Do you have them pay upfront or after you have designed it?

Do you offer any type of refund program?

Anything else I should be considering when deciding on this factor?

Well it depends. I have a friend who asks for partial payment and then ask for the whole payment after the design. As for the refund, I guess he doesn't accept some but rather do some revisions.

It is hard to trust someone nowadays. So I guess you should consider how you are going to get paid.

Yeah, I think I'll have them pay me first, then give them a week or 2 of minor revisions.

Thanks for the pointers.

I recommend you tu use partial payment solution,another great solution is to use escrow.com for safety and guarantee you get paid for your services.

First, I get three ideas of site examples the client will want to achieve.

If the examples are simple sites graphically to produce I will offer a design without anything down. These are basic images without spending excess time, filler text, etc.

If the client site examples are graphic-heavy, textured background, etc. designs then I will ask for a down-payment AND apply some kind of watermark over the design(Not that that is foolproof).

No refunds though, its hard enough to compensate for all the email questions they ask!