TL;DR: A freelancer shared three copy-paste AI prompts for the emails everyone sits on for days: the follow-up after silence, the rate increase, and the scope creep pushback. They work.
The emails nobody wants to write
Not because you don’t know what to say. Because every draft sounds either too needy, too aggressive, or too apologetic. So you stare at them, rewrite them three times, and still feel weird hitting send.
The follow-up feels desperate. The rate increase feels like you’re asking for a favor. The scope creep email feels like you’re being difficult. None of that is true, but the blank page doesn’t care about logic. It just sits there, and so does your draft, and the longer it sits the more power it has over you.
Someone figured out the right instructions for each one. Here’s what they use.
The three prompts
1. Following up after no reply
They went quiet after your proposal. You need an answer but don’t want to sound desperate.
Write a short follow-up email to a client who hasn’t responded to my proposal for [X days]. I’m a [type of freelancer], the project was about [one sentence description]. Tone should be warm and confident, not apologetic. Assume they’re busy not ignoring me. Max 4 sentences.
The key instruction is “assume they’re busy not ignoring me.” That one line completely changes the tone of what comes back. Without it, AI defaults to hedging language and over-softened phrasing that makes you sound unsure of yourself. With it, the output reads like a message from someone who has other clients and just needs a yes or no.
Fill in the project description with one plain sentence. Not “comprehensive digital marketing strategy,” just “a landing page for your spring launch.” Specificity helps the AI match tone to context, and the output you get will actually sound like a real email instead of a template someone pulled from a 2011 business writing guide.
2. Raising your rates
The email most freelancers avoid for way too long because they don’t know how to bring it up without it feeling like a fight.
Write an email to a long-term client telling them my rates are going up by [X]% from [date]. We’ve worked together for [timeframe] on [type of work]. Be confident and direct, acknowledge the relationship briefly, don’t over-explain or apologize. Make it easy for them to continue working with me.
“Don’t over-explain or apologize” is doing the heavy lifting. Without that instruction, AI turns this into a three-paragraph justification essay. With it, you get a clean, direct email that doesn’t beg for permission.
The last line matters too: “make it easy for them to continue working with me.” That shifts the framing from a confrontation to a heads-up from someone who values the relationship. Good clients respect straightforwardness. If a client can’t handle a rate increase delivered this professionally, that’s useful information about whether the relationship is worth keeping.
One practical note: give yourself a buffer date. If the increase kicks in next month, tell them this month. The email itself takes five minutes. What took weeks was the reluctance to write it.
3. Pushing back on scope creep
A client keeps adding work with no mention of extra budget. You need to address it before you start resenting them.
Write an email to a client who has been adding work outside our original agreement. The original scope was [one line]. They’ve been asking for [type of extras]. I want to address this professionally without sounding difficult. Either we agree on extra pay or we reset scope. Keep it under 150 words.
“Either we agree on extra pay or we reset scope” is what makes this prompt land. It forces the AI to give you an actual position instead of a vague diplomatic suggestion that doesn’t resolve anything.
Scope creep usually starts small. One extra revision. One quick call. One additional deliverable that’s “not a big deal.” By the time you’re writing this email, you’ve probably already absorbed two or three hours of unpaid work. The prompt works because it names both options clearly, which gives the client a real choice instead of leaving them to guess what you want. Most of the time, when you put it this plainly, they pick one without any friction. They weren’t trying to take advantage of you. They just needed someone to draw the line.
💡 Use cases
- Freelancers who avoid hard conversations with clients
- Anyone who spends 45 minutes rewriting the same email and still feels off about it
- Anyone charging below market rate because raising it felt too awkward to bring up
- Consultants or contractors who keep getting pulled into work that was never in the original agreement
Prompt of the Day
Open your drafts right now. If one of these three emails is sitting there half-finished, paste the right prompt, add two sentences of your own context, and run it.
Read what comes back. You’ll probably tweak a word or two to make it sound more like you. That’s fine. That’s actually the point. The AI handles the structure and the tone so you’re editing instead of starting from nothing, and editing a draft that’s already 80% there is a completely different experience than facing a blank page.
The emails that used to cost an hour of stress now take 5 minutes. That’s the whole point.
Try it today
Pick whichever prompt fits your situation. Add your context. See what comes back. Then actually send it.
The email you’ve been avoiding for three days is not protecting you. It’s just sitting there costing you time, energy, and probably money. Run the prompt. Send the email. Move on.
The 3 client emails I used to sit on for days (and the prompts that fixed that)
by u/Rich_Specific_7165 in ChatGPTPromptGenius