The cheapest way to fix late payments is to get paid before you start. A deposit covers the first stretch of a project; a retainer turns a good client into a predictable monthly line on your bank statement. Both are normal in freelancing, both are easy to ask for once you have the words, and both need one piece of bookkeeping most freelancers skip: tracking the hours against the money you are already holding.
Deposits: the first invoice is the easiest one
A deposit is a partial payment taken before work begins, credited against the final bill. For fixed-price projects, 30 to 50 percent up front is standard. For hourly work, ask for an amount that covers the first one or two weeks at your rate. A client who balks at paying anything before you start is telling you something about how they will pay at the end.
The ask is short. In the proposal or the first email: "To get started I take a 40% deposit, due before kickoff, with the balance due on delivery." Put it in the contract, send the deposit invoice the same day the client says yes, and do not open the project file until it clears. The deposit invoice is also the first time a new client goes through your payment process, so any friction shows up now rather than on the big invoice later. If you want to tighten that process, our post on getting clients to pay on time covers the rest of it.
What goes wrong is almost never the deposit itself. It is the credit. Three weeks later you build the final invoice from your logged hours, forget the deposit, and the client pays the full amount, or notices and emails you about it. In Gigtime a deposit is recorded on the project, and when you create an invoice for that project the deposit is applied as a credit line automatically, so the total the client sees is already net of what they paid.
Retainers: selling availability, not hours
A retainer is a fixed monthly fee for a block of your time or a defined set of ongoing work. The client gets priority access and a predictable cost; you get income you can plan around. A design retainer might be 20 hours a month for $1,800. A maintenance retainer might be "up to 10 hours of changes and support, billed monthly in advance."
Two rules keep retainers healthy. First, bill in advance. The retainer invoice goes out on the first of the month, before the hours are used, which is the whole point. Second, define what happens at the edges: unused hours expire at month end (or roll over once, your choice), and hours beyond the block are billed at your normal rate. Write both into the agreement. The second rule only works if you can prove where the hours went, which brings us to tracking.
Tracking hours against money you already hold
With a deposit or a retainer you are spending down a balance, and the client will want to know how it is going. Three habits make that painless:
- Log every hour to the project, including the small ones. A retainer client who gets 20 hours should see 20 hours of entries, not 14 hours and a vague feeling that the rest was emails. The emails count. Log them.
- Set a cap on the project. Gigtime lets you put a weekly or monthly hour cap on a project and shows a progress bar against it. When a retainer client is at 17 of 20 hours on the 22nd, you see it before they do and can send a one-line heads-up instead of a surprise overage invoice.
- Send the usage with the next invoice. A short report of the month's hours, grouped by what you worked on, goes a long way toward renewing the retainer without a negotiation. Reports can be filtered to one client and sent from the app.
Which one to ask for
New client, defined project: deposit. Existing client who keeps coming back with small jobs: retainer. The pattern to look for in your own data is a client you have invoiced four or more times in six months for similar amounts. That client is already paying you a retainer; they just do not get the benefits of one, and neither do you. Propose it as a convenience for them: one invoice a month, guaranteed turnaround, a slightly lower effective rate than ad hoc work. Most say yes, because it is easier for their accounting too.
Deposits and retainers both come down to the same thing: your invoice reflects hours the client can see, minus money they have already paid. Try Gigtime free for 30 days with the full Pro feature set and no credit card. Record a deposit on your next project and watch it land on the invoice by itself.