Why milestones beat one final invoice
On a two-month project, waiting until the end to be paid means carrying all the risk. Milestones keep your exposure to one phase of work at a time and give the client natural checkpoints to approve progress.
Sample schedules
- 2 phases: 50% at signing, 50% at delivery.
- 3 phases: 40% at signing, 30% at first draft or prototype, 30% at final delivery.
- 4 phases (long builds): 25% at signing, 25% at design approval, 25% at beta, 25% at launch.
The deposit is always the first milestone. The deposit calculator helps set it by project size and client risk.
Tie each payment to something observable
"Payment 2 due on approval of the homepage design" is clear. "Payment 2 due mid-project" is not. Add an acceptance window (e.g. approved automatically after 5 business days without feedback) so a slow client doesn't freeze your payments.
Put the schedule in the contract
A milestone schedule lives in the statement of work. Draft it now with Clinch: describe the job in a sentence, get a clean draft, send one link. Your client signs from their phone without an account, and the deposit is paid in the same step.