Approving work and releasing payment
What happens when a freelancer submits, the difference between instant and clearance release and why it matters, how revision requests work, what auto-approval does if you go quiet, and why approval cannot be undone.
When a freelancer submits work, the decision is yours and it moves real money. This explains exactly what each option does.
What submission means
The freelancer marks a milestone as submitted, attaching whatever the deliverable is. You are notified, the contract shows it as awaiting your review, and a clock starts.
Submitted is not approved. Nothing has moved yet.
Your three options
Approve. The work meets what was agreed. Money is released from escrow to the freelancer, and on a fixed-price contract the next milestone opens.
Request a revision. Something is wrong and you want it corrected. The money stays in escrow. Most contracts include an agreed number of revisions.
Dispute. Only if revisions have failed or something has gone seriously wrong. See Disputes and mediation.
The overwhelming majority of dissatisfaction should be a revision request, not a dispute. Revisions keep the relationship workable and the money in place.
Requesting a revision well
A revision request is only as useful as its specificity.
Compare against what was agreed, not against what you now wish you had asked for. "The milestone specified three page designs and two were delivered" is actionable. "This is not what I had in mind" is not, and is usually a scope problem rather than a delivery problem.
Be complete. Listing three issues, then three more after the next submission, is how a two-day correction becomes two weeks. Go through it properly once.
Separate must-fix from would-prefer. If something is outside the agreed scope, say so and treat it as additional work with its own milestone rather than pressing it in as a revision. Freelancers notice this, and it is one of the things that makes a client someone people want to work with again.
The two release modes
When you approve, you choose how the money is released, and the difference is real.
Instant release pays the freelancer immediately. Use it when you have worked with someone before, or the deliverable is plainly complete and you have checked it. The trade is that approving instantly closes the dispute window on that milestone: you are declaring it finished.
Clearance release approves the work and starts a short holding window before the money is fully settled. The freelancer knows they are being paid; there is a short period in which a problem can still be raised.
Neither is the "safe" option in the abstract. Instant is right when you are confident and it is a real kindness to someone waiting to be paid. Clearance is right when you want to look at the work in use for a few days first. Clearance may be the only option offered on a milestone that was funded very recently, which is an anti-fraud control rather than a comment on you.
Auto-approval
If you do nothing, the milestone auto-approves after a set number of days and releases normally. The countdown is on the contract and you are emailed before it runs out.
This is not a trap. It exists because the alternative is worse: without it, a client who goes on holiday, gets busy, or simply stops answering leaves a freelancer who has delivered with no way to be paid and no recourse. Auto-approval is the backstop that makes escrow safe for the person doing the work.
It does not remove your rights. Auto-approved work can still be disputed within the dispute window.
The practical implication: if you are unhappy, say so before the clock runs out. A revision request stops it. Silence does not.
Approval is final
There is no undo button, and this is deliberate. Escrow is only worth something if release is a real, irreversible event — if approvals could be reversed on request, no freelancer could rely on being paid and the guarantee would be theatre.
So check before you approve. Open the files. Click the link. Run the thing.
If you approved by mistake, contact support immediately. What can be done depends on whether the money has cleared, and the sooner it is raised the more options exist. Do not assume nothing can be done, but do not assume it can be undone either.
Hourly and monthly approvals
Hourly is approved weekly rather than per milestone. You see the hours logged in the work diary with the notes against them, and you approve. You can approve fewer hours than were logged if something is not right, though the better route is to ask about it first — hours logged in good faith and then silently cut is how a working relationship ends.
Approved hours release from the funded buffer and the buffer tops up for the following week.
Dedicated Hires settle at each monthly boundary, with a short holding window before the money completes. This is the point of a retainer: predictable payment for ongoing availability rather than a per-deliverable negotiation.
After approval
The money leaves escrow and enters the freelancer's wallet, where it goes through clearance before they can withdraw it. This is why a freelancer may say they have not been paid shortly after you approved — from their side the money is visible but not yet withdrawable. See How and when you get paid.
You get an invoice and a receipt for the transaction, emailed and kept in your billing area.
If the contract is complete, both of you can leave a review. Do leave one: reviews are how good freelancers become findable, and how clients build a reputation that gets them better proposals.
Practical habits
Review promptly. Sitting on submitted work for two weeks is the most common complaint freelancers have about clients, and it is visible in your reviews.
Look at the actual deliverable, not the summary of it.
Approve what is right and raise what is wrong separately. If four of five items are correct, do not hold everything over the fifth — approve the milestone and handle the remainder as its own item, or request a targeted revision. Holding a whole payment over one detail is how good working relationships end.
A practical routine
Clients who review well tend to follow roughly the same routine, and it takes about ten minutes per milestone.
- Open the actual deliverable. Not the summary — the files, the link, the deployed thing.
- Check it against the milestone description, item by item. This is why writing a real description at offer time pays off.
- Use it briefly, if it is usable. Click through the pages. Open the file in the software you will actually use.
- Decide: approve, or list what is wrong. Completely, in one pass.
- If approving, choose the release mode deliberately rather than clicking whichever is default.
The step people skip is the second one, and it is the one that prevents a disagreement three milestones later about what was supposed to be included.
Approving quickly is worth something
There is a temptation to leave submitted work sitting while you get to it. It is worth understanding what that costs you.
A freelancer waiting on approval is not paid, and cannot plan. Clients who approve promptly get better work, better prices and priority when that freelancer is busy, because being easy to work with is genuinely valuable and freelancers talk about which clients are.
It also shows in your reviews, and freelancers read those before deciding whether to spend a bid on your job.
If you genuinely cannot review for a few days, say so in a message. "I am travelling until Thursday, will review then" costs nothing and removes the uncertainty entirely.
Partial approval on hourly work
Hourly is the one model where you can approve part of what was submitted, and it is worth using thoughtfully.
If a week looks wrong, the productive order is: ask first, listen, then decide. Most discrepancies turn out to be a task the freelancer thought was agreed, or time spent on something that took longer than either of you expected. Both are conversations, not deductions.
Cutting hours without discussion is the fastest way to end a working relationship, and the freelancer will say so in their review. Cutting them after a conversation, where you have explained why, is a normal part of managing hourly work and is generally accepted without resentment.
If you are going to be unavailable
Auto-approval keeps running while you are away, which is the point of it but can catch you out.
If you are travelling or otherwise unavailable when a submission is due, either review before you go or tell the freelancer when you will be back. A message costs nothing and prevents both the awkwardness of a milestone releasing unreviewed and the frustration of somebody waiting without knowing why.
Common questions
Can I approve part of a milestone? Not on fixed price — a milestone is approved or not. On hourly you can approve fewer hours than were logged.
What if I approve and then find a problem? Contact support immediately. What is possible depends on whether the money has cleared.
Does requesting a revision stop the auto-approval clock? Yes.
How many revisions can I request? Whatever the contract agreed. Beyond that, further changes are additional work.
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