#freelance-gigs
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Thread
How do agencies bill their clients? Do you ask to be paid at the beginning of the month before the work is completed? Or at the end of the month?
Contract for X months. Ask them for a 30-50% advance of the total contract value. Divide the rest into end-of-month payments.
Hmm in my case the agreement is that they can leave whenever they want. It's on a month to month basis. I prefer to bill upfront since this is retainer work, but they say they only pay after 30 days
What would be a good way to meet them halfway?
I usually bill hourly for ongoing contracts. I bill on the 15th of the month for the previous 30 day’s work and give them net 15 payment terms. I have a very high late fee so if they go beyond 15 days I send an additional bill for the late fee.
If you’re new to the client you can ask for a deposit for the first month, which is totally normal!
Some previous clients were agencies and I was a subcontractor, so they couldn’t consistently pay me before their client paid them. That might be why they want to wait to pay after work is complete.
You could also pitch that they pay before assets for that month are delivered! So it wouldn’t be at the start of the month, but you would save yourself from someone ghosting.
In this case they are a VC backed startup, so they should have the funds to pay. I like your idea of a deposit: asking for first month upfront and then every month after that 30 days net. Do you think that would work?
We ask for quarterly payments up-front, but offer an option to do monthly payments for a 10% premium.
Almost all our clients are vc-backed startups.
It sort of depends how in-demand you are. We happen to be really backlogged with work, so we can be a bit more picky right now.
I like that approach. Usually I never have a problem with upfront monthly payments but this client is being picky, which is why I'm not sure what to do. I can afford to be picky too, but I like this prospect and want it to work out.
If he doesn't accept the deposit then I'll do monthly payments for 10% premium
Gotcha. Yeah, I’ve also done premiums with big companies that have to do net 60 terms.
We started working with a few public co’s recently, and they all want to pay after delivery. It’s fine since i know they’re good for it, but I have to charge more so I can float the payments to writers/editors.
They usually understand that.
Awesome, that makes sense. I'll use that then. Thanks a lot Karl!