Stop-work clause
The contract line giving you a right to suspend delivery when payment or client inputs stall, so pausing is not treated as you breaching.
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What it is
A stop-work clause is the contract line that lets you suspend delivery when the client stops holding up their end, usually an unpaid invoice or an overdue approval, without that suspension counting as you breaching the agreement. Without it, walking away from a project because you have not been paid can put you in the wrong, which is a genuinely bad place to negotiate from. How far the clause actually protects you depends on how it is drafted and where you are, so treat it as a contractual right you negotiated rather than a guarantee.
A usable clause has four parts: the trigger (invoice more than N days past due, or a client-supplied dependency more than N days late), the notice (written, with a cure period of a few days), the effect (work pauses, unpaid deliverables and your own drafts stay with you, deadlines move by at least the length of the pause), and the restart (work resumes after payment clears, possibly with a reactivation fee or a new slot in the queue). That last part matters most: if pausing costs the client nothing, it becomes a free financing option.
Withhold your unpaid work product, never the client's own stuff. Locking a client out of their own hosting, domain, analytics, or CMS, or sitting on credentials that belong to them, is a different act entirely, and one that can turn a straightforward unpaid invoice into your problem. It also plays badly if any of this ends up in front of a third party.
The clause is worthless if you never use it, and most freelancers do not, because sending the notice feels like escalation. Treat it as routine and unemotional: a short, dated email that quotes the clause, states the amount outstanding, and names the pause date. Also pair it with a termination clause, because a pause with no end just stalls forever and you still need a way out.
Ask AI for it
Draft a stop-work and suspension clause for an independent contractor services agreement. Cover: triggers, being any invoice unpaid more than 10 days past its due date or any client-supplied asset, access, or written approval outstanding more than 10 business days; a written notice with a 5 business day cure period before suspension takes effect; the effect of suspension, being that I cease all work, retain unpaid deliverables and my own contractor-owned work product, and all deadlines and milestone dates extend by at least the duration of the suspension plus reasonable re-scheduling time. State expressly that suspension never involves revoking, withholding, or retaining credentials, accounts, or data owned by the client, and that the client keeps access to its own systems throughout. Add a reactivation condition requiring all outstanding amounts cleared before work resumes; apply a [reactivation fee] if I have supplied one, and if I have not, leave that remedy out rather than inventing an amount. Include explicit confirmation that suspension is not a breach or termination by me and does not waive any amounts owed, and a link to the termination clause if suspension runs past 30 days. Plain English, no unnecessary legalese, then give me a short polite notice email template that invokes it.