Roast Me: I built a “scope creep siren” for freelancers who keep saying yes to “just one more little change."

So I’ve been working on ScopeSiren, a tiny web app for freelancers who keep watching their projects quietly double in size while the invoice… does not.

It’s supposed to make tracking scope creep and pushing back on clients slightly less awkward (or at least, more organized).

Here’s how it works:

• You plug in the original agreement: deliverables, rounds of revisions, price, timeline.
• Every time a client sends a “quick tweak” or “can we also just add…”, you log it as a Change Request in under a minute.
• ScopeSiren compares it to the original scope and flags it as in-scope or out-of-scope.
• You can generate a simple, client-friendly summary of all the changes to use in emails / Looms / invoices so you’re not arguing from memory.
• The goal: give freelancers receipts, not vibes, when they say, “Hey, this is extra.”

Right now it’s a barebones web tool focused on solo freelancers (designers, devs, copywriters, UGC creators, etc.), not agencies.

Why I built it:

• I kept hearing the same story from freelancers: “The project was supposed to be 2 weeks… it turned into 2 months and I basically paid myself minimum wage.”
• Most people track this stuff in DM screenshots, random docs, and chaotic Notion pages which is great until you need to actually show a client how far off you are from the original agreement.
• Project management tools (ClickUp, Asana, etc.) are overkill if all you really need is:
  • “What did we agree on?”
  • “What did you ask for after?”
  • “How much more should this cost?”

So instead of fixing my own procrastination, I built an app to document everyone else’s bad boundaries.

Where I’m at:

• Live web app: scopesiren.com (simple email login).
• Current users: a handful of freelancers (design, dev, UGC) actually using it on real clients + a few brave beta testers who enjoy suffering.
• I’m still figuring out:
  • What’s genuinely useful vs. what’s just “overbuilt spreadsheet in a trench coat.”
  • Whether people will actually log changes in real time or only after they’re already burned out and underpaid.

Future plans:

• Add email plug-ins so you can turn a client email or DM into a change request in one click.
• Build lightweight reporting: “original scope vs. actual time / tasks / money left on the table.”
• Templates for boundary-setting messages like:
  • “Love this idea. It’s outside the original scope, here are two options to add it.”

Go ahead, tear it apart.

Is this actually solving a painful problem for freelancers, or did I just reinvent a glorified to-do list for people who are still going to say “yeah sure, no worries” and eat the extra work anyway?