Thanks very much for sharing your own stories, and Sonia, that’s a shame about your issues with PayPal. I’ll certainly be more wary about leaving too much money in my account.

As for Paypal, I’ve had a total nightmare experience with them. They put my account on hold and are holding some of my clients’ payments, giving me a different reason each time I call and have said they would hold my funds for 180 days. No Paypal for me!!! Thanks for providing info on payment methods. People, BEWARE OF PAYPAL. Google “Paypal nightmares” before trusting your money with them.

I’m planning on conducting a similar research with web design or web development companies here in the Silicon Valley/Bay Area (San Francisco, Palo Alto, San Jose, etc.) after I got a few questions regarding one of my blog posts where I say that we always pass the PayPal fees onto our clients because we consider it as a convenience fee (they could obviously pay by check, but by paying online with PayPal the client allows us to allocate the resources right away).

By the way, our own payment terms are very similar: I charge a 50% retainer upfront, then another 25% retainer once the first one is depleted and then the remaining 25% at project completion. I change it from 50%, 40%, 10% to %50, %25, %25 because it gives the client a little bit more confidence that his project will stay a priority until it is completely finished.

I hope you enjoy the future articles here.

Glad you’ve seen the light and now ask for a deposit. I hope you didn’t get too burned when working on a client’s word alone.

A big thank You for the article. I really think every designer can gain a lot from the knowledge.

I’ll just add: including the PayPal costs isn’t really that big of a deal, for instance Bank Transfer for oversea clients is much more expensive. I rarely use PayPal (mostly for abroad clients), mostly Bank Transfers, Cheques or cash (when the client is local, usually the price is more attractive for this type of payment).

Unfortunately, I’ve learned that having a spoken agreement is not the good way out (when you’re at the starting line you try to catch every possibility, but they don’t always mean cash for you), so I always sign a contract, describing what has to be done, specifying the due dates and the way of delivering the end product. I always take a upfront deposit, from 25%-50% depending on how big the project and it’s nature. E.g. web design – 50% upfront, 25% before coding, 25% before uploading and testing the site on my clients server.

After seeing that some of my designs where a bit altered and used by the client without my permission, I’ve decided on taking deposits. Somehow strange but introducing the deposit, made me more credible and brought in a few serious clients. If the company is delaying signing of the contract or the deposit, but is still asking for sketches, ideas and concepts, don’t bother, they’re not worth your time.

Tracey,

Government agencies / companies are indeed a pain, especially when it comes to payments and deposits. They are a good client though, really reliable and trustworthy, oh and they know what they want, rarely changing their mind in the middle, or a the very delivery of the project. Had the chance to work with a couple gov. institutions and it was grand, everything you need is a good conract (which they like to have as well) and patience.

Thanks for sharing your own thoughts, and I’m very glad you found these insights of use.

Chaitanya, Dainis,

No worries at all.