. Explain that the purpose is to improve estimates and service design, not to punish people for helping customers.
Separate one-time onboarding from recurring effort. A demanding first week can be entirely reasonable if later delivery is predictable. Persistent exceptions deserve a different conversation.
Investigate the cause before changing the price
Ask why the additional work exists. The proposal may be vague, internal handoffs may fail, or the customer may reasonably expect something the sales conversation implied. Charging more will not repair every process problem.
For illustration, a monthly reporting service may include two review calls but routinely deliver five. Determine whether those extra calls compensate for an unclear report, reflect an expanded need, or result from missing boundaries.
Choose a specific response
Possible responses include improving onboarding, simplifying a deliverable, clarifying response windows or proposing a separately priced scope change. Explain any revised agreement before applying it, and honor existing commitments.
Compare accounts using both contribution and service effort. An allocation of shared overhead is an estimate; do not present it as a precise measurement of what one customer caused.