How to Get Paid as a Freelance Writer
There are so many different ways to ensure your invoices get paid as a freelance writer. Today, we're talking about the different types of payments, ways to get paid, and what to do if your invoices go past due.
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How to Get Paid as a Freelance Writer
What are the questions I get so often is how do I actually get paid as a freelance writer? Not just make money, not just basically make sure there's money coming in or understand expenses or get upfront payments from clients is actually like, how do I actually get money in my account? Like, how does the whole functional aspect of all the platforms work and how do I actually make money? So the first thing I'm going to do today, cause it's kind of an off day for me. And uh, it's kind of snowy outside for Texas. We're not used to getting a snow so outside right now, everything is covered in ice. So I'm going to do a quick pup date because we need a little positivity today. So we have Charlotte's over there. She just got herself. Oh, bears out of the frame. He's over here.
Hey bear. Good job buddy. And uh, Charlotte's over here facing away from the camera, but uh, everybody's a little chilly today. So if we have to put their little hoodies on for them to be warm, so be it. But, um, yeah. So we're going to talk about how to get paid and getting paid also means paying for kibbles. So we're going to talk about platforms. Um, one of the ways, one of the ways I started out was I did a lot of magazine work, which may meant I got paid by checks and I got paid by ACH.
1) The best way to get paid as a freelance writer
So your best bet for getting paid as a freelance writer is to get paid by ACH. That means that you avoid the fees. That means that you're avoiding all of the, um, slowness of a check. That means that it's really easy to see whether or not something got deposited, you know, and unlike a check, you know, it's really hard for an ACH to bounce.
I don't think they can ever bounce because the whole point is to, uh, you know, move the money from account to account. So your best bets like ACH is where a lot of companies are moving right now just because their accounting departments aren't in the office and they are, um, moving to basically online accounting for, you know, the first time in ever. So a lot of places used to do checks or they used to do, you know, slower payments, but now they're moving to ACH, which is great for us. It's great for us as freelance writers because we're eliminating fees. We don't have to worry about all the slow stuff we don't have to worry about. Um, whether or not they're like, Oh yeah, I put it in the mail and they didn't actually put it in the mail or, um, anything else that comes with it.
So your number one way that you want to get paid as ACH, usually that's initiated by the company. So that means that all Vicky says, good girl, Charlotte, thank you, Vicky. She is a good girl. So, um, basically your, um, ACH is going to be initiated by the company. So whether that's a publishing company or the magazine itself or of the business that you work for, they're going to be, they're going to be basically, um, sending you a little form that you fill out with your banking information. Vicky says in Canada, they call it E transfer. Yeah. ACH in America, E transfer. Um, any kind of electronic transfer of money as is good to go. So you'll fill out a little form with your bank account information, use your business bank account. Um, and then they can send funds that way. So that's your number one way.
2) Second top way to get paid as a freelance writer
Number two is check. Check is a cool way because you're not paying fees, but you have to wait on it. So a lot of times what happens with freelancers is they're like, man, I'm paying a lot of fees to PayPal or Stripe or transfer wise or a lot of other companies like, um, there's a lot of other random companies that people use for getting online payments and to, to avoid those. Sometimes we gotta go a little bit old school, which is like ACH, which is kind of, you know, or electronic transfer, which is the tried and true kind of how most full-time people get paid and then there's checks. So a lot of the magazines that I work for pay by check, the lot of them though are moving to ACH was excuse me, which is great. But when they're paying by check, they're going to mail it.
So, um, let's say your invoice becomes, do they mail you the check when it's due? Sometimes it gets there on time. Sometimes it's late, sometimes they forget. But the good thing about checks is that you don't have to worry about paying fees and less it bounces, which is a very rare thing. I think, um, I don't think I've ever had. I think I might've had one issue with a check over my almost 10 years of freelancing. So, um, we have the check situation coming in the mail, which means they either mail it, like when they're supposed to, so that it arrives when it's due or they mail it basically on your due date and you have to wait for it to get there. So checks are a way that a lot of places pay in terms of, um, like an old school style method or like it's just easier for their accounting department to do it by check because they send everybody's checks at the same time.
So checks are, um, a little bit, they're great for not paying fees, but they're a little slower.
3) Platforms to get your freelance writing income
So we have ACH number one, number two, we have checks number three, we can talk about platforms. So there's all these different platforms that you can use to get paid as a freelancer. I used to use PayPal a lot, but now I use Stripe. And here's why I like Stripe because although it has the same fee as PayPal, if someone pays by credit card, they have a super low fee for bank-to-bank payments. PayPal doesn't allow you to do bank to bank payments as far as I've seen, like basically when someone has a pop-up window, like I used UB Sato. So, um, people can pay basically through Stripe, through DUP Sato. So I sent them an invoice on dip Sato, they click the button to pay and it pops up a little window and it says, you know, pay this invoice.
And then like in little thought, it says like powered by Stripe and the buttons as the button says, like pay by credit card or pay by bank or paid. Um, some other like basically paid with a debit card or a bank account. And with Stripe is super low. I can't remember off the top of my head cause they they'd change it. Um, but to get paid through Stripe through bank-to-bank is like 8 cents or like it's like a maximum $5. So the fee to get paid, there is a maximum of $5 where PayPal is like, Hey, you can only pay by pay by credit card. Good luck. There's always fees. So I switched to Stripe because that helps me get more money in my pocket instead of paying more fees. Um, but you can use PayPal. You can use Stripe if you have international clients. Like if you have a client in Canada, like I had a client in Canada, or if you have one in Mexico, which, you know, borders of the U S or if you have a British client, um, Australian or anywhere in the world, like South America or Africa or India, or if you have a client like anywhere in the world, you can use, um, transfer wise.
So TransferWise is really cool because it changes the exchange rate based on the current, the current one. So your fees do change, but usually they change at least in America, like on a rate that's reasonable and fair. Um, and it allows you to get paid quickly, electronically and safely, without it being this weird thing where someone mails you a check from halfway across the world and you try to catch it from in your American bank, when it's from another bank in another country, it's just a lot easier to use TransferWise. And I've seen a lot of freelancers have a ton of success with transfer wise. There's also, we transfer there's, um, gosh, there was a bunch of them, but they went out of business. Like there was, um, man, there was a whole bunch of them, but like wave, I know people use wave for invoicing.
Um, there's a lot of different ways that you can get paid with all these different platforms. But for me, um, unless I can figure out, I haven't found a platform that lets me do ACH, so it doesn't let me send an invoice and then have someone pay me by ACH other than Stripe. So if you find a platform that lets you get paid by ACH, like or electronic transfer where like it's bank to bank and you don't pay fees and like you can send that out to someone, um, kind of the way like Gusto or like some other way works. Like something like that that I can use. Let me know, because I haven't found a platform that lets be personally run ACH and say like, Hey, enter your bank account details to pay this invoice besides Stripe. So yeah, TransferWise is always good for international stuff.
4) Why I like Stripe as the best freelance writer payment platform
I like Stripe personally. Like I said, the bank stuff and giving people options is really great. A lot of times when you work with businesses, like you're, you're approaching the business and you're saying, Hey, let's work together. You know, 50% upfront, 50% on delivery or 50% upfront, 50% on first draft or milestone. However you like to do your pricing. It's a lot quicker for them to pay electronically. So if you have to do ACH, that's usually on their end. If they're sending a check that's on their end, but if you're doing a platform type payment type payment and they can choose between credit card and bank transfer or bank payment that gives them two options. Like maybe they feel more comfortable doing basically auto pay through a bank account or maybe they feel, um, you know, more comfortable just doing it quickly with a credit card.
Like those kinds of options are really great. And PayPal is like straight up credit card. Like whether you get paid by debit or credit or like, um, like those pay as you go cards, um, you pay the same fees, but Stripe lets you give them more options to pay. And it's um, I think it's better to pick one. So I don't think it's better to offer, like I pay Stripe or PayPal or Venmo or none of that. Like just pick one, um, pick the one that makes the most sense for your business. I like Stripe, like I said, and I wouldn't do something like Venmo and I wouldn't do something. That's more like person to person payments that people use for casual activities. Cause that's, for me that's not super professional and it feels more like you're not running a business. You're just like, Oh yeah, Venmo mow me the money.
Like, like it's a slice of pizza. Like we want this to be a real business. We want them to pay in a real way. And I feel like Venmo makes it feel very cheap. Like it's kind of how people share money between friends when they're like, yeah, let's go have zoos on this pizza or whatever. So I'm not a big fan of Venmo. Um, I am a big fan of Stripe and I am a big fan of ACH and checks. So when you're thinking about which platform you want to go with, um, we're going to talk a little bit about fees. So those are kind of the ones that I like. There's a ton of them. Like there's a ton of different platforms that you can choose from, um, that are smaller and they have different fees. Like you, you can try to slice and dice all these fees and you're like, Oh, this one's better, but they're not as reliable.
Um, I would pick something that's way more reliable than worrying about the fees. And here's why the fees are part of running your business because you're not paying a monthly fee to use Stripe. You pay per transaction. So in order to use a payment processor, you have to pay for it the way you pay for it is through the fees. That's part of doing business. It sucks sometimes when you lose 250 or a thousand dollars to fees. Um, but that's part of doing business. They are tax deductible. So like you can put it, I put them on my taxes and um, you can put them on your taxes, say like, Hey, I paid this much in fees. Um, well maybe they're not tax deductible, but there's something with taxes where you can say, I paid this much in, um, platform fees. So the, the, the fees are a big pain in the butt and it's a really annoying thing that you have to lose money.
But the other part is like, you need to get paid. If you could get paid quicker and pay a small fee, that's worth it. So I think if you give them an option and they don't do ACH and they don't do check and they pay by credit card or they pay by being transferred through striper transfer wise, that's better being paid than not being paid or having to go through some weird system where like, they're like, Hey, I tried four times to pay your invoice and the system didn't let me, or just the, the fees keep changing or it's like a baby platform. That's not as trustworthy. Like you don't really want your money in the hands of like an unknown entity basically. So the fees are a pain, but you know, ideally what would happen is like those payment platforms with like, because you use them so often they'd be like, Hey, because you use it so often, like we'll give you like $50 for 50 bucks a month.
You can use our payment platform as many times as you want. That's not going to happen. Cause they make a lot more money off of the percentage. Right. Then they would offer a flat fee, but that's part of doing business. So the way to avoid the fees, which is kind of what, you know, a lot of high earning freelancers talk about is like, yeah, like I'm making money, but I'm losing a lot to fees. The way to do it is you gotta either like work with companies and hope they just do ACH, which a lot of companies are like because of the pandemic and people can't go in to do their rote accounting, basically like their like pen and paper accounting instead of using an accounting platform that would let them pay by ACH. A lot of companies are moving to ACH. So that's a good thing for us.
It's less fees. It's a lot quicker and easier to get paid, but it's also, if you do get in a situation where you have someone who wants to pay your invoice by credit card or by bank transfer or whatever, um, you have that option with a platform. So the fees are part of business. It sucks. Put them on your taxes, make sure you mentioned like, Hey, these, this is the amount of fees. Um, tell your accountant about it. Um, but I'm gonna move a little bit off of payment platforms. So when you're getting paid as a freelance writer, um, you want to make sure that you have a system that helps you get paid. So for me, I used UB Sato and that means that if a payment is late, I can send a reminder. I can send all kinds of things through to UB Sato automatically without me having to put it like, say like, Oh, they forgot their payment.
Like better write them an email. Like I can put a little checkmark that like, Hey, when this invoice goes out, if it's 14 days late, you know, send this, you know, there's a workflow that says, send this email and it's just like a regular email. Like, Hey, your invoice is past due. Like please, you know, please pay it, blah, blah, blah. Um, and that helps me keep track of it a ton. I also have dub side of telling me who's invoices late and who's not like all of the dates are in my some so sorry. All my dates are in my system. So that means that when it goes past that date, I have a little ticker on my front dashboard of dove Sato telling me like, Hey, this invoice is late. You need to go fish, you know, fish around and figure out what's going on.
So when your invoices go past through like I used to have harvest and that would do the same thing, it would tell me when invoices are late or it would let me send a reminder when they're overdue. So there's harvest, you can use fresh books. I liked him Sato because it lets me put a ton of things all in one place and lets me hook up Stripe to it. It lets me send invoices. It let me track which invoices are late. It automatically sends payment reminders if someone's late. Um, but let's say like you keep sending payments, right. Payment reminders. And um, and you know, your invoices isn't getting paid. So what should you do? This is a big pain in the butt. Sometimes as a freelance writer is that you have to chase payments. Like everybody I know has had to chase payments. I've had to chase payments.
I've had to chase payments for like six months or longer sometimes. And what happens is like you send these automated emails and no one gets back to you and no one gets back to you while you can call them. So try to call your client, talk to your contact at the company. If you're contacted the company, doesn't know anything or they're like, Oh my gosh, I had no idea. Like you need to call accounts payable if they have an accounts payable department. So you need to call AP and figure out what's going on or you need to send them an email. If it's really late, I would call them instead of emailing them. Um, but send them that email and sorry, send them that email and say like, Hey, what's going on? And if you get on the phone and be like, Hey, I'm looking into this invoice, make sure you reference your invoice number, how much it is when you sent it, when it was due and talk through it.
Like usually if you can get on the phone with the AP department, you're usually good at good to go and you can get it figured out. But a lot of people, you know, sometimes people Dodge payments or they're like, Oh, I missed this in my inbox or I forgot or whatever. Like don't let up because you feel like you have to follow up a ton. Like if they've missed their payment, like who did the work you turned in the work, you turn it in on time, you did whatever edits they asked. Like they owe you money for doing work. So even like, even if you have to send them an email every single week, which is what I've done before, like when people are super late, I will send them a reminder email every single week. If I can't call them, like if I can't find their number, if it's a big company and like their, um, main office, like I had a company where their main office was like on the other side of the world.
So it was, you basically couldn't call them. So I would send them an email every single week. Hey, you missed your invoice. Hey, you missed your invoice. Like, um, and I kept doing that. Like I just set it up as an auto thing where it's like every Wednesday or whatever, or every Tuesday it went out and reminded them about it. And I eventually got paid, but don't, you know, don't, don't let up just because you're like, Oh no, they didn't pay me. Like you need to get paid for work that you turned in and did on time and all that stuff. So if your invoice goes past due, if you're not getting paid, then you need to follow up. And then if you follow up your contact, I don't know anything. Follow up with AP. If you can't, if AP can't get their stuff together, you know, keep calling them, keep nudging them with payments.
5) Camping out to get your freelance writing paycheck
There's this funny story that I heard. I don't remember if it was yeah, at a conference or if it was at, um, some kind of like webinar, but I heard a story about this guy who, um, camped out in the office. He went into the office with a tent and like everything. And he camped out in the office until he got his check. So he was like, well, I'm just here now. Like you owe me money. He put up a tent and he camped out in the office until someone paid him and they did pay him. And then the, the magazine went out of business, but he did get paid, but this is the kind of stuff. Like sometimes it's really hard to get paid. So if your invoice isn't, you know, if you have a client, that's kind of like, you know, basically dragging it on payment, you need to go follow up with them. The other piece is sorry.
The other piece is, um, getting paid upfront. So this is why I tell a lot of my coaching students. And I'm gonna put this in my course, that's coming up soon is that when you're working with certain things like publications, you're not going to get anything up front. You're going to do the work and then they're going to pay you. That's, that's how it works. But when you're working for a business, you're doing like a content marketing project, or you're doing like reported articles for them or brand content or whatever you need to get at least 50% upfront. Here's why if your invoice doesn't get paid, you need to have at least some money. Like if something goes wrong and your invoice doesn't get paid, which is pretty rare, you know, this is a rare occurrence. But if it turns out that your invoice doesn't get paid, you need to have at least something in your pocket for the work.
So that means 50% up front. At least I have friends who get a hundred percent upfront. I haven't switched to that yet. I might, um, I switched, I do a hundred percent for the month if I'm doing a retainer. So like if I do a retainer on the first of the month that month's payment is due. So there that's when I do that, like a hundred percent upfront kind of, but if I'm starting a project and it has a couple of milestones or it's, you know, um, basically like here's, here's what we're going to do for the next three months. It's 50% upfront and 50% basically on delivery. So I'll send them an invoice, right? When I send the, like, I turned in my last piece of work and I'm like, here's the invoice. The 50% up front protects you. At least you have something in your pocket.
At least you got paid partially for the work. And it's also kind of this trust thing where you're like, Hey, I need something to get started on this work. And if they pay you on time, that's good. If they don't pay you on time, that's a very good indicator about how your next invoice is going to go. So if it's a real big struggle to get that 50% upfront payment, maybe you might want to consider not working with them and just say, you know what, keep your money. Like, I don't think this is going to work. It's a very easy way to get out of it. If they like, don't give you your 50% upfront. So that means like you tell them, like in your contract, you say, Hey, like work does not begin until I get 50% upfront. So that bogs up the whole thing you say, like, I'm not touching a key.
I'm not poking anything until I get 50% upfront. So if it takes them a month to get you 50% upfront, like that can be a big red flag. Sometimes it's just because they're disorganized and they're trying to onboard everybody at once. And sometimes it works out, but a lot of times as a big indicator of how things are going to go, so 50% up front put something in your pocket, it makes sure that you get paid for some of the work. Right. It makes sure that you can kind of test them whether or not they actually have money and they can pay on time and they can figure their out and paying up front means that they kind of, they see the value in working with you. They're like, yeah, of course you need some money up front to get going. Like, no, we're not going to like, wait six months to pay you for all this stuff we're asking you to do.
So. Yeah. Vicky says she does a hundred percent upfront for small projects. Yeah. So yeah. I like a hundred percent. If you're doing a small project, like under a thousand dollars, you might want to consider doing a hundred percent upfront. But if you have something that's like $5,000 or, you know, a bigger project, maybe 4k or three K um, sometimes it's hard for people to pay all that upfront. It just depends. But at least getting something upfront is really important. And then if your invoice goes past due, you're like, well, at least I have half. And then you can get the rest later. So that's kind of a little bit on that. We gave you guys a quick update while I get some water Charlotte's sitting there. Like
Maybe we'll give them a little treat.
You're just done. You are interested.
Good job. You're cute. You want one? Just a block away.
You look cute today. I like your funny ear. I like how it sticks up.
You're so far away. So old. Hello? Hello. She's like, I don't want to look at your face. I don't want those. Yeah,
I know. That's how it is Charlotte. I'm just the treat. Very good job. You're Katie. All right. So if you guys have questions about getting paid, pop them in the chat. So we'll do that real quick and just remember that part of, Oh, this is attractive. Yay. The wet stains. Okay. At least I showered today. Okay. This is just how it is right now. I've just as like a little FYI. I've been sick for like three weeks and I've been really trying to power through. I've been sleeping a lot and um, I haven't been coughing except for now. My throat's just dry right now. Um, so I just been really tired and I'm having trouble like, you know, not sleeping all day. So thank you for being with me during my weird time. So, um, if you have questions, pop them in the chat, but remember like we want ACH is your best bet, which a lot of companies are moving to checks are really, you know, your way to avoid fees, but they're a lot slower.
Your third one is payment platforms. So that means Stripe PayPal, TransferWise for inner TransferWise would be for international clients, or I guess you could use it. But, um, I don't think it does us to us. I think it only does international. So I'm a big fan of Stripe because you can do bank to bank payments with a low fee, excuse me. Um, and the fee is like not more than $5 and then it also gives them the chance to pay by credit card if they want to do that. Um, there's a bunch of other platforms out there that you can check into. If you find something where you personally, as a business can run ACH, let me know. Cause I haven't found anything, lets me send invoices for people to pay by ACH. So, um, and then if your invoice doesn't get paid, make sure that you follow up with them, call accounts, pay, call your contact, call accounts payable, talk to someone who manages money of that business and make sure that, you know, when you're getting paid, like ask them specifically, especially if it's been way past the due date.
And I'm talking like a month, if it's like two weeks past, like still check in and figure out. But then if it's like two weeks again and you're now at a month past the due date, like you need to put your foot on the gas and find out what's going on over there. Um, and make sure you get 50% up front. At least if you want to do a hundred percent upfront for small projects. That's okay. I think to me a small project would be like under a thousand dollars. Like maybe under $2,000, I would get it a hundred percent upfront. Like let's say someone came to me and they're like, Hey, I need this. Like they came to me around the first week of the month and they're like, Hey, we need this by the end of the month. That's something where I might just say like it's a hundred percent upfront.
It just depends. But make sure you get something upfront. So if anybody has any questions, pop them in the chat. I'm going to go through the chat a little bit. I'm gonna give you guys a quick update. Um, if you guys feel like this has been helpful so far and you've gotten some information, make sure to give it a thumbs up. Subscribe. If you feel like you want to learn more about either freelance writing or like how to improve your freelance writing business. Charlotte's asleep. Actually. I just said an hour a year popped up. All right, let's see. Um, Hello. Did you hear your name? You're like, I must be getting something. All right. You can get something. Cause you're cute. Bear. You're not even in the frame. You're like far, far away. All right. Let's see. Um, yeah. ACH has automated clearinghouse.
Um, do do happy Friday. Everybody do do do do do.
All right. So cool. No questions. Um, I'm going to end early today because we're only like a few minutes early and it seems like no one has questions. So either I covered the topic really well, or I don't know, maybe there's just no questions. So hope this was helpful and um, make sure that you get paid. Make sure you figure out the programs that work for you. Like I said, if you can hook up something like a platform to your, um, to your invoicing system. So like my Stripe Stripe is connected to dub Sato for me. Or if you wanted to do Stripe to harvest or FreshBooks with PayPal next year, you have something that's hooked up to it. So it's like very easy for someone to get the invoice and pay it. Um, yeah. Hope that was helpful. Thumbs up if you like it, subscribe. If you feel like this was helpful and you want to hear more and I hope you guys have a great weekend. I hope it's not as frozen as it is here and yeah. Have a great Friday. Bye.
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