Risks › Client silence

Client silence.
Stuck mid-project.

You delivered. You're waiting for approval. The client isn't responding. Without an approval-timeout clause, you have no way forward and no way out.

Draft an agreement that prevents it

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What it means

In plain English.

Client silence is when the project requires client action — feedback, approval, materials, a decision — and the client simply doesn't respond. Without a contractual timeout, you have no legal mechanism to keep the project moving, charge for waiting, or declare the work approved.

What it looks like

You send draft one. You follow up after a week. No response. Two weeks later, the client re-emerges with "sorry, been crazy busy" and wants to restart. The project timeline is now shredded, but the contract says nothing about it.

Who's responsible

Projects require active client participation. Without that, the provider is stuck. Contracts rarely acknowledge this asymmetry. The provider waits; the client has no contractual obligation to respond on any timeline.

Why it's so common

Clients are busy. Their internal decision-making takes longer than anticipated. The contract was written assuming cooperation — not accounting for what happens when cooperation doesn't arrive on schedule.

Why it's missed

It feels like a one-sided clause. It protects the client too.

Why missed

Assumed responsiveness

You assume the client wants to move quickly too. Often they do — but life intervenes. The contract should handle the exception without requiring a confrontation.

Why missed

Feels aggressive to include

"Deemed approved after 5 days" sounds punitive when the client reads it. In practice, it's a safety valve — clients who respond promptly are never affected by it.

Why missed

No timeline impact clause

Even when approval delays are acknowledged, contracts rarely address how client delays affect the project timeline. If they delay two weeks, does the deadline move two weeks? Usually yes, but only if the contract says so.

What can go wrong

The downstream consequences.

Project stalls indefinitely

You can't proceed to the next phase without approval. You can't invoice for a milestone that hasn't closed. The project just sits.

Payment trigger never fires

If payment is tied to approval, and approval never comes, the invoice never goes out. Client silence becomes involuntary non-payment.

Your capacity is locked

You can't fully commit to new clients while this project is nominally active. The stall costs you more than just the waiting time.

Rushed completion

Client resurfaces after three weeks of silence and wants the project done immediately. Their urgency becomes your problem — with no contractual right to charge for the compressed timeline.

Red-flag wording

Signs your contract has no mechanism for client silence.

These absences and phrases leave you with no lever when the client goes quiet.

Red flag

No approval timeout

The contract requires client approval but doesn't specify a window. Approval can be delayed indefinitely.

Red flag

"Client will review and respond"

On what timeline? Without a deadline attached to this obligation, it's unenforceable.

Red flag

No client delay provision

If the contract doesn't address how client delays affect the timeline, late client responses are your problem — not theirs.

Red flag

No re-engagement fee

If a project goes dormant for weeks and restarts, there's a real cost to picking it back up. That cost should be in the contract.

Safer pattern

The clause that forces a response — or deems one.

The approval-timeout clause solves client silence by making non-response a contractual event. If the client doesn't respond within the specified window, the deliverable is deemed approved. The project continues. The payment trigger fires.

BizDraft includes approval-timeout and client-delay provisions by default in service and project agreements.

The pattern

Approval timeout. "Client has [N] business days from delivery to provide written feedback or approval. If no feedback is received within [N] business days, the deliverable is deemed approved."
Client delay clause. "Project timelines are contingent on Client providing materials, approvals, and feedback on schedule. Client delays exceeding [N] business days will extend the project timeline by an equivalent period."
Dormancy fee. "If the project is paused for [N] or more consecutive days due to Client inaction, Provider may charge a project re-engagement fee of [amount] to resume work."
Scope of deemed approval. "Deemed approval applies only to the version of the deliverable submitted. Subsequent revisions restart the approval clock."

Most affected