Touch-ups are one of those things every shop handles slightly differently and nobody writes down, which means every touch-up conversation starts from zero and occasionally turns into a standoff at the counter. Let's write yours down today. Takes ten minutes.
The three camps
Everything's free forever. Generous, great for reputation, and eventually somebody brings you a five-year-old tattoo they've sunburned every summer and expects a full refresh on the house. Unlimited free is a policy that punishes you for your best clients' worst habits.
Everything's paid. Clean, but it reads stingy — and worse, it makes clients hide healing problems from you instead of bringing them back, which means your work walks around looking rough with your name on it.
Free with conditions. This is where most good shops land, and for good reason: it separates "my work settling in" (on you) from "your aftercare and your beach trip" (on them). The conditions do the fairness work so the conversation doesn't have to.
Steal this wording
Touch-ups on my work are free within [90 days / 6 months] of the final session, provided aftercare instructions were followed. After that, or for wear caused by sun, picking, or healing mishaps, touch-ups are billed at the shop minimum. Work done by other artists is quoted as new work.
Adjust the window to taste. Shorter (90 days) covers genuine settling issues; longer (6-12 months) is a marketing flex — "I stand behind my work for a year" is a hell of a sentence on a policies page. Both work; pick the one you'll honor cheerfully.
The "aftercare was followed" clause is doing quiet heavy lifting, but only if you can actually tell. Which brings us to—
The healed photo is the whole referee
Nearly every touch-up dispute is really an evidence problem. Did it fall out, or did they soak it in a hot tub on day four? Without a record, it's your word against their memory. With a week-5 healed photo on file — the one you should be requesting anyway — the question answers itself. Clean healed photo at week five, patchy at month six? That's wear, and the paid rate applies, and the photo makes that conversation friendly instead of accusatory. Photo shows it healed patchy? You touch it up free, gladly, because that one's yours.
File the healed shot on the client's session record (here's the whole system) and the policy basically enforces itself.
Saying it at the chair
The policy lands best delivered as a gift, not fine print: "Touch-ups are on me for the first six months as long as you take care of it — I'll check in for a healed photo around week five." You've just promised generosity, set the condition, and scheduled the evidence, in one friendly sentence. Put the full wording on your site's policies page, link it in the aftercare email, and the counter conversation you're dreading mostly stops existing.