Ask HN: As a freelancer how concerned are you about how fast you get paid?
1) net immediate but invoice is sent on the first of every month<p>2) 10% discount if paid on same day and any (Paypal) fees removed<p>3) I document my work and send an invoice to the client - I expect payment within a week and would prefer those clients who see the work is done and want to pay their bill immediately<p>When I send an invoice, I usually put payment due upon receipt, however, for clients that I do daily work for or updates once a month, I only send an invoice once a month.<p>I&#x27;ve never had issues with clients paying because I have showed them purposely what happens when I don&#x27;t update their websites... they actually crash after a while. WordPress is great, and will almost always work to an extent even when outdated, but massive plugins that are database intensive and rely on user input usually start failing after a few months of not being updated.<p>So yeah, if they don&#x27;t pay, I don&#x27;t update their website, and it starts to break, and by that time, I usually charge them more to figure out what went wrong, and they learn that paying my invoices on time, will save them money in the long run.<p>I have only ran into a problem once.. a client forgot to pay me and I let it slide for the entire month. I sent her an email reminding her that she had not paid the invoice and if she would like to continue my services to please pay her invoice. She paid within 24 hours.<p>I also usually offer my clients two options:<p>1) pay me hourly and be sent an invoice every month<p>2) pay me yearly and receive a huge discount<p>So for example, if I build a website for someone, on the invoice, I display separate monthly maintenance pricing and per hour, it might be $30&#x2F;hr, while paying me yearly might only cost them $1000 for the entire year.<p>So what are the benefits and disadvantages?<p>Charging hourly is for clients you know who are going to demand your time and are picky and sometimes want custom work. You can determine how they are going to be when building their website. They will nitpick and probably argue with you more often than you&#x27;d like. These clients will milk you for your time when they can, getting you on phone calls, emailing you, wanting to know everything, asking so many questions, etc., so best not to even offer the other option.<p>Charging yearly is for clients you know who might call upon you once or twice a month, but pretty much you are just providing some support and maintenance. This is for clients who are much more laid back and less demanding.  It is best to offer this plan and the other one.<p>I&#x27;ve had a few clients pay me yearly and most of the time, I haven&#x27;t really had a loss. For some, I may have done a little more work than I would have liked, but it is also the gamble I take when offering clients those options.<p>On the bright note of being paid yearly, you get paid immediately upfront so you see the money right away, but you risk your client needing more work and you end up getting paid less than if you had charged hourly. You obviously can&#x27;t take this back. So it is good to know your clients well and their demands before offering such an option.<p>The bonus is that if they don&#x27;t use your services that much.. you made some good money for doing very little work, sometimes no work at all, if they don&#x27;t call upon you for the entire year. Easy money.