When do you get paid?

I'm doing small jobs for an real estate agent. Turn around times for images is usually 1-2 days. When would you expect to be paid? It seems like there needs to be a certain amount of trust, but my expectation is that payment for the previous job should be rendered prior to the next commencing. Is that reasonable?

yes -

Well I don't do that type of photography, I do weddings and portraits.

Weddings I am paid in full by two weeks prior to the wedding, and I require 50% down payment to book a specific day.

Portraits I just require payment on the day of the session.

If I'm working with a wedding, there's a downpayment and the balance is due 7 days prior to the event.

Portrait sessions are paid same day.

Commercial clients (which I would consider a real estate shoot) are invoiced after the fact and payment is requested within 30 days of the invoicing date.

I do commercial/advertising work and its usually 60 to 90 days on invoices.

After you've invoiced

I do 30% deposit upon booking for weddings and I use shootq to send out invoices up until 30 days prior to the wedding.

For portraits, I charge a 50% deposit upon booking and the rest is due 7 days prior to the event.

For commercial, they get the photos as soon as I get paid. Unless they're recurring and I've done several projects for them, they'll get the photos and I'll give them around 15 days to pay the invoice. If the project is huge or if I had issues with them paying the invoice, i'll have them pay a % up front.

I've been submitting the invoice along with the finished work. Invoice is emailed and the work is delivered via Dropbox. I'm hoping I dont run into a problem but if I did do I have a copyright claim for use without payment?

30 days for all my real estate work, i've done thousands of dollars in work before the agents catch up sometimes. if it gets close to the late payment date, just gently remind them and it will be fine.

it might also be helpful to stipulate in the contract that they can't use the photos until they have paid.

I generally invoice clients on a monthly basis - and then give 30 days to pay.

In reality most of them pay in 60 days so I am giving anything upto 90 days credit. A pain at first but once the money starts to flow it's not that much of a problem.

yep my invoices are sent with 30 day terms but it takes time for these things to go through large organizations even if you have a PO #. Its just the nature of the beast. With some clients I get paid within 45 days but most are 60-90.
I usually invoice every week.

Depends on the job. I have already been paid for a couple of weeks for a job that will happen in December. Others Pay a session fee at time of shoot. The rest on dellivery. Half at booking, half at the shoot, in Full at time of shoot, In Full at delivery.

It all depends on what kind of shoot it will be, How you are charging for it, How much you are charging for it, How likely the customer is to back out of the deal. Is is a "flat fee" job, or a per piece job. It all plays into how and when i ask for payments.

It depends on the contract. I've been paid by GM in 1 week, & the next identical job took 5 months.

I do mostly commercial work now and you have to realize that you are dealing with companies that have certain procedures for getting invoices paid. I work on a 30 day billing cycle and if they pay within 15 days of me sending them the invoice they can deduct a percentage. It is an enticement for them to get it paid. I accept purchase orders from most large companies and bill against those and have never been burnt. If you go out and shoot several houses on a Tuesday and they ask you to go shoot some more on Saturday are you expecting them to pay for the Tuesday lot before you will go out on Saturday. I think it is reasonable to ask for payment early until you develop some sort of working relationship but once you have a level of trust between you wouldn't it just make for sense to bill once every so often, like 2 weeks for instance.

Magazines used to pay on street (publishing) date, but now pay at the end of the month. And I'm not liking it.

All others get a 30-day invoice. At the bottom of my invoice in red I have "NET: 30 days. 2% discount if paid within 10 days of invoice date." In the past, some use to take the discount, but no longer do.

Because jobs often overlap, I'm not sure I would have a strict rule that dictates no new jobs until last is paid, but most certainly would recommend a policy of no new jobs if any old invoices are past due. That would probably be 30 days.