How to invoice a video client (and actually get paid)

The list below is the practical minimum that stops an invoice bouncing back from an accounts department. It is not a legal specification: what a valid invoice must contain depends on your country and on whether you are registered for sales tax or VAT, so check that separately or ask your accountant. Nothing on this page is legal, tax or accounting advice.

• The word “Invoice”, and a unique invoice number.
• Issue date and due date, as actual dates rather than “net 14”. The person paying it should not have to do arithmetic.
• Your trading name, address, and any tax registration number you hold.
• Their billing details: the legal entity name rather than the brand, plus a purchase-order number if they use them. A missing PO number is the most common reason an invoice sits unpaid without anyone telling you.
• Line items a non-editor can read. “Edit, colour and mix — 90-second brand film” beats “post”. Break out anything you passed through at cost, like stock, music licences or a colourist.
• Amounts, tax and total, in one clearly stated currency.
• Any deposit already paid, with the balance due on its own line.
• How to pay: a card link if you can, bank details if they need them.
• Your terms, including what the payment buys.

There is a free invoice template on this site with all of it laid out. It runs in your browser, needs no sign-up, and nothing you type into it leaves your computer.

One line, worth more than the rest of the invoice combined: state that the licence or ownership of the finished work transfers on payment in full. Until then, what the client has is a preview.

That is a normal commercial term, not an aggressive one, and it changes the conversation from chasing a favour to completing a transaction. It belongs in your contract as well as on the invoice. If you have no contract, a signed email confirming scope, rounds, price and this one term is far better than nothing.

Take a deposit. Fifty per cent to start and fifty on approval for most projects, or 40/40/20 across kickoff, rough cut and delivery for longer ones, due on receipt. The schedule starts when it clears rather than when it is sent, and saying so at kickoff prevents the awkward version of that conversation later.

Invoice the moment the edit is approved. Not at the end of the month, and not when you next do admin. Approval is the moment the client feels the value, and every day between that and your invoice is a day the job cools off. Sending it in the same message as the delivery is better still.

Do not hand over the finals first

This is the whole guide in one line. The client keeps watching a watermarked preview, in full, for as long as they need in order to approve it. The clean masters, the social cutdowns and the project files arrive when the balance is settled.

It is not leverage in a hostile sense. It is the shape every other trade uses, and it removes the situation where your only remaining tool is a fourth reminder email. It also makes paying easy to do at the right moment: a bank transfer means opening a banking app, keying in an account number and a reference, and doing it during working hours, while a card payment on the page they are already looking at takes a tap. The gap between those two is a surprising amount of your outstanding balance.

Chase on a schedule, not on a mood

Decide the sequence in advance and run it without deliberating each time. That stops you doing the two things that cost money: leaving it a fortnight because the message is uncomfortable, or writing an angry one at midnight. The person reading it is usually not the person who owes you money.

Subject: Invoice [number] — due yesterday

Hi [Name],

Just checking in on invoice [number] for [project] — it was due on the [date].

Is it in the next payment run? If it needs a PO number or anything else from me to clear, let me know and I will send it over today.

Thanks,
[You]

Subject: Invoice [number] — [n] days overdue

Hi [Name],

Invoice [number] ([amount]) is now [n] days past its due date.

Could you let me know which date it is scheduled for, or put me in touch with whoever handles payments on your side so I can sort it with them directly?

Thanks,
[You]

Subject: Overdue: invoice [number], [amount]

Hi [Name], [Finance contact],

Invoice [number] for [amount] was due on [date] and remains unpaid. Our agreed terms were [terms], and the final deliverables release on payment in full.

Could you confirm a payment date this week? Happy to take it by card if that is quicker than a transfer — here is the link: [link]

Thanks,
[You]

Past thirty days, stop improvising and escalate in writing: a letter before action referencing the contract and the agreed terms, then a small-claims process or a collections service. What you can charge in interest or fees is set by local law, so take proper advice before naming a figure. Most disputes never get here, and the ones that do were usually visible at the deposit stage.

The invoice sits on the delivery itself. You price the project, the client sees the amount on the same page as the cut they have just approved, and they pay by card without going anywhere else. You choose whether payment unlocks the download or gates the preview entirely, and when the payment clears the download opens on its own.

The money goes straight to you: payments are direct charges on your own Stripe account, so nothing passes through us and it settles on your own payout schedule. We take no cut of client work — the subscription is what we sell — and Stripe deducts its own processing fee at your account’s rate, exactly as it would on any invoice you raised yourself. The pricing page has the detail.