Anything still in progress stays with you until that phase is paid in full
You know what to deliver and what to hold back when a client stops paying partway through a phase, and you already have the message and the deadline ready for that day.
By Yodai · Published on September 6, 2026 · Updated on October 12, 2026
If a client stops paying right when a phase wraps up, the next step is clear: you don't start the next one. The hard part is when the silence hits in the middle of a phase, with work half done. Say you're in the third week of a four-week phase. The client paid what kicked off this phase, you've put in twelve days of work, and suddenly they stop answering emails. The page is half laid out, the catalog is half loaded, the WhatsApp bot is half set up. Do you send over what you have so they see you haven't left them hanging, or do you hold it until the rest of the money shows up?
It's the question nobody asks until it happens to them, and by then they've already answered it wrong once.
What you deliver is what's been paid for in full
If a phase doesn't get paid, the project doesn't move to the next one, and that's worth settling before you even start. What's left to decide is what happens to the phase that's stuck halfway: the one that's started getting paid but hasn't been paid off.
The rule is simple, and it's worth stating plainly, with no gray area: you deliver what matches a phase that's been paid in full and closed at its milestone. The progress on a phase that hasn't hit both marks (paid in full and milestone met) stays with you. It doesn't matter if twenty percent of the money is missing or ninety percent. It doesn't matter if it looks to you like it's nearly done and four more days would wrap it up. If it's not paid in full, it doesn't leave your hands.
This isn't about punishing the client: it keeps the payment schedule you both signed intact. If the work can be had without finishing the payment, the last payment on that phase loses its purpose, and with it, the whole order you built in the earlier phases falls apart.
Showing isn't delivering
A client who stops paying almost always asks for the same thing before disappearing for good: "send me what you've got so I can see it." It's fair that they want to see it. What's not fair is treating seeing and having as the same thing.
Showing is a screenshot or a thirty-second video recorded on your phone. A link to a preview works too, as long as you can pull it down whenever you want and it doesn't give access to the admin panel or the working files, but careful: anything that opens in a browser can be saved, so it's never as safe as a screenshot. Delivering is the source file, the login credentials to the panel, the domain already pointing to that page. The difference comes down to whether, with what you send, the client could finish the work on their own or hand it off to someone else to wrap up for less. If they can, you've delivered. If all they can do is look, you've shown.
If they don't come back, what do you do with what you've already been paid?
Weeks go by and the client doesn't answer. There are two separate questions here, and it's worth not mixing them up: what you do with the money you've already been paid for that phase, and what you do with the project.
Money paid for a phase you'd already started working on doesn't get refunded. You've put in hours, and no one gets those hours back by refunding a payment. It's different if the client paid a deposit and you hadn't touched anything yet: in that case, refunding it makes sense, because there's no work to offset it. What draws the line is whether you'd started working on the phase, not whether the client is happy with the result or how long you've worked together.
Set a date tied to the project. If fifteen days after your message there's been no payment and no response, the phase closes unfinished and you invoice for the work put in up to that point, not the whole phase. What you deliver at that close is the last thing paid and closed (the previous phase, if it was ever closed), never the one left half done.
- 1Stop the work right there
Don't keep going without payment: every extra hour is an hour you won't get back. - 2Give notice in writing, with a date
Send a message like the example above, with a specific deadline, say fifteen days. - 3Hold onto the work, don't deliver it
No files, no dashboard access, no domain pointing to that version. - 4If the payment comes through, you pick up right where you left off
No extra charge for the pause and no starting over: the work you set aside is still the same work. - 5If it doesn't arrive by the deadline, you close out and invoice what you put in up to that point
An unfinished phase doesn't get invoiced in full: you invoice the actual work done up to the cutoff date.
- You only deliver a phase that's been paid in full and has met its milestone
- Work that's half done gets shown, not delivered: screenshots or a locked preview, never files or access
- Money for a phase you've already started doesn't get refunded; an untouched deposit does
- You've got the message and the deadline ready for the day a client stops paying halfway through
Test yourself
Answer before opening each one. If one gives you trouble, go back to the section that explains it.
1. A client makes the payment that kicks off a two-payment phase, you get sixty percent of the work done, and they stop responding. Ten days later, they write asking for the link to show their business partner.
You send screenshots or a link to a locked preview, not the real link or dashboard access. Showing it to their partner is a legitimate reason to see it, not to have it; the phase hasn't been paid in full.
2. A month has passed since your message with the fifteen-day deadline, and the client hasn't come back. The previous phase was fully paid and closed; this second phase you started halfway, only partially paid.
When you close out the project, you deliver what corresponds to the previous phase, which is fully paid and closed at its milestone. The second phase, even though you've put hours into it, stays with you because it never got fully paid or closed.
3. The client comes back two months later, pays the rest of the phase that had been left half-done, and wants you to pick up where you left off.
You pick back up at the price already agreed for the phase, with no surcharge for the pause: they're the ones who stopped it, not you, and the saved work is still the same work. You only charge extra if something external genuinely changed (prices, stock, a design that no longer applies) and it needs to be redone.