Sending deliverables and waiting for a clear decision are two different operating states. This page covers the second one.
Use this page when work has been sent and the review stage is confirmed still open — either because the client has not responded at all, or because their response did not constitute a clear approval or rejection. Its job is to give you a practical decision sequence: when to wait, when to follow up, and when the stage must not move forward.
What this page is not for
Do not use this FAQ to define the whole review process, decide what counts as a valid approval, or design the milestone stage from scratch.
- If you need to know whether a response counts as approval, use FAQ: What Counts as Client Approval Before Billing or the Next Stage Starts? first.
- If the client has gone completely silent after receiving work, use FAQ: What Should I Do When a Client Goes Silent During Review? for the silence-specific pattern.
- If the milestone stage itself is still poorly defined, fix Milestone Delivery Workflow for Solo Service Businesses before addressing the follow-up sequence.
What must be true before this FAQ is useful
To use this page well, you need to know:
- what specific decision you are waiting for,
- who the approval owner is,
- what billing trigger or next-stage start depends on that decision.
If those are not clear, the problem is not missing approval — the problem is that the review state was never defined tightly enough. Go back to the milestone delivery workflow and define the review gate before following up.
When must the stage stay open?
The stage must stay open until the named approval owner gives an explicit decision — approved, rejected, or revised — through the agreed channel.
It must stay open when:
- the review window has passed but no decision arrived,
- a response arrived but it was partial, deferring, or positive without committing,
- a call included encouraging feedback but no written follow-up came,
- a different stakeholder responded instead of the named approval owner.
A response that does not close the stage is still an open stage.
What should you do while waiting?
Three immediate steps:
- Mark the milestone state as pending approval or blocked by client decision — not as active, not as complete.
- Name the exact decision still outstanding and record it in the project record.
- Confirm the next follow-up date and put it somewhere you will actually see it.
Leaving the state unrecorded is how a pending approval turns into weeks of passive waiting with no visible pressure or trigger.
When should you follow up?
Follow up once the review window you originally communicated has passed.
If no window was set, use a short bounded period — a few days is usually enough after a standard delivery. The exact number matters less than having a threshold at all.
The follow-up message should:
- restate what was delivered and what decision is needed,
- name the specific approval question,
- state what will happen once the answer arrives.
Keep it operational. “Just checking in” does not move the state forward. “Confirming whether the milestone is approved as-is or needs a revision pass” does.
When should you follow up a second time?
If the first follow-up gets no response within a few more days, send a second message that:
- is slightly more direct,
- names what is currently blocked by the missing decision,
- offers a specific path: either confirm approval, request a revision, or agree on a short extension.
Two follow-ups is a reasonable bounded effort before escalating. After that, treat the state as formally blocked, not as waiting.
What must not happen while the decision is pending?
Do not:
- issue the invoice tied to this milestone,
- begin the next stage on the assumption that approval is coming,
- archive or close the milestone based on a positive-sounding but non-committal response,
- treat a second round of follow-up silence as implied acceptance.
Each of those creates a downstream problem that is harder to fix than the original pending approval.
When should this become a formal block?
Treat the state as formally blocked — not just pending — when:
- two or more follow-ups have received no response,
- the review has stalled long enough to affect delivery timing or billing expectations,
- you need to choose between pause, conditional proceed, or scope change.
At that point, name the block explicitly in the project record and use Escalation and Pause-State Worksheet for Solo Operators to define the next operating state.
Where to go next
- If you need to confirm whether any response you received actually counted as approval, go to FAQ: What Counts as Client Approval Before Billing or the Next Stage Starts?.
- If the client has gone silent with no response at all, go to FAQ: What Should I Do When a Client Goes Silent During Review?.
- If the block is severe enough to require a pause or scope decision, go to Escalation and Pause-State Worksheet for Solo Operators.
- If approval finally arrives and billing is next, go to Invoice and Payment Workflow Setup for Freelancers and Consultants.
- If this is the final milestone and closeout is the next step, go to Milestone Delivery Workflow for Solo Service Businesses.
