Web Development: Consulting/freelance: IE compatibility [closed]

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I've been working at major companies for close to five years doing web development.

At all of these companies, we develop and debug using Firefox and Chrome, and then tackle IE compatibility issues later as an afterthought on a severity basis (functionality first, then display correctness or aesthetics second).

Now I'm a freelancer, and that's what I tell clients in the contract--I'll guarantee 100% support in any browser but IE, and making the site display correctly in each version of IE will cost double my normal hourly billing rate.

I recently sent an invoice to a client. This client knew all these terms in writing before I began development.

The site's beta is live and works beautifully and FF/Chrome/Safari, but I anticipate another 360 hours (+/- 60 hours) just for IE compatibility. (Yes, this is massive, enterprise site.)

Turns out the department that signs my consulting paychecks all uses IE 6, 7, and 8 (there is no company policy to upgrade to the latest version).

So suddenly, the client has a bill that says "IF I MAKE THE SITE IE 6/7/8 compatible, you owe $36K", which they should have been well-aware they were receiving, but now they're not happy.

"We've paid you $229K for the site over six months. That's enough..." they resepond. Obviously, they don't appreciate the skills of a web developer. Obviously, they don't understand I subcontract my work and earned just $22.9K as the general contractor for six months of work on thei project. Pennies in our market, right?

What do now? :(

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The contract is king. Look at the contract that is signed and take legal action where neccesary.

If it says in your contract that IE support is not your job and wasn't billed for.

Then it's NOT YOUR JOB. If your they really need IE support give them a phone number and a quote.

If the contract says you are supposed to have IE support then you should have written a better contract.

[Edit]

Actaully don't give them a phone number. Taking that beautiful web application that's well designed and works perfectly and then hacking it to pieces so you can hit your IE8/7/6 support on your deadline of yesterday is not worth $36K ask for another $230K

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Hopefully you outlined your terms regarding IE in the up-front contract. If you did, technically speaking you are of course entitled to charge them the $36K for the compatibility work. Then again, if you hope they will be a repeat customer or a promising reference, perhaps you should give them a discount for the sake of not burning bridges.

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Go home and tell them to have a nice life.