When payment depends on acceptance, the acceptance mechanism is a payment term. Disputes rarely come from bad faith; they come from agreements that never said who decides, against what standard, on what clock.
Write the standard down
“Subject to Client approval” is not a standard; it is an invitation to renegotiate after the work is done. Tie acceptance to stated criteria—the brief, the approved treatment, technical specifications—so that rejection has to point at something.
Cap the revision loop
Unlimited revisions convert a fixed fee into an hourly engagement at the vendor’s expense. State the number of revision rounds, what counts as a round, and what happens when rounds are exhausted: either acceptance, or a change order at defined rates.
Decide what silence means
Every approval clause needs a clock and a default. A deemed-approval provision—no response within a stated period counts as acceptance—protects the delivering party. A deemed-rejection default protects the paying party. Either can be fair; omitting both guarantees a stalemate.
Link payment to the mechanism, not the mood
Milestone payments should key to objective events: delivery, expiry of the review period, first publication. If a counterparty can suspend payment by simply withholding a response, the schedule is decorative.
Build remedies short of the exit
Termination is usually the wrong remedy for a quality dispute. Escalation to named principals, a defined cure procedure and partial-payment mechanics resolve most delivery disputes without ending the relationship.
Related practices
General information only. Nothing on this page is legal advice or a substitute for advice on specific facts. Legal & notices.