What To Do When Your Freelancer Ghosts Mid-Project

The messages show as “read.” No response. It’s been four days.

The project is 60% complete. Your client expects delivery next week. And the freelancer who promised this was “no problem” has simply… vanished.

You’ve been ghosted mid-project. Now what?

First: Triage the Situation

Before you spiral, assess what you’re working with:

What’s actually been delivered? Is there working code somewhere? Files in a shared folder? Anything you can build from?

Who has access to what? Hosting credentials, staging sites, repositories. If everything lives on the freelancer’s accounts, your options narrow significantly.

What’s the client timeline? Can you buy time, or is this deadline immovable?

What’s your capacity? Can you finish this yourself, or do you need to find someone else fast?

These answers determine your next move.

Salvage Options

If you have the code: Find another developer to pick it up. Be honest about the situation—anyone decent has seen this before. Expect them to need time to understand what was built and what’s left.

If you don’t have the code: You’re probably rebuilding. Painful, but sometimes the cleanest option. Especially if what was built was going to cause problems anyway.

For the client conversation: Honesty works better than excuses. “We had a contractor situation and are bringing in someone new to finish this. Here’s our adjusted timeline.” Most clients have dealt with vendor issues themselves. They’ll understand if you’re straightforward.

For the timeline: Pad it more than you think you need. Whatever went wrong once could go wrong again with someone new.

Why This Keeps Happening

Freelancers ghost for a few reasons:

Over-committed. They took too many projects, something had to give, and yours wasn’t their priority.

In over their head. The project got complicated and instead of admitting they’re stuck, they disappeared.

Life happened. Health, family emergencies, circumstances you’ll never know. Not an excuse, but sometimes the explanation.

The platform doesn’t care. Upwork and Fiverr don’t meaningfully penalize this behavior. A freelancer can ghost you, make a new account, and start fresh. No consequences, no accountability.

The common thread: no real relationship. When you’re just another gig in a queue of gigs, your project doesn’t matter to them the way it matters to you.

Preventing the Next Time

After you put out the fire, some changes worth considering:

Smaller milestones with deliverables. Don’t pay for 60% completion if you haven’t seen working code at 30% and 50%. Frequent checkpoints reveal ghosting behavior before you’re too deep.

Credentials and code access from day one. Everything should live somewhere you control. Repository on your GitHub, staging on your hosting. If they disappear, you still have the work.

Real relationships over platform transactions. Freelancers who care about repeat business don’t ghost. But that requires working with people who see you as a relationship, not a one-time payment.

One developer you trust. Instead of cycling through freelancers project by project, find one person and keep going back. Reliability compounds. So does accountability.

Standing Offer

If you’re reading this while mid-crisis, I’ve picked up projects from ghosted developers before. I can tell you honestly what’s salvageable and what’s not, and how long it would take to get you to the finish line.

And if you’re reading this because it happened before and you want to make sure it doesn’t happen again—that’s exactly why I work with agencies the way I do. Direct relationship, consistent availability, same person every time.

Need someone to pick up a stalled project? Reach out.

Want to prevent this entirely? Let’s talk about a better arrangement.