How to ask a client to approve your work: 5 email templates

To get a client to approve your work, ask a closed question with a date on it: "Does this work to move into build, or is there something specific to change? A reply by Thursday keeps the launch on schedule." Then make approving as easy as clicking a link. Vague asks like "let me know what you think" are the usual reason approvals stall.

Ask for a decision, not feedback

A closed question gets answered faster than an open one. "What do you think?" invites an essay, and most clients don't have an essay ready, so the message waits until they do. "Does this work to move forward, or is there one thing you want changed?" invites a yes or a short list.

Name the deliverable, name the decision, and offer two paths: approve it, or say exactly what to change. Anything outside those two paths is a separate conversation, and it helps to say so. A request that mixes approval, new ideas and a question about the invoice gets none of the three answered.

Keep the ask to one deliverable at a time. If you send the logo, the style guide and the social templates together, the client reacts to whichever one bothers them most and ignores the rest. Three small approvals with three clear answers beat one large approval that stays "mostly fine" for two weeks.

Set a review window with a reason

A date makes a request answerable today. An open-ended request has no reason to be answered today. "Could you review this by Thursday so build starts on Monday?" ties the deadline to something the client cares about, which is their own launch, not your calendar.

Two or three business days suits most deliverables. A longer window drifts, and a shorter one feels like pressure for no reason. Whatever you pick, name the consequence honestly. "So the next milestone starts on time" is true. An invented emergency costs you trust the second time you use it.

It also helps to say what happens if you hear nothing. Some businesses write "if I don't hear back by Thursday I'll treat this as approved and start the next stage." That line only works if your contract allows it, so agree on it at the start of the project, not in the middle of a silence. Putting a silence rule into the contract is a normal term, and a lawyer can word it for your country.

Reminders are part of the job, not a sign you're being pushy. Sales research from Qwilr reports that 80% of successful sales need five or more follow-ups, while 44% of reps give up after one. Approvals work the same way: one polite nudge is normal, and most clients are relieved to get it.

Make yes the easy path

The less effort a reply takes, the faster it comes. Show one version, not three for the client to weigh. Point at the exact thing you need eyes on instead of dumping a folder. If you have open questions, number them so the client can answer "1 yes, 2 no, 3 the blue one" from their phone.

A click beats a written reply. A button that says "Approve v2" is a far lower bar than composing an email, and it ties the approval to one specific file, so nobody argues later about which version got the green light.

Format matters too. Link to the work instead of attaching it, put the decision in the first line, and keep the message short enough to read on a phone. Clients often read your email in a lift or between meetings. If the request needs a laptop and ten quiet minutes, it waits for a day that doesn't come.

Five templates you can copy

Change the names and details and keep the structure.

Initial approval request:

Hi Sarah, the homepage design is ready for your review here. Two quick things to confirm: does the layout work to move into build, and are you happy with the headline? If you can look by Thursday we stay on track for the launch. If anything needs changing, point me at it and I'll turn it around.

Gentle nudge after silence:

Hi Sarah, circling back on the homepage design from Monday. No rush if you're mid-week, but a quick yes or a change request by tomorrow keeps us on schedule. Here's the link again.

Deadline-anchored follow-up:

Hi Sarah, to hit the launch date we agreed, I need sign-off on the homepage by end of day Thursday. Under section 4 of our agreement, no reply by then counts as approval and I'll start build. Flag anything before then and I'll adjust.

Responding to vague feedback:

Thanks Sarah. To change the right thing, could you point me to the section that feels off and tell me what you'd want instead? Once I have that, a revised version will be with you within a day.

Final approval confirmation:

Great, thank you. I'm marking the homepage approved and moving to build. The next milestone arrives on the date in the project plan, and the invoice for this stage is ready whenever you are.

The confirmation matters more than it looks. Stating what was approved, in writing, on a specific day, turns a casual "looks good" into something you can point to.

Why an approval record protects you

An approval is only worth something if you can find it later. Email approvals work, but they scatter. Three months in, nobody can say which message approved which version, and a "that's not what I signed off on" conversation has nothing to settle it.

Electronic approvals are generally accepted as evidence. In the US, the ESIGN Act says a signature or contract may not be denied legal effect, validity or enforceability solely because it is in electronic form. In the EU, Article 25 of the eIDAS Regulation says an electronic signature shall not be denied legal effect and admissibility as evidence solely because it is electronic. That is about signatures, and a simple "approve" click is a lighter thing than a signed contract, so don't oversell it. But a dated record tied to a file version is far better than memory.

Approval also starts a clock. Once a stage is signed off, you can invoice it, and late payment rules begin to matter. In the EU, the Late Payment Directive sets a 30-day payment period and a 60-day maximum between businesses, with a fixed 40 euro compensation for late payers. In the UK, statutory interest on late commercial payments is 8% plus the Bank of England base rate. Neither helps you if the client says they never approved the work, so a clean record of sign-off supports the invoice that follows. Check how these apply to your contract with your accountant or lawyer.

How Delivvo keeps approvals in one place

Delivvo is built so the approval request, the file and the record all live in the same spot, and the client never has to remember a password to give you an answer.

Here is the flow for a deliverable:

1. You upload the file to the project. Versions are kept, so v1 and v2 stay separate.
2. The client gets a link to the client portal. They sign in with a one-time code sent to their email, so there is no account to create.
3. In the portal they see the file, your messages, and the approval for that version. They approve it or send it back with a comment, from their phone if they like.
4. You see the answer next to the work, not buried in a thread. The same page shows the signed contract and the invoice for the stage.
5. If you run a team, the task for the deliverable sits in your team workspace. The client sees only the file you approved to send, under your business name, never your internal notes.

One detail you won't find on most email-based setups: the approval, the quote and contract and the invoice sit under one client record. When someone asks six months later what was agreed, you open one page, not three inboxes.

Money follows the same path. When the stage is approved, you send the invoice from the same project, and the client pays through your own gateway. Delivvo doesn't touch the payment and takes 0%.

If you want the full picture of how approvals work in the product, see client approvals. For the paperwork that comes before the approval, sending a contract to e-sign covers that step, and a client onboarding checklist shows where approvals fit in the first month.

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