Direct answer
Client never used the delivered work and wants a refund: delivered and accepted is the line
You delivered the work. The client checked it, accepted it, and paid, or agreed to pay. Weeks later the message arrives: they never actually used it, the project stalled, priorities changed, so they would like their money back. Your work did not change in those weeks. Their plans did. The line that protects you is simple and fair: payment is earned at delivery and acceptance, not at use. What makes that line hold is the acceptance record, built at delivery time, not reconstructed under pressure. Here is how to walk it.
Updated October 26, 2026.
Payment is earned at delivery and acceptance, not at use
A client buys your work: the hours, the skill, and the delivered result built to the agreed spec. Whether they launch it, shelve it, or hand it to a team that never opens the folder is a decision inside their business, made after your side of the bargain was complete. If payment depended on use, every delivery would carry an open-ended condition no freelancer could price: work accepted in March could be refunded in September because a strategy changed. That is not how the exchange works in any trade. The plumber is paid for the fitted pipe, not for how often the tap runs. Your equivalent of the fitted pipe is a delivery the client examined and accepted as the work they ordered. That acceptance, not their later use, is the moment the payment was earned.
The acceptance record: what was delivered, when, and the sign-off
The refund conversation is won or lost on a record that should already exist: what was delivered, item by item; when it was delivered; and the sign-off, the client's acceptance in writing with a name and a date. If the delivery closed as a handover the client opened and accepted, that record is already assembled. When the work runs through Zambo, every call carries a verifiable receipt under AER-1, published as IETF Internet-Draft draft-zambo-aer1-26, so what was produced and when it was saved is checkable by anyone you hand the record to. A receipt proves the saved result was not changed since it was saved; it does not prove the work was good, and it does not replace the sign-off. Together they answer the only questions a refund request can fairly raise: was the agreed work delivered, and did the client accept it as that work. New users get 20 free calls per day, then they upgrade when the job needs more.
The reply: walk the record, offer the fix window, hold the line
Answer promptly, warmly, and in order. First, walk the record: the delivery, the date, the acceptance, in three short lines with the links attached. Second, offer the fix window: if anything in the delivered work is genuinely wrong against the agreed spec, defects are yours and you will repair them free inside a stated window. That offer matters, because it separates a defect, which is your responsibility, from a change of plans, which is theirs. Third, hold the line in one plain sentence: work delivered and accepted as agreed is not refundable because it went unused. No apology spiral, no discount offered out of discomfort, no argument about their internal decisions. The reply below follows exactly that order.
Prevent it next time: acceptance built into the delivery step
The cheapest version of this conversation is the one prevented at delivery. Build acceptance into the delivery step itself: every delivery closes with the item list, the files or results, and an explicit accept action or reply, so the sign-off exists before the invoice conversation starts. State the terms where the client sees them at kickoff: payment is earned on delivery and acceptance, defects are repaired free for a stated window, and unused work is not refundable. None of this is aggressive. It is the normal shape of professional work, stated early enough that nobody is surprised by it later. Clients who intend to pay are reassured by clear terms; clients who push back on the acceptance step itself have told you something worth knowing before the work starts.
Copy-paste: the reply that walks the record and holds the line
Thanks for telling me directly. Here is the delivery record: the work was delivered on [date], item by item at [record link], and accepted by [name] on [date]. If anything in it is wrong against what we agreed, that is a defect and I will fix it free any time in the next [30] days, just point me at it. What I cannot do is refund work that was delivered and accepted as agreed because it has not been used since; the payment was earned at delivery and acceptance. If your plans come back to it, the work is yours and ready.
What a record does not settle
A verifiable receipt proves the saved result was not changed since it was saved; it does not prove the work met the spec, does not create an acceptance where none happened, and cannot make a client pay or stop a chargeback. The delivery record, the dated sign-off, and the terms you stated at kickoff are what the conversation stands on. This page is general information, not legal advice.
Frequently asked questions
Client never used the delivered work and wants a refund. Do I have to pay it back?
Not on the usual shape of the deal: payment is earned at delivery and acceptance, not at use. If the agreed work was delivered and the client accepted it, their later decision not to use it is a change inside their business, not a failure of yours. Walk the acceptance record, offer to repair anything genuinely wrong against the spec free inside a stated window, and hold the line on the refund itself. If there was no acceptance, or the work missed the spec, that is a different conversation, and the record will show that too.
What if the client says they never really accepted the work?
Then everything turns on the record: the delivery list, the date, and the sign-off. A written acceptance, an accept action on the delivery record, or payment of the delivery invoice all evidence acceptance. If none of those exist, the honest position is weaker, and the lesson is structural: build an explicit acceptance step into every delivery from now on, so the question never has to be argued from memory.
Should I offer a partial refund to keep the relationship?
Only as a deliberate business decision, never as a concession that the refund was owed. A partial refund framed as owed teaches that accepted work is negotiable after the fact. If the client is valuable and the amount is small, a goodwill gesture labeled exactly that, goodwill, with the delivered and accepted line restated in the same message, can be worth it. The record walk comes first either way.