Getting paid: invoicing, net terms, and chasing late payments

Here's the thing about late payment that changes how you chase it: it's usually not malice. A big brand's marketing team and its accounts payable team are different departments, sometimes different continents. Your invoice isn't being refused; it's sitting in a queue owned by someone you've never met, behind a missing purchase order or an unfinished vendor form. Which means getting paid on time mostly comes down to terms agreed before work starts, paperwork the system accepts the first time, and escalation on a schedule instead of a mood.

Before you start: the three terms that decide everything

The payment trigger. What event starts the money moving? "On signing," "on content approval," "on posting," and "on campaign completion" are wildly different, and a contract that's silent about it defaults to whatever the brand's process happens to do. Push for the trigger to be delivery or approval of your content, not the end of a campaign whose schedule you don't control. On larger deals, a deposit of 25 to 50% on signing is a normal thing to ask for, and how a brand reacts to that ask tells you plenty about how it pays.

Net terms. The number of days after invoicing that payment is due (more on what that really means below). Agree the number now, while you still have leverage. Net-30 is a common default; big companies often push for net-45 or net-60. You don't have to accept terms silently. "My standard terms are net-30" is a normal sentence for a business to say, and you are one.

The kill fee. What you're paid if the brand cancels. Campaigns get pulled: budgets shift, launches slip, products get delayed. Commonly seen shapes: 25 to 50% of the fee if the deal is cancelled after signing but before production, and 100% once content is delivered or approved, since the work exists whether or not it ships. Without a kill fee, a cancellation the night before posting pays you nothing for a finished video.

Get all three in writing. A contract is best, but an email thread where both sides confirm the terms beats a phone call nobody can quote later.

And a correction to some popular advice: you'll see it suggested that you put "payment due within 14 days" on your invoices and that this sets your terms. It doesn't. The agreement sets the terms; the invoice only restates them. If you signed net-60, the net-14 line on your invoice is decoration. Terms are negotiated before signing or not at all.

The invoice that gets paid the first time

The most common way a first invoice dies is quietly. It's missing a field the brand's system requires, it bounces into a rejection queue, and nobody tells you for three weeks. Deny the system its excuse. Include:

• The word "Invoice" and a unique invoice number. Any format works, just be consistent: 2026-014 is fine.
• Your legal name or business name and address, matching whatever you put on tax paperwork: in the US that's the W-9 they'll almost certainly ask for, and if you're outside the US being paid by a US company, expect a W-8BEN instead.
• Issue date and an explicit due date: "Due August 24 (net-30 from receipt)," not just "net-30."
• The purchase order number, if you were given one. At most large companies, an invoice with no PO number cannot enter the approval flow at all.
• Itemized deliverables in the contract's own language, with the campaign name. "1x Instagram Reel per agreement dated July 3, Summer Launch campaign" reconciles. "Content" doesn't.
• The amount, the currency, and your agreed late-fee term restated, if you have one.
• How to pay you: bank transfer details (ACH in the US). Make the money's path obvious.

Then send it to the right place: your contact, plus accounts payable directly if you have the address. And ask one question in the same email: "Can you confirm this has everything AP needs and that it's been submitted?" Because "I sent it to my contact in marketing" and "it's in the payment system" are two different universes, and only one of them ends in money.

What net-30 actually means

Net-30 means the full amount is due 30 days after a defined starting point, and the starting point is where the game is. Usually it's the invoice date or the date the invoice is received. But some contracts run the clock from "invoice approval," an internal step you can't see with no stated length, or even from campaign end. Read the clause. If it says approval, ask what approval involves and how long it typically takes. Asking is free, and it signals that you'll notice.

Then map it onto a calendar, because net terms understate themselves. Post on September 1, invoice the same day, net-60: payment is due October 31. That's the day it's due, not necessarily the day it arrives, since many AP departments pay in weekly or fortnightly runs. You're effectively extending a two-month interest-free loan to a company several thousand times your size. That's normal corporate practice, and often non-negotiable at the enterprise end, but you should price a net-60 deal knowing the money is a quarter away. Asking for shorter terms or a deposit in exchange is fair game.

One more recalibration: your contact in marketing does not control payment timing and probably can't speed it up much. Being sharp with them aims at the wrong window. What they can do is tell you where the invoice is, who owns it, and whether anything is missing, which is exactly what the ladder below asks them for.

Purchase orders and vendor portals: where payments actually stall

This is the part nobody tells creators about, and it's the real reason so many invoices go 60 days.

Before a large company can pay you at all, you usually have to exist in its finance system as a vendor. That can mean registering in a procurement portal (Coupa, SAP Ariba, Tipalti, and Bill.com are common ones), submitting tax forms, and getting your bank details verified. Until that's done, no purchase order can be raised for you. And until a PO exists, your invoice has nowhere to go. It isn't late. It's homeless.

Vendor onboarding can take weeks, and it only starts when someone starts it. So the rule is: begin onboarding the day you sign, in parallel with making the content. One sentence to your contact does it:

Before I invoice, do I need to complete vendor onboarding or be issued a PO? If so, can we start that now so payment isn't delayed after delivery?

If onboarding drags past your delivery date, add: "Since the delay is on the setup side, can you confirm my payment terms run from my original invoice date?" Sometimes the answer is no. Ask anyway. It puts the delay on the record, and records are what settle arguments later.

The late-invoice escalation ladder

The principle: escalate on a calendar, not on a feeling. Every message is calm, names the invoice number, the amount, and the due date, and asks a question that requires an answer. Vague chasing ("just checking in on this!") is easy to ignore. Specific chasing is not.

A few days past due. A friendly nudge to your contact:

Quick nudge: invoice 2026-014 for $2,500 was due Friday the 12th. Could you check where it is in the payment run? Happy to resend it, or anything else AP needs.

One to two weeks past due. Resend the invoice as an attachment, and ask for specifics:

Following up on invoice 2026-014 ($2,500, due July 12, now 10 days past due). Could you confirm it's been approved and let me know the scheduled payment date? If it's easier, point me at the right person in accounts payable and I'll follow up with them directly.

Three to four weeks past due. Go to AP directly if you have the address, cc your contact, and invoke your late-fee clause if you have one:

Invoice 2026-014 for $2,500, due July 12, is now 24 days overdue. Per our agreement, overdue amounts accrue 1.5% per month from the due date. Please confirm a payment date this week. I've attached the invoice, the PO, and the signed agreement for reference.

Thirty days past due. The relationship changes, and you say so without heat:

Invoice 2026-014 is now more than 30 days overdue and I haven't been given a payment date. I'm pausing the remaining deliverables until it's resolved. Once payment lands, I'm glad to pick the campaign right back up.

Sixty days past due. Final notice, with a date and a consequence:

This is a final notice for invoice 2026-014 ($2,500), now 60 days overdue. If payment isn't received by August 15, I'll pursue formal recovery. I'd much rather not: a confirmed payment date this week resolves this.

"Formal recovery" means small claims court (in the US, claim limits vary widely by state, roughly $2,500 at the low end to $25,000 at the high end, and some states cap companies below individuals, so check your own before you threaten it), a collections agency, or in the UK a letter before action followed by the small claims track. In practice, a creator with a signed agreement, a delivered campaign, and a tidy paper trail rarely has to go there. The file you've been building with every calm, dated email is what makes the final notice credible, and credible is usually enough.

Stop delivering into an unpaid deal

On multi-deliverable campaigns, your leverage is the remaining deliverables. Use it. A clean rule: when an invoice hits 30 days overdue, the next deliverable doesn't go up until it's paid. That's the thirty-day email above, and it isn't aggression. It's symmetry. The brand paused its side of the exchange, so you pause yours.

The fear is that pausing torches the relationship. Look at what the alternative teaches instead: a brand that's 60 days late and still receiving deliverables on schedule has learned that paying you is optional. And never let the receivable keep growing. If invoice one is unpaid, don't deliver and invoice pieces two and three into the same void. Cap what any one brand can owe you.

Late fees: what you can actually charge

In the US, a late fee generally holds up when it's in the signed agreement, it's a reasonable charge for being kept out of your money rather than a punishment, and it sits inside your state's cap on contract interest rates. A commonly used clause is 1 to 1.5% per month on overdue amounts. What you can't do is invent one after the fact. A fee that appears for the first time on an overdue invoice is a request, not an obligation. Rates and enforceability are state law, so this is exactly the kind of thing to check locally rather than take from a guide.

The UK is the notable exception: for business-to-business debts, the Late Payment of Commercial Debts (Interest) Act 1998 gives you a statutory right to interest at 8 percentage points above the Bank of England base rate, plus a fixed recovery sum of £40, £70 or £100 depending on the size of the debt, even if the contract never mentions late payment. If you're a UK creator invoicing a company, that right exists whether or not you knew about it. Two things to know alongside it: a contract that sets out its own substantial remedy for late payment can displace the statutory rate, and if no payment date was agreed at all, the debt counts as late 30 days after you invoiced or after you delivered, whichever came later.

Be honest with yourself about what a late-fee clause is for, though. It's rarely the money, which on a $2,500 invoice is about $37 a month. It's that the clause gives your three-week email a consequence, and consequences move invoices up queues. It earns its place in the contract on the day you never have to use it.

None of this requires being difficult. It requires being specific, on a schedule, with paperwork the machine can swallow. The brand's finance system is not moved by patience, and it doesn't need to be moved by anger. It's moved by a complete invoice with a PO number, and by the person who follows up on the 13th, every time, like clockwork.