It depends. If I freelance at a major ad agency I get paid just as en employee would. I fill out a W2, get added to payroll, etc. (This has not stopped a couple of ad agencies from stiffing me, unfortunately. I've had to threaten to get my lawyer after those to get paid.) For new, personal, small clients, I always expect partial payment upfront and give them a work schedule with the work broken into milestones, with more payment due as milestones are reached. It makes us both feel better because we know what to expect and when. They get the final files ***after*** I receive full payment. Up until then they get lo-res jpgs. That way even if they cancel the project I get most of my pay.

Just as any other business, issue an invoice with payment terms. Freelancing as a photographer is no different from any other freelancing job. Payment after delivery is very common.

Corporate clients are a mix-match ... they can pay by CC the day of the shoot if there is an employee with that access available or they can choose for us to invoice them, which I just send a basic paypal invoice from my phone on the spot. It pretty much depends on the size of the company and what we're doing. If I'm just popping in to shoot a quick headshot for the CEO, they often pay that day. If we're scheduling a couple hours to shoot headshots for 100 corporate executives then they often choose to invoice.

Publication clients pretty much always require invoicing and are often slower at payment too (many like to pay all their company invoices in bulk on a specific day of the month ... its annoying)

General Public clients ALWAYS pay 100% in full before the shoot even takes place. This is going to be for senior pictures, family portraits, boudoir, weddings, etc.

For weddings & events, we're always paid in full and well in advance. They're normally booking us out up to a year in advance anyway. So, there's more time to work with payments, etc.

For other forms of portraiture, we accept payment at anytime up to the beginning of the session and taken on-location .. we're always paid for these sessions before the camera comes out of the bag and print orders are paid in full before any orders are sent to the lab. Model portfolios are an exception and need to pay before the day of the shoot .. simply put.. many of these clients can be a bit flakey (true stereotype) and I'm not driving to a location without payment only for the model to never show up.

For portrait print orders over $1000 we will break the payment into a max of 3 monthly payments .. however, the order is still not sent to the lab until the final payment is made. No refunds are issued for these payment plans. We do this because I don't want to deal with storing orders for 3 months at a time. There is also the occasional situation were a client makes 2 payments and then disappears completely ... again, we're not in the business of running a warehouse.

Contracts are used for corporate clients when applicable and for the general public but only on weddings & events. We do not make portrait clients sign contracts, except in the situation of senior pictures where that student is also a part of our spokesmodel program.

If you will be focusing on print sales opposed to a 100% digital delivery, I strongly advise avoiding online carts entirely. You will NOT generate as much profits. These should always be done through a sales appointment. Show your images online and let them order at their leisure from home and they're going to put it off .. budget .. order the minimal. Wow them with a great initial image viewing experience, showcase all your products where they can touch them with their hands and discuss the options and you will see more significant up-sells. This is where you see clients who originally budgeted $400 deciding to take advantage of your payment plan and placing a $1600 order instead.

You guys did notice that this was posted in the Illustration section, right?

Many of the concepts still apply. Probably will want a retainer up front but it depends upon the type of client and the need to find a balance and accommodate their way of doing business (e.g. corporations and especially publications may require invoicing, etc.) vs. the illustrator's need for security.

Thanks for all the replies! And yes, I posted in the illustrator forum to get tips from other illustrators, hehe. But I guess it's not that different from being a photographer when it comes to payments, contracts etc.

Still feels a bit risky, especially to sell to private individuals. If they don't pay, what can you do? Hire a lawyer to find some mysterious person in another country would probably fail, or at least not be worth the money it would cost.

A number of years ago I worked for myself - did graphic design and consulting. Some clients paid on time just fine and there was one who was always going to do the check run that evening (no PayPal then) whenever I called to ask why I hadn't been paid. I'm sure they were just managing cash flow and did this as a matter of course, not just with me.

I would think that if you ask for some up front payment (small percentage, but it's not really the amount that matters) you'll weed out the time wasters. If you don't hand over the AI/EPS until you get final payment, at least on the first job for a given client, that adds some safety. For a larger company, they'll want to bill and pay in 30 days and you'll just have to trust them or not do business with them.

There is some amount of risk for any business regarding payments - and the prices you are charged for just about everything are a bit higher than they would be if everyone paid on time all the time