Orders Under Review and How to Report Content
What it means when a Serpverse order is paused under review, how either party reports content, what happens to your deadlines and earnings, and how it ends.
Orders Under Review and How to Report Content
Most orders move straight through from placement to completion. Occasionally one gets paused with an "under review" notice while our team takes a closer look at the content. This usually happens because someone reported it — and either the buyer or the publisher can do that. This guide explains what "under review" means, how to report content that breaks the rules, and exactly what happens to an order, its deadlines, and any earnings while it's paused.
What "under review" means
When an order is under review, it is temporarily paused. Both the buyer and the publisher see a neutral banner on the order that reads "This order is under review," along with the date the pause started.
While it's paused:
- Every deadline on the order is held — nothing auto-cancels or auto-completes.
- The usual order actions (submitting content, approving, requesting a revision, publishing the live URL, confirming indexing, or extending a deadline) are temporarily unavailable.
- Messaging between the buyer and publisher stays open, so our team can ask either side for context.
A review is our team's signal that the content needs a human decision before any money changes hands. It is not a judgment against either party — it's a pause, not a penalty.
How to report content on an order
If you see content on one of your orders that breaks the content rules — for example illegal material, defamation, or hate speech — you can report it. The Report content option is available to both the buyer and the publisher from the order's detail page.
Reporting asks you for one thing: the reason. The categories are:
- Illegal content — promotes or contains unlawful material
- Defamatory — false statements that harm a person or business
- Hate speech — attacks or demeans a protected group
- Copyright — infringes someone's copyright
- Something else — anything not covered above (a short description is required)
You can add a free-text note with any detail our team should know — what's wrong, and where to look.
Submitting a report pauses the order immediately. This is different from messaging the other party (which stays open) and different from opening a dispute — see the comparison below.
What happens while an order is under review
The pause is designed so that no one loses out during the time it takes to review.
Deadlines pause and then resume. Every countdown on the order — content submission, delivery, the revision response window, and the buyer's review window — is frozen the moment the order is paused. When the review ends and the order resumes, each deadline picks up with the same amount of time it had left. Neither side is penalised for the time spent under review.
Order actions wait. Because the order is paused, actions like approving the work, requesting a revision, publishing, or extending a deadline are temporarily blocked. They become available again as soon as the review clears.
Publisher earnings are held. If you're the publisher, your earnings on a reviewed order are held until the review resolves — they won't be released on the normal schedule, and any portion already in your available balance is reserved (set aside) so it can't be withdrawn while the order is under review. Your withdrawable balance reflects this. Once the review clears, the funds return to normal.
What the other party can and can't see
Privacy is built into the review process:
- The reason you select, the detail you write, and the fact that you reported at all are visible only to our team — never to the other party.
- The other party sees the same neutral "under review" banner you do. It never names a reason, and it never shows who reported.
- Because an admin can also place an order under review directly (for example, acting on an outside complaint), a pause never reveals whether a report was filed or who filed it.
How a review is resolved
Only our team can lift a review, and there's no countdown — an order stays paused until the team reaches a decision. There are three outcomes:
- No problem found. The hold lifts, the order resumes exactly where it paused, and the deadlines pick up with their remaining time.
- Cancel and refund. If the order hasn't completed and the content shouldn't go ahead, the order is cancelled and the buyer is fully refunded.
- Refund after completion. If the order already completed, the buyer can be refunded from the publisher's earnings (the platform's service fee isn't returned), and the publisher is asked to remove the content.
You'll get a notification when an order is placed under review and again when the review is complete.
Content found after an order is completed
A review isn't limited to orders still in progress. If illegal or otherwise prohibited content is discovered after an order has completed — including a live, published placement — it can still be reported and placed under review. In that case the resolution is a refund drawn from the publisher's earnings plus a request to take the content down. There's no time limit on this, because content that breaks the rules is a problem whenever it's found.
Under review vs. a dispute vs. a chargeback
These three are easy to confuse because all of them can pause or reverse an order. They're separate tools for separate problems, and an order can even be under review and in dispute at the same time.
| Under review | Dispute | Chargeback | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Who starts it | Either party, or our team | The buyer only | The buyer's bank |
| What it's about | Content that may break the rules | A delivery or quality problem with an order | A reversed card payment |
| How it works | A one-time report; no thread | Opens a private thread with our team | Handled between the buyer and their bank |
| Effect | Order paused until the team decides | Order paused until the team decides | Funds reversed per the chargeback rules |
In short: report content for review; open a dispute when a publisher hasn't delivered what was agreed; a chargeback is something a buyer's bank does, not a platform feature.
Frequently asked questions
Will the other person know I reported them? No. Both parties see the same neutral "under review" notice, with no reason and no name attached. The reason you chose and the fact you reported are visible only to our team.
How long does a review take? There's no fixed countdown. The order stays paused until our team finishes reviewing. Because every deadline is frozen during the pause and resumes afterward, you don't lose any time to the review.
Can I still message the other party while an order is under review? Yes. Messaging stays open throughout, so our team can hear from both sides.
I'm a publisher — what happens to my earnings? They're held until the review resolves. Earnings on the reviewed order won't be released on the usual schedule, and any already-available amount tied to it is reserved so it can't be withdrawn until the review clears.
The content was reported by mistake or it's fine — what then? If our team finds no problem, the hold lifts and the order resumes from exactly where it paused, with the same time remaining on every deadline.
Related resources
- Restricted and Prohibited Content Policy — what content is banned across the platform
- Dispute Resolution Process — the buyer's path for a delivery or quality problem
- Refund Policy — when and how refunds happen
- Why Is My Order Stuck? — other reasons an order might not be moving