Scorecard · 5 minutes
Is Your Designer Ghosting You?
7 yes/no behavior questions. Score 4 or more "yes" answers and the relationship is structurally broken. A copy-paste exit script gets generated at the bottom, tuned to where on the spectrum you actually are.
Back to The Vault"Designer is busy" and "designer has gone dark" look identical for the first 30 days. The signal is not how long since they replied, it is whether the pattern is structural. The 7 questions below test for the pattern, not for one bad week.
If your relationship is healthy, the score will say so and you can stop reading. If it is broken, the script at the bottom is the email you have been trying to write for two months.
Question 01 · Response time
Has it been more than 7 days since their last response?
Not 7 days since you sent something. 7 days since they sent anything back, including a "got it, will get to this." The clock starts on their last actual reply.
Question 02 · Site activity
Has it been more than 90 days since the last update to your site?
A real change you can see, not a "we are working on it" email. New page, updated copy, new photo, anything that ships and is visible on the public site.
Question 03 · Source files
Have they declined or stalled when you asked for the source files?
Figma file, design source, logo as SVG, Photoshop file. If you have not asked, the answer is no for this question. If you have asked and gotten silence, deflection, or "I will send those when we have a chance", the answer is yes.
Question 04 · Billing setup
Are you paying them for hosting that they then pay through their own account?
If your designer charges you "hosting" or "monthly fee" and they pay Wix or whoever directly through their account, that is the structure. If you pay the platform yourself, that is fine.
Question 05 · Custody
Is your domain or hosting in their name, not yours?
If you do not know, the answer is yes for this question. The fact that you cannot easily check is the signal. Healthy designers make custody trivial to verify.
Question 06 · Documentation
Did they give you any documentation on what was built and how to maintain it?
A handoff PDF, a Loom walkthrough, a written list of what changed. Anything that says "here is what we built and here is how you log into it." Verbal at the kickoff call does not count.
Note: this question is reversed. "No documentation" is the bad answer.
Question 07 · Site outages
Has the site gone down or broken without warning more than once in the past 12 months?
A form stopping. A page 404'ing. The whole site offline for an afternoon. SSL expired. Anything where you found out from a customer, not from your designer.
What each "yes" actually predicts
The structure behind the score, written out so you can argue with it.
01 · Slow response equals no longer billable
A designer who has gone 7+ days without responding is not "busy." They have either lost interest in your account or have a bigger client they are prioritizing. Either way, they are not coming back to your level of service.
02 · Stale site equals dropped account
90 days without a single shipped change means your account is in maintenance mode in their head. They are billing you, but no actual work is happening. Most stalled relationships discover this by month 6.
03 · Withheld files equals leverage
Designers who resist sharing source files are protecting future revenue. They know if you have the Figma you can hire someone else for half price. Their reluctance is structural, not laziness.
04 · Pass-through hosting equals lock-in
Reseller hosting setups exist because they create a captive customer. You cannot move because they technically own the hosting. The markup pays for that lock-in, not for any real service.
05 · Wrong-name custody equals exit-tax
If your domain is in their name and you decide to leave, they can charge you to release it. UDRP claims work, but they take 3 to 4 months. Most owners pay the fee.
06 · No docs equals replaceability tax
The only person who knows how the site works is the person who built it. Replacing them means re-discovering everything from scratch. Every business decision is filtered through "but they know how it works." That is the price.
Want this emailed to yourself?
Your scorecard, the structural breakdown, and the full exit script · in your inbox so you have it on hand when you need it.
No newsletter. No auto-follow-up. We will not share this with your designer.
What the moment of realizing it sounds like
I kept waiting for my designer to "get back to me about the new page." It has been 4 months. The page is not happening. I am going to call it.
r/smallbusiness · 2026-04
My site has been showing the wrong phone number for 6 weeks. I have emailed her three times. I think I just have to find someone else.
r/web_design · 2026-03
Honestly, the slow burn is worse than getting fully ghosted. I keep thinking maybe next week. It has been 9 months of "next week."
r/freelance · 2026-04