Structure milestone payments so that the money you have received always roughly matches the work you have done. Split the fee into stages, tie each stage to a deliverable the client approves, and make sure the first payment lands before real work starts. That single habit keeps you from ever finishing a project that is still unpaid.
The worst spot for a small business is a finished job and an unpaid invoice. The file is delivered, and your only tool is a polite reminder. A good schedule keeps that balance small at every point in the project.
Payment timing is a household matter too: PYMNTS Intelligence reports that one in three millennials relies on gig payouts as primary income. A payment schedule does not chase money faster after the fact. It arranges the project so less of your money is ever at risk in the first place.
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The Delivvo team
Delivvo runs the client cycle for service businesses: inquiry, quote, contract, deposit and delivery. Payments go straight to your own account.
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Guides for service businesses, from the first inquiry to the final payment. Written by the team behind Delivvo.
Deposit-only, 50/50, milestone and net-30 each suit a different project size and trust level.
Deposit-only means you take a percentage up front, often 30 to 50%, and the balance on completion. It is simple and works for short jobs. On anything over a couple of weeks, the unpaid balance grows uncomfortably large.
The 50/50 split takes half before you start and half on delivery. It is the workhorse for small fixed projects. It is fair and easy to explain. Its weakness shows on longer jobs, where "delivery" might be two months away and half your fee waits the entire time.
Milestone payments break the fee into several stages, each released when a specific deliverable is approved. This keeps your paid amount closest to your finished work. It takes more thought to set up, but on any project longer than a few weeks it is the safest arrangement for both sides, because the client also pays only for stages they have seen.
Net-30 means you invoice on completion and the client pays within 30 days. It is common with larger companies and sometimes non-negotiable. The risk is plain: you finish, then wait a month with no say. If a client insists on net-30, pair it with a solid deposit so you aren't financing the whole project.
For most work above a small fixed fee, milestones win. They are the only structure where your exposure stays roughly constant instead of growing toward the deadline.
Mapping out project stages and payments at a desk
Three schedules you can copy
A website build splits cleanly into stages. Take 30% on signing to confirm the booking and cover discovery, 30% on approval of the design mockups, 30% on a working build delivered to staging, and the final 10% on launch. Each payment lines up with something the client can see. You are never more than one stage ahead of the money.
A brand identity project needs a stage that protects your concept work. Try 50% on signing, 25% on approval of the chosen logo direction, and 25% on delivery of the final files and guidelines. The heavy front load reflects the fact that the hardest creative thinking happens before any final asset exists.
A monthly content or maintenance job repeats, so charge in advance. The client pays at the start of the month and you deliver that month's agreed work against it. This flips the usual risk: you are paid before you produce. It suits an ongoing relationship where scope is fixed, and our guide on recurring invoices for retainers covers how to run it.
The pattern holds across all three. Money is released against a visible, approved checkpoint, and the first payment always lands before substantial work begins. If you haven't built the habit of taking money first, start with how to collect a deposit before a project.
Write acceptance gates, not dates
An acceptance gate is the agreed condition that closes a stage and releases its payment. Without one, a milestone is a vague moment the client can push back by withholding approval while still receiving work.
Attach each payment to a named, reviewable deliverable, not to a date or an amount of effort. "Payment due on approval of the homepage design" is a gate. "Payment due at the midpoint of the project" is not, because the midpoint is a feeling, not a thing anyone can point at.
This protects the client too, which makes it easy to propose. They don't pay for promises or hours logged. They pay for an asset they have seen and accepted. It is hard to argue with a payment that is owed because a specific, agreed thing was delivered and approved.
Write the gates into your project terms before the first invoice goes out. A statement of work is the right home, listing each milestone, the deliverable that closes it and the amount it releases. When the gate is written down in advance, approval becomes a checkbox instead of a negotiation.
Add one more line: how long the client has to review. Five business days is common. Say what happens if they stay silent, for example that the stage counts as accepted after the review window. Check wording like that with your lawyer, since silence rules vary by place.
What to do when a milestone payment is late
Pause the next stage until the current payment clears. That is the most natural and least confrontational pressure a staged project gives you. Because you built the work in stages, pausing reads as a normal contract step and not a standoff.
Two habits help. Put a due date on every invoice, and add a late fee only if your contract says so. Then say in your terms that the next stage starts when the previous payment lands. Most clients resolve a paused stage within a day or two, because the pause is the reminder.
How Delivvo ties each payment to an approved stage
Delivvo is built so that the approval and the matching invoice sit next to each other instead of chasing each other by email. Here is the flow for a milestone project.
You build a quote from packages and add-ons. The client picks, signs and pays the deposit in one go on the Pro plan, which creates the client, project, contract, invoice and payment schedule for you.
In the payment schedule, you split the fee into up to 12 payments and tie each one to a stage.
When a stage is ready, you upload the files to the client portal. Clients open the portal with a one-time code, so there is no password to forget.
The client approves the stage in the portal. The approval is recorded in the portal next to the stage invoice, so both sit in one place.
The client pays through your own gateway. Delivvo supports Stripe, PayPal, Tap, Telr, PayTabs, Checkout.com and others, and it takes 0% of the payment.
If a payment is late, automatic reminders go out at 7, 14 and 30 days and stop once it is paid.
A detail you won't find in a spreadsheet template: every invoice carries a verification code that anyone can check at delivvo.io/verify, showing the issuer, number, amount and status. Documents also run in Arabic and English.
Each stage has its own due date and status, so you can see at a glance what is paid, what is waiting on approval and what is overdue. Read more about payment schedules in Delivvo and how invoices handle tax details. Check tax wording on invoices with your accountant.
FAQ
What percentage should I take as a deposit?
Thirty to 50% up front is standard for most projects. Short projects can sit at the higher end because the whole job finishes quickly. On longer milestone projects, a 30% first payment is common because later stages cover the rest as they are approved.
How many milestones should a project have?
Three to five suit most projects that last a few weeks to a few months. Each should map to a deliverable the client can see and approve. If two milestones close on the same checkpoint, merge them. If one stage spans many weeks of unpaid work, split it.
What is an acceptance gate?
It is the agreed condition that closes a milestone and releases its payment, tied to a specific deliverable and not to a date or hours. "Payment due on approval of the design mockups" is an example. It gives you a clear, defensible trigger for the invoice.
Should I keep working if a milestone payment is late?
Generally no. Pause before the next stage until the current payment clears, and say so in your terms so the pause reads as routine.
Do milestone payments work for small jobs?
For a job under a few hundred dollars, a deposit and a balance is enough. Milestones start paying off when the work runs past two or three weeks.
Delivvo runs the whole client cycle for service businesses, from the first inquiry to the quote, contract, deposit, invoice and delivery, so every stage is approved and paid before the next one starts. Clients pay you directly through your own gateway, and Delivvo takes 0%. Start free
