How to Get Clients to Pay your Invoices on Time | Episode 28

When I was running my web design agency, we developed and launched a website for a client who sold commercial real estate. A few weeks after we sent the final invoice, the client still hadn’t paid. I called to ask the client about the payment. He explained that since the original website design included social media buttons and they hadn’t gotten around to creating their social accounts yet, the website was, therefore, incomplete, so they were holding off on paying the invoice. I explained to the client that the social media buttons were not integral to the website’s functionality and could be added later, and that ultimately it wasn’t our responsibility whether or not they had set up their social accounts. Bottom line: pay up! When he still didn’t pay up, I locked him out of the content management system so he couldn’t log in until he paid the invoice. Mysteriously, a cheque was cut that afternoon. That’s an extreme example of a client not paying their invoice on time, but sadly it’s not uncommon for clients to take weeks or months to pay.