Risk and liability
Non-compete
A clause restricting who you can work for after an engagement ends. Broad ones are often inappropriate for freelancers and may be unenforceable.
What it means
A non-compete restricts who you can work for after the engagement ends, usually by industry, geography, and time. It is different from exclusivity, which applies during a deal; a non-compete reaches into your future work.
Why it matters
A non-compete asks a freelancer to give up future work, which is the freelancer's entire livelihood. For an independent contractor that is rarely a reasonable trade for a single project fee, and broad post-engagement non-competes on freelancers are increasingly disfavored or unenforceable in many jurisdictions. A clause barring you from an entire industry for a year after one project is the version to challenge.
What fair looks like
- What the client usually actually needs is confidentiality, not non-competition: an NDA scoped to their specific confidential materials protects them without touching your ability to earn.
- If there is a genuine direct-competitor concern, the healthy version is narrow and short: named companies, a brief window, ideally with compensation.
- In brand deals, a "non-compete" is really scoped exclusivity: keep it category-narrow, time-boxed, and paid, and reject open-ended post-deal bars.
Related reading
See the guide to whether a freelance non-compete is enforceable, and the non-compete benchmarks.