Ghosted by a freelance client? Unpaid for your work? I’ve been there, and here’s what I did about it, and what you need to know to avoid the same mistake.
There’s a lot of talk about the freedom and flexibility of freelancing. Not nearly enough about the risk of being ghosted after you’ve delivered the work.
A few months ago, I found myself in a situation I thought I had been careful enough to avoid. I completed months of work for a client, delivered everything as agreed, and then….silence. For weeks. No payment. No response to my messages.
At first, I thought maybe I was overreacting. Maybe they were busy. Maybe it was just a miscommunication. (That’s the thing about freelancers. I don’t know why we're quick to doubt ourselves before doubting the client.) But as weeks went by, reminders piled up without a single response.
Meanwhile, they were continuing “business as usual.” The founder (the person who had hired me directly) was posting regularly on LinkedIn about how well their business was doing, how generously they paid their team (“enough to make some people spit out their food,” he wrote). I’ll be honest: it was deeply upsetting. It became clear that I wasn’t being forgotten. I was being taken advantage of.
In this post, I’m sharing exactly what happened, what I wish I had done differently, what I did to finally resolve it, and the hard lessons I learned that every freelancer should know. Because if you're ever in this situation (or trying to avoid it) you deserve to be better prepared than I was.
Looking back, there were a few key things I should have handled differently. None of them seemed like a big deal at the time, but together, they created a situation where I had very little leverage once things started going wrong.
Because I had worked with this client before, I assumed the trust was already there. We had completed projects together in the past, so when this new work started, I didn’t feel the need to press for an upfront deposit. In hindsight, this was a major misstep. Past experiences aren’t a guarantee of future behavior, and trust shouldn’t replace professional safeguards.
This wasn’t the first time they had paid me late. In the past, payment had been delayed, but they had always eventually followed through. I thought this time would be no different.
But what I didn’t pay enough attention to was the pattern: whenever I brought up anything related to payment, the conversation would conveniently shift to something work-related. Payment would be brushed aside or ignored altogether, as if steering the focus back to new tasks could distract me from the overdue invoices. I guess that, at the time, I just wanted to believe it was just oversight, not avoidance.
Even when my reminders started piling up, I kept telling myself there must be a reason. Maybe internal issues, maybe personal challenges. I didn’t want to seem difficult or create unnecessary tension by escalating too soon. So I waited and hoped they would do the right thing without needing to be pushed.
Even when payments were overdue and my follow-ups were ignored, I continued delivering work for almost two extra months. I trusted that they would eventually pay me, and I didn’t want to risk losing a client I had invested so much time and effort into. In trying to be patient and professional, I made it easier for them to take advantage of my trust.
When it finally sank in that I might not get paid, I spent a lot of time thinking about what to do next. I wasn’t the kind of person who wanted to escalate things unnecessarily, and I definitely wasn’t looking for drama. Part of me hoped that if I just waited a little longer, maybe the payment would come through. Maybe it was just taking time behind the scenes.
Deep down, I think I knew that wasn’t the case.
I started looking into my options: asking for advice from other freelancers, reading about how others had handled similar situations, and quietly preparing for the possibility that I might need to act. I couldn’t just wait indefinitely and let the situation drag on while more and more time and mental energy was being wasted. I needed to be proactive, even if it was uncomfortable. And so, I started taking careful, intentional steps to protect myself.
Every reminder, every Slack message, every task I completed for them in Asana, every invoice shared with them. I kept a clear record. Not to be aggressive, but to make sure I had proof that I had acted professionally, held up my end of the deal (and then some!) and given every opportunity for resolution privately.
I stopped “casually” checking in and started sending firm, direct messages demanding a response and an update on the payment status. In total, I sent over 15 reminder messages in their official Slack channel. Still, there was no reply. Even though they remained active online and continued running their business publicly, my messages were ignored.
It was difficult, but I knew I couldn’t keep adding value while being treated like an afterthought. I drew a clear boundary: no new work until outstanding payments were cleared. It wasn’t easy to do, but it was necessary.
After weeks of radio silence, internal debate, and a lot of stress, I decided to take the leap. I wrote a professional, fact-based post on LinkedIn outlining the situation: the completed work, the unpaid invoices, and the lack of response despite months of follow-ups.
I didn’t name-call. I didn’t exaggerate. I stuck to the facts and shared my experience—because the company was clearly continuing "business as usual" even on LinkedIn, and I believed freelancers deserve to know when they might be walking into a similar situation.
And that’s what finally got a response.
Although the post got modest traction on Linkedin, the client finally took notice when I tagged the founder directly in the comments. Around a week after it went live, the client finally reached out, saying that the payment had been sent and asked me to take the post down. There was no apology for the months of silence. No acknowledgment of the stress and exhaustion their behavior had caused. Just a transactional response once their public image was at stake. They literally didn’t even try to pretend that it was for some other reason.
Needless to say, I didn’t take the post down. I believed (and still believe) that other freelancers have a right to know the risks when working with a company that ignores its financial obligations until they are publicly called out.
I did, however, update the post to reflect that the payment had been received and the financial part of the matter was resolved.
You might assume, based on the mistakes I made, that I was brand new to freelancing. I wasn’t. At the time this happened, I was already three years into freelancing. This wasn’t my first project, my first client, or even my first late payment.
And that’s exactly why this experience mattered even more. No matter how experienced you are, we all still have blind spots, especially when trust, past relationships, and the hope for smooth projects and financial priorities cloud our judgment.
Here’s what I learned, and what I hope others can learn sooner than I did:
I always follow this rule. I made an exception only this once and it came back to bite me.
Even if you’ve worked with the client before. Even if the relationship feels friendly and trustworthy. Trust doesn’t replace professionalism.
Some freelancers, especially when they're new, hesitate to ask for upfront payments (as did I when I was starting out). They worry it might seem unreasonable, or that the client will think they’re being difficult, or worse: walk away. But I’ve learnt that good clients don’t hesitate to commit. Most clients have no problem putting down a deposit before you begin. If someone gets uncomfortable when you ask for basic terms like partial upfront payment, it’s not a missed opportunity, it’s a bullet dodged.
I once worked with another client who, when I brought up the need for an initial deposit, said, "It’s important for me to have more trust in it, and not just when the paper is signed," implying that I shouldn’t ask for a deposit and should start working based on trust alone. Luckily, I didn’t acquiesce. I stood firm and told him clearly that the deposit was a prerequisite. He sent it over.
Interestingly, when it came time for the final payment after the work was completed, he delayed it by a full two months, citing different reasons like "I'm on vacation" and "It's not possible right now to send payments to Pakistan" (what even...?).
This brings me to my second point.
No matter how well you think things are going, keep payment milestones aligned with deliverables and don’t hand over everything before the final payment is made. Whether it’s final files, access credentials, or deliverables, structure your workflow so that you're not left empty-handed if something goes wrong.
It’s much harder to chase money after you've already delivered everything you were being paid for. Holding back the final delivery until payment clears isn’t distrustful. it’s professional. It's simply ensuring that the work you've done and the time you've invested are respected.
It depends a lot on how you frame it. If you treat payment milestones and partial deliveries as a normal part of your professional process, and not a negotiation tool or a sign of distrust, most serious clients will accept it without a problem.
You can simply say something like:
"As part of my process, I release final files (or access, or deliverables) once the final payment is completed."
Keep it casual, confident, and matter-of-fact. You’re not asking for a favor, you’re just explaining how you work.
If someone pushes back or makes you feel unreasonable for setting basic professional boundaries, that’s already a red flag. It’s better to find out early than after months of chasing payments.
In my case, I noticed that every time I brought up payment, the conversation would get redirected to something else. Payment would be brushed aside or ignored altogether, as if steering the focus back to new tasks could distract me from the overdue invoices.
At the time, I didn’t want to believe it was deliberate. But I’ve learned that clients who are serious about working with you discuss money clearly and early. If they avoid, deflect, or get uncomfortable when it’s time to talk about payments or invoices, it's a red flag—not something you should excuse.
Mike Monteiro, in his book Design Is a Job, puts it perfectly:
“You are a business. You are a vendor. Vendors talk about money. If you're not talking about money, you're not doing your job.”
Patience and professionalism are important but there comes a point where continuing to "be nice" only rewards bad behavior. In my case, I continued working for almost two extra months, hoping the relationship I had built with the client would be enough to ensure payment. It wasn’t. If a client isn’t paying you, you need to stop delivering new work, stop giving them the benefit of the doubt, and stop waiting for them to suddenly do the right thing.
Think of it this way: Would you rather deliver everything and then not get paid? Or would you rather set a clear boundary early on, even if it means the client might walk away?
One of these outcomes leaves you unpaid after investing all your time and energy. The time and energy you could invest in finding and working with other serious clients who will pay you. The other protects you before you waste more of both.
If someone disappears or loses interest just because you asked to be paid fairly, that's not a client you lost. It's a problem you avoided.
Whether you agreed over email, Slack, a Zoom call, or a casual chat, get it in writing before you start. It doesn’t have to be fancy. A simple Word document outlining the basics, saved as a PDF, is enough to protect you and to make expectations clear on both sides. Here’s a free Word template you can use!
At minimum, your agreement should cover:
This protects both sides, keeps expectations clean, and helps avoid misunderstandings that can turn into bigger problems later.
Check out this free simple Word doc template you can use to create your own agreements.
Important: Don’t just save this document for yourself. You must send it to the client through email or message and get their written acknowledgment before you start working. Even something simple like: "Let me know if you're good with this so we can proceed." It’s that acknowledgment that protects you later, not just your private notes. I can’t tell you how many problems this has saved me from simply because the expectations were clear upfront and agreed to by both sides.
Even when you do everything right (document clearly, set boundaries, communicate professionally), sometimes things still go wrong. If a client delays payment or disappears, you need to know your options and be ready to act without hesitation.
If payment is overdue, don’t hesitate to send a reminder every single day. Let me tell you: it does NOT feel good. You feel like you’re begging for your own money. But late payments directly affect your business, your time, your mental health and your ability to plan ahead. Being consistent with follow-ups sends a clear message: you’re serious, you’re paying attention, and you’re not going to simply let it go.
You’d honestly be surprised at how often this works. Most clients will pay up once they realize you’re not going to quietly disappear. In my experience, only once did this not resolve the matter.
No matter how small the amount is, if you’ve earned it, I believe you shouldn’t just let it go. If you don’t value your work and your time, you can’t expect clients to either.
If private communication fails completely, and only after giving the client every reasonable chance to resolve the issue, you can consider speaking up publicly through social media.
But if you choose to take this route, you have to be extremely careful about how you frame it. You should stick to the facts: what work you completed, when payment became overdue, how many times you followed up, and what (if any) response you received. Avoid using charged or defamatory terms like “scam,” “fraud,” or “exploitation.” These words, even if you believe they apply, could expose you to legal risks such as defamation claims.
The goal should never be to "name and shame." It should be to share your experience truthfully and help others make informed decisions. Make it clear that you're simply stating your experience, backed by documentation if necessary, and letting others decide for themselves.
Legal action is another option, but it should truly be a last resort. For many freelancers, it’s not a realistic one. In most cases, especially when the client is located in a different country, pursuing legal action can be prohibitively expensive, time-consuming, and emotionally draining. Often, the legal fees alone end up costing more than the unpaid invoice itself.
I’m mentioning it here for the sake of completeness, but realistically, most freelancers find it isn’t worth pursuing unless the amount owed is significant and they have the resources to follow through.
Pursuing legal routes is only worth considering if you have solid documentation to support your claim (such as a written agreement, clear proof of work delivered, and records of communication). You also have to weigh the financial and emotional costs of hiring legal help. In some cases, legal action makes sense. In others, unfortunately, it may cost more than it's worth.
