Found out 40% of my freelance income came from just one client and it freaked me out

I was going over my taxes last week and decided to actually look at where my money came from this year. Turns out one client paid me nearly $18k out of my total $45k. That's almost half my income from one person. I found this out by just sorting my invoices in QuickBooks. If they decide to drop me or cut hours next month I'm basically screwed. Has anyone else had this wake up call and what did you do to spread things out more?

2 comments

2 Comments

kai_knight11d ago

Had a buddy this exact thing happened to... he was doing fine until that one client's company got bought out and they slashed their contractor budget overnight. He went from making decent money to basically zero in like two weeks. What he ended up doing was cold emailing old clients he'd worked with years ago, just checking in and asking if they needed any help. Took him about three months to build back up but now he keeps it so no single client is more than 20% of his income. It's a pain in the ass but way less scary than that one big client dropping you.

davis.dylan1d ago

Had a close buddy who got burned exactly like this. He was a freelance graphic designer and this one big client was like 70% of his income. They were a startup that had just gotten a huge funding round, so everything seemed solid. Then the bubble burst on their industry and they did a massive layoff round. He didn't just lose the contract, he got ghosted for two months on final payment. He spent the next four months taking gigs way below his normal rate, just to keep the lights on. Now he's got a rule that he won't even take on a new client if they'd be more than 15% of his monthly income. It's annoying but he's way less stressed now.