The get-paid-on-time guide for agencies

A deposit before work starts filters out the clients who were never going to pay, and it does it before you have spent the month. Fifty percent up front is normal and rarely argued with when it is on the proposal rather than raised afterwards.

Send the deposit link with the proposal, not after acceptance. The moment they say yes is the moment they are most willing to pay.

A retainer that requires you to invoice each month is a monthly opportunity to be forgotten. A recurring plan charges on schedule and tells the client before it does.

Give clients the self-serve page. A client who can cancel without emailing you is a client who does not dispute the charge instead, and disputes cost far more than the churn you prevented by making leaving awkward.

Automate the sending, the reminder and the receipt. Keep the conversation about a genuinely late payment human: by the time somebody is three weeks overdue, the thing that resolves it is a phone call, not a fourth automated email.

The dashboard tells you who is outstanding. That is the list you call, and it should be short if the first two are working.

• Automated: the link, the reminder, the receipt, the retainer
• Human: the awkward conversation, the payment plan, the exception

Quote in the currency the client thinks in and be credited in yours. The rate is shown before they confirm and recorded on the transaction, so the difference between what they paid and what you received is documented rather than mysterious.