> This. Also don't underestimate how hard it is to get the money from a client if they decide not to pay you, even if you did a good job.
It's not too bad in my opinion. I've been freelancing for close to 20 years on my own with no 3rd party platforms. I've had assorted clients from around the world.
I've only been legit ripped off once out of issuing hundreds of invoices and working with a bunch of individuals and businesses.
The amount I got cheated out of was 2 hours of work where the client requested work, agreed to pay but didn't pay. Other than that one time it's been smooth sailing where mostly everyone pays on time without issues. I've only had a handful of cases where someone forgot to pay within 30 days and a single follow up email resulted in them apologizing and paying. In some cases they even gave an unrequested tip because they genuinely felt sorry for missing the first email. These were all cases of people being busy and forgetting by accident.
I'm also very lax with how I request payments too. I send out an invoice at the start of every month because it's more convenient for everyone involved. Sometimes with new clients this means doing let's say 5 hours of work on the 3rd of the month but not invoicing them until the following month.
Both your examples mention single digits hours, ie very small amount of money.
The problems tend to happen if there's larger amounts of money involved. So it's important as a contractor not to enable a situation where they owe you a lot of money, especially if you have no leverage.
> Both your examples mention single digits hours, ie very small amount of money. The problems tend to happen if there's larger amounts of money involved.
I've had lots of 100+ hour month contracts, some of which have spanned for years.
At some point you have to use your judgment to figure out what to do. If an individual with no registered business emails you asking you to put in 150 hours worth of work in a month, has a lot of grammar mistakes, seems weirdly aggressive over video calls or won't do video calls and tries to haggle down your prices then yeah it wouldn't be a good idea to wait until the end of the month to bill them.
But usually you'll have a chat or 2 with someone, get a good feel for them, propose a single page contract with a clear set of deliverables and compensation, then do the work and collect your money.
If you're doing project based billing with a new client it wouldn't hurt to ask for a decent chunk (33-50%) up front or at least earlier than your usual billing cycle for the first time.
re: ...no registered business... etc. I would typically take that as a "don't engage with them" sign.
One of the challenges of being professional is to know when to refuse clients and their work. Both for potential clients and on-going clients gone bad.
This. Also don't underestimate how hard it is to get the money from a client if they decide not to pay you, even if you did a good job.