Scope governance for agencies

Every “quick favor” is now a clause —
and it’s on the invoice.

ScopeGov turns your Statement of Work into a living contract. Guardian reads every client email against it, flags what’s out of scope, and drafts the change order before the work even starts.

14-DAY TRIAL · NO CARD REQUIRED · YOU APPROVE EVERY FLAG — GUARDIAN NEVER CONTACTS A CLIENT ON ITS OWN

Statement of Work · v2
Willow & Finch — Brand Refresh
Active
Deliverables
Logo suite, brand guidelines, 3 templated social assets, primary website homepage design.
Out of scope
Blog layout design, ongoing content production, email template systems.⚠ FLAGGED
Payment terms
50% due at kickoff, 50% due on final delivery.
Guardian monitoring
Priya, Willow & Finch
“could we also get a quick blog layout added while you’re in there? 🙏”
Change order — sent
Blog layout design
+$2,400

Scope creep doesn’t feel like theft. It feels like helping a client out. That’s exactly why it’s never on the invoice — and why agencies write off thousands in unbilled work every quarter without ever seeing it happen.

Exhibit A — Industry average
23%
of billable hours on a typical project fall outside the original SOW — and go unbilled because no one flagged them in time.
Exhibit B — Where it starts
Email
Almost all scope creep begins as a casual client request in an inbox — never in a formal change request. By the time it’s noticed, it’s already been done.
Exhibit C — What recovery looks like
61%
of flagged scope creep converts into a paid change order when it’s caught immediately — versus under 10% when raised after delivery.
How it works

One document, from brief to bank transfer.

ScopeGov doesn’t just store your SOW — it keeps it alive for the life of the project, and enforces it automatically.

Drafted
Brief in, SOW out
Paste a raw brief or client email. ScopeGov drafts a full Statement of Work — deliverables, exclusions, payment terms — in under 20 seconds.
→
Signed
Client signs, scope locks
Your client reviews and signs in a branded portal — no account needed. The moment they sign, Guardian activates on the project.
→
Monitored
Every email, checked
Forward client threads to your project’s Guardian address. Anything outside the signed scope gets flagged the moment it arrives.
→
Recovered
Flag becomes revenue
One click turns a flag into a change order, sent for signature. Accepted work updates the contract value automatically.
The docket

Everything between “we agreed on this” and “please pay for that.”

Replaces your proposal doc, your SOW folder, and ad-hoc invoicing. Sits alongside whatever runs day-to-day delivery — Asana, ClickUp, Linear — since that’s for execution, not the contract of record.

Exhibit D

Guardian AI

Reads every inbound client message against the signed SOW and flags what’s actually outside it — with a confidence score, not a hunch.

Exhibit E

SOW builder

Deliverables, exclusions, milestones, and revision limits — drafted from a raw brief, so “out of scope” is written down, not implied.

Exhibit F

Change orders

Priced and traceable to the exact flag that triggered them, so you review and send instead of drafting from a blank page.

Exhibit G

Client signing portal

No account required on their end. One link, one signature, a copy in both inboxes the moment it’s signed.

Exhibit H

Roles & audit trail

Decide who can send a SOW, approve a flag, or see contract value. Every decision is logged, permanently and by whom.

Exhibit I

Billing that follows scope

Milestones update the moment a change order is signed. What’s billed always matches what was actually agreed.

Guardian

The scope reviewer who never gets tired of reading email.

Guardian reads every message against your signed SOW and tells you, precisely, whether it’s covered — with a confidence score, not a guess.

01
Reads what’s actually signed
Guardian checks every request against the exact deliverables and exclusions in your signed SOW — not a vague sense of “reasonable.”
02
Tunable sensitivity
Conservative, medium, or aggressive — choose how eagerly Guardian flags borderline requests, per workspace.
03
Never flags the same thing twice
Duplicate detection means a thread with five reply-alls doesn’t become five separate flags.
04
You always have the final say
Resolve, grant an exception, or draft a change order — Guardian surfaces the decision, it never makes it for you.
Try it · scoped to Willow & Finch, §3
In scope

Paste a client message and watch Guardian check it against the signed SOW — the same check that runs on every real project.

Portfolio

One dashboard for every scope decision across your book of business.

Running more than one project at a time turns scope creep into a rounding error you can’t see project by project. Portfolio rolls every flag, every stalled change order, and every dollar at risk into a single view.

Contract value at risk, in one number
A severity-weighted estimate of what’s exposed across every active project — open flags and granted exceptions, not just the ones you remember to check.
See where scope is actually stalling
Stalled change orders and unresolved flags surface by project, so you know which client relationship needs attention before the renewal call, not after.
A trend, not a snapshot
A daily rollup means you can see whether scope discipline is improving quarter over quarter — not just what’s on fire today.
Only the people who should see it, do
Gated on its own permission, separate from day-to-day project access — so it shows up for the people your org chart says should see it, and no one else.
Portfolio · This month
$14,200
Contract value at risk
High
$9,800
Medium
$3,100
Low
$1,300
Willow & Finch — Brand Refresh
2 open flags
Marchetti & Co — Website
1 stalled CO
Petra Goods — Rebrand
1 open flag
Why we built this

Every agency we’ve talked to has the same story — a client’s “quick ask,” a late night doing it anyway, and no clean way to bill for it without sounding petty. ScopeGov is the tool we wished we’d had before that conversation, not after.

10 min
Typical setup time, first SOW to sent
1 click
From a flagged message to a priced change order
0
Client logins required to sign anything
“

We used to eat scope creep as a cost of doing business. Last quarter we billed an extra $14,000 in change orders we would never have caught before — from work we were already doing for free.

M
Marcus Chen
Founder, Fieldnote Studio · placeholder quote
Pricing

Priced like the tool that pays for itself on the first flag.

Every plan includes unlimited Guardian monitoring and AI-drafted SOWs. Upgrade for more seats and full document history.

Solo
$39/mo
Starter
$99/mo
Pro
$249/mo
Agency
$399/mo
Seats
1
2
4
10
Active projects
2
5
Unlimited
Unlimited
Guardian monitoring
✓
✓
✓
✓
Full SOW history
Last 10
✓
✓
✓
Custom roles & permissions
—
—
✓
✓

Prices in USD, billed monthly. Annual billing available at checkout. Cancel anytime — you keep read access to your SOWs and change orders for 90 days after cancellation.

File your first Statement of Work.

14 days free. No card required. Your first SOW is drafted before the trial even asks for one.

Start free trial