The main reason why any professional freelancer should ask for payment in advance is that otherwise he will be the one shouldering the greatest amount of risk for the project and unprotected from unreliable, abusive or broke clients. In many cases, freelancers are small businesses, and don’t have enough money to absorb the loss or start a legal battle to recover the money.
A minority of clients will use that fact to demand more work that wasn’t on the original statement of work or just flat out save themselves the money claiming they are not happy with the results but wanting to keep them. Others will just drag the project because they cannot give it enough time, missing deadlines both for completion and for payment and playing havoc with the freelance professional’s cash-flow.
Minimising this risk is the main reason why freelance professionals should ask for payment in advance. As a freelance professional, asking for an advance payment before undertaking any work is a way of protecting yourself from risks to the project that aren’t under your control, such as it being cancelled mid-way because the client’s company suffered an economic loss, or management changed.
It also prevents clients forgetting about the project because more pressing things come to their desk, and never giving the freelance professional the information or resources he needs to do his job. Once they know they have money to lose if the project is cancelled or delayed beyond reasonable timescales, clients usually see the project differently and make it more of a priority.
This way the freelance professional is somehow protected from delays due to the client, and can work towards solving those delays before the project costs him money. Payment in advance is also important to avoid clients who want to hold the payment to ransom, demanding more and more features to be added to the website or they won’t pay.
While a minority, one of those clients can cause endless headaches to the freelance professional who has to face endless “I expected the website to also do video. I am not paying until it has video” when video wasn’t in the contract. While it may be a misunderstanding, it can take a long time to sort it out, and during that time the client has a product he hasn’t paid for.
Sometimes it’s difficult to evaluate when a web design project is finished, but giving a client the finished product before getting payment puts the freelancer on a very unfavourable position. Requesting a payment in advance can be a good way of avoiding this kind of client. People are used to paying for the goods and subscriptions they receive before they receive them, and a service by a freelance professional should be no exception.
If somebody is willing to go through with a project and trusts the freelance professional, asking for a payment in advance won’t be a problem and will give both parties peace of mind and the satisfaction of being part of a fair business deal. Providing a detailed statement of work with milestones, deadlines and payment dates will help put the client at ease and show that the freelancer isn’t trying to run away with the money, but make everybody share the risks of the project not being completed on time.
