Client Approval Email Template for Sending a Video for Sign Off

Most editors I know, and I would include my own agency in this for a good couple of years, basically treat the client approval email as the least important thing they write all week, and nobody on the team even has a proper template for it, right. You export, you upload, you type "hey, v2 is up, let me know your thoughts" and you go to sleep feeling like the job is done, when to be very honest the job has barely started.

That one lazy line costs more days than any render queue ever will, because the client reads it on their phone between two meetings with no idea what you need or by when. So they do nothing for a week, and then they send a long paragraph of vague notes you now have to decode. Below is the client approval email template set we actually use, three emails in total, and every one of them carries the share link, the password, the exact version, a real deadline and one line on how to click the exact moment they want changed.

Why the approval email decides how fast you get notes

The way I think about it, the approval email is basically the brief for the review round, right, and whatever you leave out of it, the client fills in with their own guess. Clients are not editors, so they cannot tell a rough cut where pacing is still open from a near final version where you only want small fixes, and so they give you opinions on everything, including things you locked two rounds ago.

In my agency, the rounds that go badly almost always start with a vague email, and the pattern is really really predictable. The notes come back as WhatsApp voice messages about "the part near the start", and someone forwards the video to a boss who contradicts the first set. At the end of the day we burn an extra round just figuring out what everybody meant, and that is on us, because we never told them what we needed.

What fixed it for us was structure much more than clever wording, right, so every approval email now gets built from the same six pieces in a saved snippet. How these emails sit inside a full sign off process is in our client approval workflow for video, and the checklist below is the part that lives inside the email itself.

• The share link to one version only
• The password sent in a separate message
• The exact version name such as MV2
• A deadline with a day and a time
• One line on how to click the exact moment
• The decision you need from them

The first review request email template

This one goes out the moment the new version is uploaded, and it is short on purpose, because the client should be able to read it in one scroll on a phone. For instance, say we are on the second version of a brand film and last round the client asked for a new intro, a shorter testimonial section and an updated end card, this is roughly what goes out.

Subject: {Project name} MV2 ready for review, notes by Thursday 5 pm

Hi {first name},

MV2 of {project name} is ready for you. It includes your notes from the last round: the new intro, the shorter testimonial section and the updated end card.

Review link: {PlayPause share link}. I will send the password in a separate message.

How to leave notes: open the link in your browser, no login or download needed. Pause at the exact moment you want changed, click on the frame and type your note. You can also draw on the frame to circle something.

What I need from you: notes on pacing, on screen text and music by Thursday 5 pm. If it all works, just reply "approved for MV2" and I will move to the final export.

Thanks, {your name}

The subject line carries the project name, the version and the deadline, right, because clients search their inbox weeks later and a deadline sitting in the subject gets seen even when the email never gets opened. For a client with a crowded inbox, "{Project name}: notes needed on MV2 by Thursday" works too, as long as the version and the day stay in. The "what I need from you" line matters most of all, because narrowing the notes to pacing, text and music quietly tells the client the structure is no longer up for debate, and the longer version of how we word timestamp instructions is in sending a video for feedback.

Explaining the review link so clients actually use it

The catch here is that senior clients see "review link" and assume there is an account to create and an app to install, so they put it off until they have time, which is basically never. That is why the email says "no login or download needed" in plain words, and on PlayPause it is true, because the client opens one link in a browser and the video plays from a streaming copy while your original stays untouched.

Once they are in, the "click on the frame" line does a lot of work, right, because every comment sticks to the exact frame, so "make this text bigger" arrives already attached to 0:37. A range comment can cover a whole section when the note is about pacing, and I went deeper on that side in client feedback without a login.

Link life depends on your plan too, which matters when you set a deadline for a slow client.

30 days

link life on Creator, then files expire

90 days

link life on Agency

Never

link expiry on Enterprise

A client review portal keeps that link looking and behaving the same in every email, so clients stop second guessing it.

Review_Cut_v4.mp4In Review

212160p · ProRes

00:34 / 02:18

SR

Sarah 0:34

Frame-accurate note, everyone sees the exact same thing.

The follow up email for client feedback when they go quiet

Then comes the email nobody enjoys writing, right, where the deadline is tomorrow and the client has said nothing. The temptation is "just following up on my last email", which clients read as "why have you not replied", so the version below brings the link back to the top of their inbox and shrinks the ask down to two moments.

Subject: Quick nudge on {project name} MV2, notes due Thursday

Hi {first name},

Just bringing MV2 of {project name} back to the top of your inbox. The review link is the same one from Monday and the password has not changed.

If you are short on time, the two moments I most need your eyes on are the new intro at 0:04 and the end card at 1:52. A line on each is enough for me to keep moving.

If Thursday no longer works, tell me the new date and I will plan around it.

Thanks, {your name}

Shrinking the ask does most of the work, because a client avoiding a two minute video that feels like homework will very often open it for two timestamps, and once they are in, they usually keep watching. The new date line matters just as much, right, because a client stuck in a launch week feels guilty, and a graceful way to say "next Tuesday" gets you a reply instead of silence.

It gets harder when the quiet person cannot approve, like a contact waiting on a travelling founder, and the fix is agreeing up front who can sign off, which I covered in sign off with absent decision makers.

Old way

a just following up email with no link, no version and no date

With PlayPause

the same link, MV2 named, two exact timestamps and a date the client can move

The final video approval request email

The last email closes the round, and the goal is a clear written yes on one specific version, because "looks good" on WhatsApp three versions ago will not help you when the client asks why the old logo made it into the final.

Subject: {Project name} MV3 final approval needed by Friday

Hi {first name},

All your notes from MV2 are now in MV3, on the same link as before, stacked on top of the older version so you can flip back and check anything.

This is the version I would like to lock. If you are happy with it, reply "approved for MV3" and I will export the final files and send the delivery links.

If anything is left, please leave it as a note on the exact frame by Friday 12 pm, and I will treat those as the last round in our scope.

Thanks, {your name}

Asking for "approved for MV3" might feel formal, but trust me on any level, it saves you from the worst argument in this business, which is a client saying they approved a different version from the one you delivered. Versions on PlayPause are named MV1, MV2, MV3 and so on, and on Creator and up they stack on the same card, so the client can still flip back. On Agency and up there is also a side-by-side version compare to check every MV2 note landed in MV3, which is basically version control applied to a client inbox.

Sometimes the reply is "approved except the end card", right, so I write back naming the one open note, fix it, and send this same email again for MV4, because the written approval should always match the exact file you deliver.

When the clean yes comes in, we set a custom status on the video to Approved so the team can see which cuts are signed off, and our page on approval statuses for video shows how that looks. The email after this one is the video delivery email template, and the paper trail side is in getting client approval on video.

1Send the MV2 review request with link, password and deadline

2Check who watched before sending any nudge

3Send the MV3 final approval request

4Set the custom status to Approved and deliver

Timing your follow ups with viewing data

This part changed how I write follow ups, to be very honest, because for years we nudged blind, right, and the same "quick nudge" went to a client who never opened the link and to one who had watched three times and was just thinking. On Creator and up, PlayPause has who-watched analytics showing who opened the link, when and from which city, and that one screen tells you which follow up to send, or whether to send one at all.

If nobody has opened the link after two days, the problem is the email, so the nudge resends the link and repeats "no login needed", because I'm pretty sure they missed it. If they watched but left no notes, the problem is the decision, so the nudge narrows the ask to two timestamps. And when views come from a city where your contact does not live, in my experience the cut has gone up the chain to someone senior, so you wait a day. You see what I mean here, right, the same silence can mean very different things.

A worked week for one review round

Here is how a normal round runs for us on a brand film. The MV2 request goes out Monday at 11 am with a Thursday 5 pm deadline, and on Tuesday evening I open who-watched for the first time. No views means the "no login needed" nudge goes out Wednesday morning, while views with no comments get the two timestamp nudge on Wednesday afternoon, so the client still has a full day. Notes land by Thursday, and MV3 goes up the following Tuesday with the final approval request due Friday 12 pm. Once "approved for MV3" arrives, the status flips to Approved and the delivery email goes out the same day.

“

The same silence from a client can mean different things, so check who watched before you write the nudge.

We also send every comment to a Slack channel, available on Creator and up, so nobody nudges a client who is halfway through reviewing. That rhythm lives in our post production checklist template, and does that make sense, right, the wording stays fixed and only the timing moves with the data.

Frequently asked questions

Should I send the password in the same email as the review link?

I would not, right. Emails get forwarded constantly, and if the link and the password travel together, anyone in that chain can open your cut. We send the link by email and the password over whatever channel we already use with that client, and since every PlayPause plan has password-protected links and instant revoking, a leaked link becomes a quick fix rather than a crisis.

How long should I wait before sending a follow up email?

For a normal review round I wait until the day before the deadline, and I check who watched first, because that decides which nudge goes out. The one exception is when nobody has opened the link after 48 hours, because that usually means the email got buried, and waiting longer only wastes the round.

Does a reply saying "looks good" count as approval?

To be very honest, it counts as a nice feeling and not much more, because "looks good" does not say which version, and weeks later nobody remembers. That is why the final email asks for the exact phrase "approved for MV3" in writing, and why we then set the custom status to Approved on that video, so the client's own words and the version they cover sit together with a date on them.

Do these templates work if I edit in Final Cut Pro or DaVinci Resolve?

They work the same way, because the email only needs a share link, and the link does not care which editor made the file. Export from Final Cut Pro, DaVinci Resolve or After Effects, upload it to PlayPause and send the email, then keep the review page open beside your editor and work through the notes there, since those apps have no PlayPause panel. Premiere Pro users get a panel where comments show inside Premiere and clicking one jumps the playhead there.

To run this exact set of emails with a real link, every PlayPause plan comes with a 7-day free trial, so you can upload your next cut, send the first review request tonight and see who watched it by tomorrow. The full plan breakdown sits on the PlayPause pricing page.

So yeah. That's my way of saying it.