Tips on sorting good clients from bad ones. Or just post your favorite question to ask clients here!

There are a few dead giveaways that I try to avoid (full disclosure: I'm a lawyer, not a freelancer, but you come across the same concerns). Bad Clients (1) As stated above, anyone who focuses exclusively on price. If someone challenges you on this, I would actually compare your field to law. Programming is like law in that a great programmer can do things that 10 mediocre ones cannot--the same holds true for attorneys. If someone wants Brioni quality at Men's Wearhouse prices, save yourself the headache and abort before the engagement. (2) Anyone who won't put important objectives in writing. It's setting up for a verbal dispute later and can indicate there may be some goalpost shifting in the future. (3) Relatedly, anyone who can't generally describe what they want. If you ask your potential client what they want to accomplish and can't make heads or tails of it, don't get involved. Someone who can't communicate what they want won't be happy with whatever you give them and haven't given enough thought to the project to be able to clearly articulate it. That suggests inadequate organization, poor planning, and a house that's not in order. None of these things equate to a good client. (4) Anyone who doesn't understand where their expertise ends and yours begins. I don't tell businesspeople how to run their business, and they shouldn't tell me what's legal or illegal. My client should absolutely tell me what it is trying to achieve, and I will tell them the various ways to go about doing it, but that advisory role should never turn into the client micromanaging your area of expertise.

The good client is essentially the converse of these things.

The easiest way to distinguish a good client from a bad one is to get some background information. What's their current business? How long have they been involved in the business? Where does what you're being asked to do fit in with their development objectives? Have they engaged a third-party in the past? What did they like or dislike about the relationship? How did their last contracting arrangement end?

Dicey, ambiguous answers are signs of a bad client, and good clients will be able to answer these questions without much difficulty. Additionally, these questions help you do a better job if you're selected by understanding how your project fits into the business as a whole.