How to Reject a Custom Request Professionally

Reject a custom request professionally by thanking the follower in one clause, stating a clear no, and naming the next step — usually a refund — in a single short message. If the follower has already paid, decline and refund through the platform's built-in workflow promptly, then confirm in writing that the request was declined and the money returned. Custom Work lets you offer clearly scoped commissions and services: you set the price, the scope and the delivery time, and followers submit a brief and pay before you start.

Two things separate a professional decline from an evasive one: speed, and a stated payment outcome. With Brillay, followers pay upfront and you deliver later, and you can still decline a request before you do. Cameo's Terms of Service give a talent "up to seven days or longer (at our sole discretion) to fulfill or decline your request" (Cameo Terms of Service, legal.cameo.com/termsofservice) — an outer limit, not a target. To prevent bad-fit orders in the first place, see how to scope a custom creator request and how to write a custom request offer. Your custom request page lives in your own bio link: one tap from the post they just watched takes a follower straight to your page, not to a marketplace roster.

When should you reject a custom request?

Reject a request when it falls outside your listed offer, is underpriced for the work asked, crosses a personal boundary, is too large for one clear deliverable, or cannot be finished inside your published delivery time. Ask for the required details in your Custom Work form before checkout; if a sent request still lacks information needed for delivery, reject it and ask the follower to send a new, complete request rather than trying to deliver from incomplete details.

Reject a request when any of these conditions applies:

• It is outside what you sell. With Custom Work, you define what followers get, what you need from them, what is excluded, the fixed price, and the delivery time; one delivery closes the order, and an out-of-scope request should be rejected (Custom Work, brillay.com/features/creator-services). Brillay editorial heuristic: treat your service description as the defined scope and accept requests for the deliverables named there.
• It crosses a personal boundary. Decline any request that is inappropriate, uncomfortable, or outside what you choose to create; one message is enough to close it.
• It is too large for one order. Accept work that fits one completed order inside your published delivery time.
• Protect your stated delivery time. Decline as soon as the requested work falls outside the delivery time you published.

If a request appears close to your offer but is missing essential details, treat that as a sign your form did not ask for enough, not as the start of a back-and-forth conversation. Missing information should be collected before checkout through your required questions, because one delivery completes the order.

What should a professional decline message include?

A professional decline has three parts in a fixed order: one clause thanking the follower, one sentence declining clearly with a short factual reason, and one sentence naming what happens with payment. Save refund timing language such as Stripe's "approximately 5-10 business days later, depending upon the bank" for a completed charge that is actually refunded (Stripe Docs, "Refunds," docs.stripe.com/refunds).

1. Acknowledge the request. Thank the follower in one short clause.
2. Decline clearly. Say that you cannot take the request, adding a brief reason only when it is useful.
3. Explain the next step. Say that the payment will be refunded, or point to an appropriate existing offer.

Template guidance from Brillay, not a universal professional standard: keep the decline to one short paragraph, and avoid a second paragraph that reopens the price or the scope, because a long, apology-heavy explanation reads as an invitation to renegotiate a decision you have already made.

Template for a request outside your scope:

Thanks for sending this over! This one is outside what I offer through my page—I keep requests to [your actual offer, such as "written feedback on a single draft"]. I'm declining it, and your payment will be refunded.

Template for a project that is too large for one order:

Appreciate you reaching out. This is bigger than a single request can cover, so I'm going to decline rather than deliver something rushed. If you want to break it into a smaller, specific request, feel free to send a new order for that listed service.

Template for a request that crosses a boundary:

Thanks for the request. This isn't something I take on, so I'm declining it now. Since I won't deliver the order, I'll refund the payment through Brillay.

Template when you cannot meet the delivery time:

Thanks for this! I'm currently backed up and can't deliver within my usual delivery time, so I'd rather decline than keep you waiting past what I promised. I'm declining this request now, so the payment will be refunded.

A reason such as "This is outside what I offer" or "I cannot meet the delivery time" is usually sufficient. When a request crosses a boundary, "This isn't something I take on" is a complete professional response.

When should you decline and refund a paid request?

Decline an undelivered custom request as soon as you know the request is not a fit, and always before the delivery time you set.

Decline-and-refund timing benchmarks

Use these rules to keep the outcome clear:

• For Custom Work, the follower pays upfront at checkout; if you decline before delivering, the order closes and the payment is returned.
• Use Brillay's decline workflow, but describe the payment outcome precisely. For undelivered Custom Work orders, use Brillay's decline workflow; Brillay's How It Works page covers unwanted requests (how it works, brillay.com/how-it-works).
• Know when fees apply. No monthly fee, you only pay a small platform fee when you get paid. 8% platform fee when a follower pays for work, 5% platform fee on tips and goals. Card processing is separate. Decline a custom request before delivery and the follower's payment is refunded; on an order you deliver, Brillay's platform fee applies along with Stripe's processing fee (pricing, brillay.com/pricing).
• Reply within your creator-set delivery time. Fiverr measures a freelancer's response rate as how often they replied to new messages within 24 hours, over the last 90 days of activity (Fiverr Help Center, "Understanding Fiverr's freelancer levels," help.fiverr.com/hc/en-us/articles/360010560118) — a useful benchmark for staying responsive even though Custom Work orders are governed by your published delivery time.
• Never leave a decided request sitting past 48 hours. Fiverr's help center tells clients that once a cancellation request is sent, "the freelancer has 48 hours to accept or decline. If the freelancer does not respond, the order is automatically canceled" (Fiverr Help Center, "How cancellations work for clients," help.fiverr.com/hc/en-us/articles/12864193979793).
• Treat seven days as the outer limit in other marketplaces, not a Brillay target. Cameo's Terms of Service give a talent "up to seven days or longer (at our sole discretion) to fulfill or decline your request," and state that "if your CAMEO Video request is canceled or not fulfilled, your payment instrument will be refunded" (Cameo Terms of Service, legal.cameo.com/termsofservice).
• Act before the follower reaches for a chargeback. Stripe's dispute documentation states that "card networks typically allow cardholders to initiate disputes within 120 days of the original payment" and that "you can't issue a refund outside the dispute process while the dispute is open" (Stripe Docs, "Disputes," docs.stripe.com/disputes).
• Remember the follower has a statutory route if you stall. The U.S. Federal Trade Commission advises cardholders to send a billing-error dispute letter so that it "reaches the issuer within 60 days after the first bill with the error was sent to you," after which the issuer has 90 days to resolve the dispute under the Fair Credit Billing Act (FTC, "Using Credit Cards and Disputing Charges," consumer.ftc.gov/articles/using-credit-cards-and-disputing-charges).
• Borrow the seven-working-day refund clock as an analogy, not as compliance. The FTC's business guide to the Mail, Internet, or Telephone Order Merchandise Rule tells merchandise sellers that where the buyer paid by third-party credit card, "you must refund the correct amount within seven working days after the order is cancelled" (FTC, "A Business Guide to the FTC's Mail, Internet, or Telephone Order Merchandise Rule," ftc.gov/business-guidance/resources/business-guide-ftcs-mail-internet-or-telephone-order-merchandise-rule). That rule covers merchandise orders and does not govern custom work, so treat seven working days as a comparison point rather than a deadline that binds you.
• State the payment outcome explicitly. Followers pay upfront, so declining an undelivered order means refunding that payment — say plainly that you are declining and the payment will be refunded, not that no charge occurred.
• Do not counteroffer after a firm boundary-based refusal. If the request is unacceptable at any price or scope, decline without suggesting that more money would change the decision.
• Mention a smaller alternative only when you genuinely offer it. Describe the available option briefly and ask the follower to submit a new, clearly scoped request.
• Treat a revised request as a new decision. Do not continue working from the declined order; review any new request against your normal scope, price, and delivery time.
• Separate before-delivery declines from post-delivery concerns. A request you should not accept is different from work you accepted and delivered before the follower raised an issue.

For post-delivery concerns, follow the separate process in handling refunds for custom work.

What should you avoid when rejecting a request?

Avoid silence, guilt-acceptance, over-explanation, and any wording that implies a final decision is still negotiable. The costliest mistake is leaving a request undecided: Fiverr auto-cancels an order when a freelancer does not answer a cancellation request within 48 hours (Fiverr Help Center, "How cancellations work for clients," help.fiverr.com/hc/en-us/articles/12864193979793), and after a completed payment a follower can still open a card dispute up to 120 days after paying (Stripe Docs, "Disputes," docs.stripe.com/disputes).

• Do not leave the request unanswered after deciding. A clear decision tells the follower whether the work will proceed and what will happen with payment; Fiverr scores freelancers on how often they reply to new messages within 24 hours over the last 90 days (Fiverr Help Center, "Understanding Fiverr's freelancer levels," help.fiverr.com/hc/en-us/articles/360010560118).
• Do not accept out of guilt. If you cannot or do not want to complete the work, accepting it creates an avoidable risk of missing the agreed scope or delivery time.
• Do not over-explain personal boundaries. You can decline without disclosing private information or defending the boundary.
• Do not blame or criticize the follower. Describe the mismatch in neutral terms, such as "outside my listed scope."
• Do not imply that a final decision is negotiable. Avoid "maybe later" or "perhaps if you pay more" when you are unwilling to reconsider.
• Do not promise an alternative you cannot deliver. Refer the follower to another offer only when it genuinely fits the request.
• Do not treat revisions as part of the service. A changed request after delivery requires a new Custom Work order if you want to take it on.
• Do not confuse declining with resolving delivered work. Once work has been accepted and delivered, assess the concern through the post-delivery refund process instead.

Should you reject, clarify, or discuss a refund?

Use your request form before checkout for required details; reject when the sent request is outside your offer, oversized, missing information needed for delivery, or undeliverable in your delivery time; and discuss refunds only after you have accepted and delivered the work. The table below maps each situation to wording and what happens with payment.

Clear service titles, inclusions, exclusions, prices, and delivery time expectations prevent mismatched requests before followers pay. Followers can buy Custom Work without creating an account, so your public offer and checkout form need to do the scoping work before a follower sends the order. If unsuitable requests keep arriving, improve how you write your service offer rather than making every decline message longer.

How can you reduce the need to decline future requests?

Publish the Custom Work offer in enough detail that a bad-fit request is obvious before the follower pays: exact deliverable, inclusions and exclusions, fixed price, delivery time, required details, and that it is a one-time purchase rather than a membership. Custom Work lets you publish the exact deliverable, what is included and excluded, what you need from followers, the fixed price, and the delivery time. One delivery completes the order. Followers can buy without creating an account, and you do not need a follower minimum or marketplace approval to sell Custom Work; clear scope still matters. Responsiveness is a scored asset on marketplaces: Fiverr lists a 90% response rate among the requirements for Top Rated status (Fiverr Help Center, "Top Rated freelancers," help.fiverr.com/hc/en-us/articles/15140188560913), so a fast, clean decline costs less than a slow one.

• Name the exact deliverable and format.
• State what the service includes and excludes.
• Set a price for the listed scope.
• Publish a delivery time you can consistently meet.
• State that the listed price covers one defined delivery and that any different or additional work requires a new Custom Work order.
• List any information the follower must provide.
• Explain important content or topic boundaries in neutral language.

These details make it easier to distinguish between a request that belongs inside the listed service and one that should be rejected. For additional examples, see services content creators can sell.

Frequently asked questions

Short answers to the five questions creators ask most about declining custom work: whether a reason is required, how rejecting closes the request and means the follower keeps their money, whether to offer a smaller alternative, whether a discount is ever the right substitute for a clean no, and how quickly to send the decline.

Do I have to give a reason when I decline?

No. You can decline without a detailed explanation. A short factual reason — such as "outside what I offer" or "I cannot meet the delivery time" — may help prevent another mismatch, but "This isn't something I take on" is sufficient when the request crosses a personal boundary.

Is a follower charged when I reject a custom request?

If you reject an undelivered custom request, the payment is returned to the follower.

Should I offer a smaller alternative?

Offer a smaller alternative only if it matches a service you genuinely provide. Briefly define the narrower deliverable and invite the follower to submit it as a new request; do not leave the declined order open-ended.

Should I offer a discount instead of declining?

Only when price is the actual issue and you are willing to provide a smaller, clearly defined version of the service. A discount does not resolve a mismatch involving your boundaries, skills, capacity, or delivery time.

How fast should I decline a sent request?

Within 24 hours of deciding is a defensible benchmark, because Fiverr scores a freelancer's response rate on messages answered within 24 hours over the last 90 days (Fiverr Help Center), and Fiverr auto-cancels an order if a freelancer does not accept or decline a cancellation request within 48 hours (Fiverr Help Center, "How cancellations work for clients," help.fiverr.com/hc/en-us/articles/12864193979793).

How does declining and refunding work on Brillay?

Set your price, delivery time, scope, and decline policy before your first request arrives. One Brillay link can hold all enabled offers at once, payouts are available in 41 countries through the creator's own Stripe account inside Brillay, and the creator side has no monthly fee — only a platform fee when you get paid. Create your free Brillay page.