This walkthrough takes about five minutes plus the time the review itself needs, which is usually one to two minutes.
Step 1: Buy a review credit
- Open Contract Reviews in the sidebar.
- The Review credits card at the top shows your balance. Click Buy a review credit for the price shown.
- A Stripe payment form opens inside Freelancer Shield. Enter your card details and confirm. The card is charged once. Nothing renews.
- When the payment succeeds you see a confirmation. Click Proceed to App to return to your reviews, where the balance now shows one credit.
Each credit covers one contract, including all follow-up questions for that review. Details are in Credits and Pricing.
Step 2: Submit the contract
- Click New review on the Contract Reviews page.
- Give the review a title you will recognise later, such as the client name and the type of agreement.
- Either upload a file (PDF, Word, text or Markdown, up to 10 MB) or paste the text. Include the whole agreement, exhibits and statements of work included, not only the pages you are worried about.
- Optionally pick your state. Some protections depend on where you are based and the review will point out state-specific issues when it knows your state.
- Optionally describe anything specific you are worried about. The review pays extra attention to those points.
- Tick the box confirming you understand the review is not legal advice, then click Submit for review.
Submitting uses one credit. The full set of options is described in Submitting a contract.
Step 3: Read the report
The review page opens straight away and the report streams in as it is written, so you can start reading the summary while the flags are still arriving. When it finishes, the page saves the result and shows the complete report:
- the contract type and a short summary of what you are agreeing to,
- an overall risk level of low, moderate or high,
- key terms at a glance,
- flags, red first, then yellow, then green, each quoting the clause and suggesting what you could ask for,
- protections that are missing, questions for your attorney and suggested next steps.
Reading your report explains each part.
Step 4: Ask follow-up questions
Beside the report (below it on narrow screens), Ask about this contract lets you ask questions in plain English. Pick a suggestion such as "Which three changes should I ask for first?" or type your own. Answers cite the clauses they rely on. Each review includes a fixed number of questions, shown next to the chat box. See Follow-up questions.
Step 5: Take it to the client, or to an attorney
Use the suggested asks to push back on the clauses that matter, and bring the questions-for-your-attorney list to a licensed lawyer for anything with real money on the line. The report is preparation, not a substitute for that conversation.