Acceptance criteria

The specific, agreed conditions a deliverable must meet before a client can formally sign off on it as complete.

Example

A landing-page SOW lists acceptance criteria: loads under 2 seconds, passes WCAG AA contrast checks, and matches the approved Figma design within one revision round.

Why it matters for agencies

Vague deliverables ("a modern-looking homepage") are where scope disputes start, because "done" is subjective. Written acceptance criteria give both sides an objective bar to check against, which also makes it much easier to identify when a client's pushback is actually a new, unquoted request rather than a legitimate quality issue.