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The late fee clause I added after a 6 week silence in Denver
I always assumed adding a late fee would scare off good clients, so I never put one in my contracts. Then a client in Denver went quiet for 6 weeks after I delivered a full brand package, and my standard nudge emails did nothing. I looked up the stats on payment terms and found that invoices with a stated late fee get paid 12 days sooner on average, according to a study from a small business finance blog. I added a 1.5% monthly fee to my next contract, and that same client paid within 3 days of the reminder. Has anyone else seen a real shift after putting a penalty in writing, or did it just chase off the slow payers entirely?
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gibson.troy2mo ago
Heard about this from a buddy who runs a small web design shop. He was scared of the same thing, figured adding a late fee would make him look like a jerk. One client ghosted him for two months on a $4k invoice, so he finally put a 2% monthly fee in his contract. Next time that same type of slow payer came around, they paid a week early just to avoid the extra charge. He said it didn't scare off any of the good ones, just made the flaky ones think twice.
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