Guide
A client content approval process that approves the script, not the cut
Agencies rarely lose a content cadence at the edit bench. They lose it in the gap between sending a file and hearing back, and then again in the second round that nobody scoped. The fix is not a better project tool. It is moving the moment of approval earlier, naming one person to give it, and writing down what a round is.
- Named approver whose yes ends the round
- 1
- Consolidated revisions, written into the scope of work
- 1 round
- Agencies rarely or only sometimes billing scope creep, Ignition 2025
- 78%
Draw the loop honestly before you try to fix it
Take one thirty second video and write down every hand it passes through, with the calendar days beside each step rather than the working hours.
The pattern is almost always the same. The production steps take hours and the waiting steps take days. A cut that took ninety minutes to assemble sits for four days waiting on a reply, then collects notes from two people who disagree, then waits again.
That gap is the real output constraint on most content retainers, and it is invisible on a timesheet because nobody logs waiting.
So measure it for one month. Time from delivery to first feedback. Time from feedback to sign-off. Number of separate people who sent notes. Three numbers, and they will tell you more about your cadence than any capacity plan.
One thing worth checking before you blame the client. If your files arrive on a Friday afternoon with no note about what decision is needed, the delay is partly yours.
Where the days actually sit in one short video
The production steps take hours. The waiting steps take days, and only one of them is worth protecting.
Brief agreed
Day zero, scope already written
Script approved
The cheapest place to change anything
Film or source
Batched, half a day for several
Assembly
Hours, at the bench
One consolidated round
One approver, one date on it
Scheduled
Before the next batch is briefed
Approve the script, not the cut
The cost of a change rises steeply through the process. Changing a sentence in a script costs a minute. Changing the same sentence after the shoot costs a reshoot. Changing it after assembly costs the reshoot plus the rebuild of everything that followed it.
So put the formal sign-off where the change is cheap. The script, or the outline plus the hook, approved in writing by the person whose opinion is final. That approval is the contract for everything downstream.
This changes what the later review is for, and the change has to be stated explicitly or it will not hold. Once a script is approved, the review of the finished cut is a check for errors and compliance, not a second opportunity to reconsider the message.
Write that sentence into the scope of work in those words. You are approving the words now, because after this point changes to the message are a new video rather than a revision.
The trade-off is real. Some clients genuinely cannot picture a finished video from a script, and pushing them to approve one produces sign-off that does not survive contact with the file. For those clients, send an example of a finished video in the same shape alongside the script, so what they are approving is visible rather than imagined.
This is the whole editor
Highlight a phrase and a clip lands on those exact words. No timeline, no keyframes, no layers.
The one-round rule, written down
One consolidated revision round is the workable default. What makes it hold is not the number but the definition, because almost every dispute is about what counts as a round rather than how many there are.
- A round is one set of notes, from one named person, in one message, at one time. Notes arriving separately over three days are still one round, and they are also the reason the round takes three days.
- Give every review a date, agreed in advance and visible in the schedule. A review without a date on it drifts by default, and drift is what kills the cadence.
- Say in writing what happens when the date passes. Silence approves, or the item moves to the next cycle. Either rule works. Having no rule does not.
- Price the second round and quote the price the first time it is requested, without drama. Precedent is set in month one whether anybody intends it or not.
- Batch the reviews. Four scripts in one submission is one review cycle for a month of content, and most reviewers would rather work through a stack once than be interrupted weekly.
One approver, and the person who appears at round three
The single most damaging pattern in client approvals is the reviewer who was not in the process and arrives late with structural notes. Usually a founder, sometimes a legal or compliance reviewer added when somebody remembered.
It is not bad behaviour. It is a design flaw in the process, and it is yours to fix, because the client has no reason to think about approval chains and you do this every week.
Name the approver in the scope of work by role and by name. One person, whose yes is final. Everyone else contributes notes through that person, which means the client resolves their own internal disagreements before they reach you.
Ask the question that surfaces the hidden reviewer at kickoff rather than at round three. Who else will want to see this before it goes out, and does legal or compliance need to look at anything? Both answers change the schedule, and both are cheap to hear early.
Where a regulated review is genuinely required, build it into the script stage rather than the cut stage. Reviewers are far happier reading approved wording as text than watching a video and imagining what the words were.
Cadence is the thing all of this protects
None of the rules above exist for tidiness. They exist because publishing rhythm is the one variable an agency controls and a stalled approval loop is what breaks it.
A month of content approved in one sitting and scheduled in one afternoon holds. The same month approved video by video, each waiting four days, does not survive a busy quarter at the client.
So the operating shape is simple. Batch the scripts, approve them together, film in one session, assemble, then run one consolidated review with a date on it, and schedule before the next batch is briefed.
Shortening assembly helps here too, though less than people expect, because the waiting is the larger number. It matters at the margin: a cut that comes back in minutes rather than days means the one review round can happen while the client is still thinking about the script they approved.
That is the narrow job Cutroom does, and it is the only product this page names. One spoken take of up to 3 minutes returns a finished 9:16 MP4 in about a minute, with every word transcribed, the hook written, b-roll placed on the words that need showing, captions timed in one of six styles and filler trimmed, directed on the transcript instead of a timeline. A batch is 100 credits and export adds 20 credits per exported minute, so a finished 30 second video is about 110 credits. Lite is $19.99 a month for 1,250 credits, about 11 of those, nothing on the picture, cancel in one click. The limit matters most on this page and it is flat: there is no shared workspace, no comments and no approval flow, so sign-off happens wherever it happens today, and the exports are 9:16 MP4 only.
Questions people ask
- What should a client content approval process look like?
- Approve scripts in a batch, film once, then run a single consolidated review of the finished files with a date agreed in advance. One named approver on the client side, notes in one message, and a written rule for what happens if the date passes.
- How many revision rounds should be in the contract?
- One consolidated round is the usual default and two is generous. The number matters less than the definition: one set of notes, from one named person, in one message. Without that definition, a single round can quietly become five days of arriving comments.
- Who should approve content on the client side?
- One person, named in the scope of work, whose yes is final. Everyone else routes notes through them. This pushes the client's internal disagreements to their side of the wall, which is where they can be resolved without costing you a rebuild.
- How do you stop approvals from drifting?
- Give every review an agreed date and write down what happens when it passes, whether that is silent approval or the item moving to the next cycle. Then batch reviews so there is one moment to protect each month rather than eight small ones to chase.
- Should clients approve the script or the finished video?
- The script, because that is where a change costs a minute rather than a rebuild. Review the finished cut for errors and compliance instead of message. Clients who cannot picture a video from text should be sent an example in the same shape alongside the script.
Move sign-off to the script, name one approver, put a date on the review and define what a round is. The cadence you lose is almost never lost at the bench.