Silence, holds and kill fees

Silence is not a verdict

A project goes quiet in week five. The feedback that was due on Tuesday does not arrive, then a week passes, then two. The freelancer assumes the worst (they hated it, they have gone to somebody else) and, because the assumption is uncomfortable, does not chase.

The assumption is usually wrong. Projects stall for dull reasons: the decision-maker is travelling, a funding round is consuming everyone, the product launch moved, someone is ill, the business has a crisis unrelated to you. Your project is one item on a list you cannot see, and it has been deprioritised rather than killed.

The cost of misreading this is real. You lose the slot you reserved, you do not chase, and the project resumes in week eleven when you are fully booked.

The stall protocol

At one week past a due date, one short message in the existing thread, assuming nothing.

“Checking in on the feedback for the layouts: no rush if things are busy, but it would help to know roughly when you expect to get to it, so I can plan the next few weeks.”

The request is for information, not for action, which is much easier to answer.

At two to three weeks, be direct about the consequence, still without threat.

“I have held time for the revisions in the next fortnight. If the feedback is likely to be later than that, I will need to move this to my next available slot, which would be early May. Which is more useful to you?”

This does two things. It tells them their delay has a cost, which they do not know. And it gives them an easy way to say “later” without abandoning the project.

At four to six weeks, put the project formally on hold in writing: what has been delivered, what is outstanding, what has been invoiced, what happens on resumption, and whether the price still stands.

“I am putting the catalogue on hold as of today. Stages one and two are complete and invoiced. When you are ready to restart, let me know and I will find the next available slot: the quoted price holds until the end of September.”

This protects you in three ways. It stops the project sitting in your head as an unresolved obligation. It makes the pause a defined event rather than a drift. And it means resumption is negotiated rather than assumed.

Invoicing a stalled project

Do not let unbilled work accumulate while you wait. Invoice for every completed stage at the moment it completes, regardless of whether the project is progressing.

This is the practical reason staged payments matter more than any other billing arrangement. A project that stalls at 60% complete with nothing invoiced is 60% of your work sitting at risk in somebody else’s silence. The same project with two of three stages invoiced and paid is an inconvenience.

If the terms are not explicit, make them so at the hold: work completed is payable whether or not the project resumes.

Restarting

When it comes back, it is not where you left it.

Resist the instinct to pick up. Several things have usually changed: the people, the product, the market, possibly the brief. Spend thirty minutes re-establishing what is still true before you open a file, or you will produce work against a brief that quietly expired.

It is also entirely legitimate to reprice. A quote from seven months ago reflects your rates then and your assumptions then. Say so plainly and without apology: “picking this up now, the remaining stages would be at my current rates: here is the revised figure.” Almost nobody objects, because they know the delay was theirs.

Cancellation, and the kill fee

Some projects end rather than pause. Handled properly, this is a clean transaction.

A kill fee is an agreed payment if the client terminates before completion. It exists because you reserved capacity, turned other work away, and did work that now has no destination. The usual structures: a non-refundable deposit that covers the early stages, payment in full for every completed stage, and a percentage of the remaining fee if they cancel mid-stage.

Put it in the contract as a termination clause, at the start, when it is an abstract point nobody objects to. Raising it after a cancellation is a negotiation you will mostly lose.

A workable clause covers: either party may terminate with written notice; the client pays for all work completed to the date of termination plus any non-refundable supplier commitments; deposits are not refundable; work delivered and paid for transfers as normal; work not paid for does not transfer.

That last clause is the one people forget. If a project is cancelled at 70%, the client has seen the work. Make it explicit that seeing it is not owning it, and that rights transfer only on payment.

When you are the one stopping

Covered elsewhere in outline, and the mechanics belong here: stop at a stage boundary, deliver everything produced and paid for, refund anything unearned, and say it once, clearly, without a list of grievances. A clean exit preserves a reputation; a messy one travels further than any portfolio.

Reviving a dead project

A cancelled project is worth one contact, six months later, with no pitch in it. “Wondering whether the catalogue ever went ahead, happy to pick it up if it comes back round.”

A surprising proportion do come back, because the original need rarely disappears; the budget or the timing did. The freelancer who left cleanly, invoiced correctly and sent one light note is the obvious person to call. The one who sent an angry message about professionalism is not.

The limitation

None of this makes an unreliable client reliable, and some projects die with money outstanding and work unpaid. The protocol does not recover those; the deposit and the staged invoicing do, and they had to be in place before the silence started.

What the protocol changes is the cost of the ordinary case, which is far more common than the disaster: a project that pauses for two months, resumes, and completes. Handled with a written hold and a clear restart, that is a scheduling inconvenience. Handled by waiting anxiously and saying nothing, it is two months of unbilled work, a lost slot and a resentment neither side ever names.