Client approved the work then opened a dispute three weeks later, how do these actually get decided

Disputes are decided on the evidence that exists inside the platform, which is the whole reason the platform exists. Written milestone approvals in the platform messages are strong, and the fact that they approved each one at the time is the single most useful thing you have. Pull every message, every delivery timestamp and every approval into one document now, in order, before you write anything else, because the case is usually won by whoever presents a clean timeline.

Slight disagreement with the write it off school. Sums like this are exactly what the escrow and dispute process is for, and letting it go quietly also teaches the client that the tactic works on freelancers. Fight this one, and separately fix the process so the next one cannot happen.

I lost a small one purely on evidence, not on merit. We had moved to a messaging app for speed, so the version history and the approvals lived on my phone rather than anywhere official, and none of it counted. Since then everything decision shaped goes into the platform or into email even when the real conversation happens on a call, and I send a one paragraph summary after every call.

Two disputes in six years. Both took several weeks of back and forth, both ended in a partial outcome rather than anyone winning outright, and in both cases my hourly rate for the hours I spent on the dispute was terrible. That is worth knowing in advance: at 2400 it is clearly worth fighting, and below a few hundred you are usually better off writing it off and never working with them again.

Timeline document, platform messages only, calm tone, no adjectives. Emotion in a dispute submission has never once helped anybody.

If there is a formal arbitration step, check what it costs and who pays before you agree to it, and if the money ever moves off platform get an actual professional to look at your contract. Platform arbitration and a real contract dispute are different animals and people conflate them constantly.