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The process five steps, four seconds of client effort

How a sign-off travels from "sent" to "sealed."

Most approval tools fail at the same moment: when they ask your client to do anything more than tap. ApprovalLayer is designed backwards from that moment — everything on your side can be rich; everything on their side stays one tap.

  1. You send the request — 30 seconds

    Attach the work (creative, a budget figure, a scope change), name the approver, set a deadline, and choose a rule for silence: remind, escalate to a second contact, or expire. Sending logs a "requested" entry with your name on it — the record shows who asked, not just who answered.

  2. Your client receives a signed link

    An email with one link — or a link you copy and send yourself. The link is the security: cryptographically signed so it can't be forged, single-use so it dies after the decision, expiring so it dies at the deadline. That's why no client account is ever needed — the link is a credential scoped to exactly one decision.

  3. They tap once, anywhere

    A clean page on any device: the work, the context, the deadline, two buttons — Approve, or Request changes with an optional note. Total client effort: about four seconds. This is the entire adoption thesis.

  4. The decision is sealed

    Four things happen at once: the link is burned so the decision can never be quietly redone; the decision is written to the record, chained by fingerprint to every entry before it; your client is emailed their own copy of the entry reference, putting the proof somewhere neither of you controls; and you're notified — in the dashboard, by email, or via a webhook that resumes an automated workflow.

  5. Silence gets recorded too

    If the client never taps, your rule takes over — and every reminder, escalation, and expiry is itself written to the record. "Asked on the 12th, reminded on the 13th, no response by the 15th" becomes dated fact instead of your recollection.

The payoff dispute day

Months later: "we never approved that."

You open the client's record and click export. Out comes a PDF: every request, decision, reminder, and deadline — dated, attributed, and sealed. Because each entry fingerprints the one before it, editing history breaks the chain visibly, which is exactly what makes the unbroken chain persuasive. Most disputes end when the export is attached to an email. See how this plays out with scope creep →

See it from your client's side.

The homepage demo lets you play the client — one tap, one stamp, one sealed row.

Start free — 14 days