"I never approved that." Four words that can undo a week of work, even when you're fairly sure they did approve it, on a call, three weeks ago, that nobody wrote down. Memory is not a record. Written sign-off is.

Why "looks good on the call" isn't enough

A verbal approval has no date attached to it, no reference to which version was on screen, and no way to prove it happened at all if it's disputed later. None of that is about anyone lying. People genuinely misremember which draft they were looking at, especially across a project with several rounds of changes to similar-looking pages.

What actually counts as sign-off

  • A reply-all email that says "approved" and references the specific link or file
  • A signed document for larger projects, even a simple one-page approval form
  • An explicit approve action inside a review tool, logged with a timestamp and the client's name

The common thread: dated, attributable, and tied to a specific version. "Thumbs up" emoji on a Slack message from three different stakeholders, reacting to three different screenshots, is not that.

Approving a version, not a vibe

Vague approval causes as many disputes as no approval at all. "Approved" attached to a live link that keeps getting edited after the fact isn't a real record, since there's no way to prove what the page looked like at the moment of approval. Where possible, approve a specific, dated snapshot, a PDF export, a tagged version, or a review tool's version history, rather than a URL that can silently change under the approval.

Build the ask into the workflow, not as an afterthought

Don't send a separate "please approve this" email after the fact, bake the approval request into the same message that delivers the work: "Here's round two. Reply approved to this email, or leave any final notes, by Friday." That turns sign-off into one more field to fill in during a step they were doing anyway, instead of a new task competing for their attention.

Make the consequence of silence proportional

A hard deadline works best when what follows it is reasonable. Treating three days of silence as full approval on a major redesign feels punitive and tends to get fought; treating two weeks of silence that way, after multiple reminders, feels fair to most clients even when they're the ones who let it slip. Calibrate the deadline to the size of the decision, not a single policy applied everywhere.

What to do when a client goes quiet

Silence is the hardest case, not outright disagreement. Set a deadline in writing up front, and state the consequence plainly: "if we don't hear back by [date], we'll treat the current version as approved and move to development." Put that line in the proposal before the project starts, so it's a term both sides agreed to rather than a threat delivered mid-project when patience is already thin.

Keep a record you can actually find again

An approval buried in an email thread from four months ago is technically a record, but only if you can find it fast when it matters. Reviewing work inside a tool that timestamps approvals against a specific version solves this without extra effort: the sign-off lives right next to what was approved, not in a separate inbox search. Roundmark's thread history keeps exactly that kind of trail for every page and comment, which is worth more the moment someone disputes it than any process document explaining why they shouldn't.

Sign-off doesn't have to feel like a legal moment

None of this needs to feel adversarial. Most clients want a clear process as much as you do, since it protects them too, from a developer quietly shipping a version they never actually saw. Framing written sign-off as "so we both have a clear record of what we agreed" lands very differently than framing it as "so you can't come back and say you didn't approve this," even though the mechanism is identical.

The agencies that get the least pushback on this are the ones who explain it once, up front, as a normal part of how every project runs, rather than introducing it defensively after a dispute has already happened on a previous one.

FAQ

What counts as valid written sign-off from a client?

Anything that's dated, attributable to a specific person, and references the exact version being approved: a reply-all email, a signed approval document, or an explicit approve action inside a review tool. A verbal "looks good" on a call does not, however clear it felt at the time.

What do you do when a client won't give written approval?

Set a deadline and state upfront what happens if it passes: for most agencies, that means the current version is treated as approved and development moves forward. Put that condition in the proposal before the project starts, not as a surprise in week six.