Browse 7 Gruv blog articles tagged Getting Paid. Coverage includes Contracts & Legal and Payment Protection & Finance. Practical guides, examples, and checklists for cross-border payments, tax, compliance, invoicing, and global operations.
Do not pick the option that sounds toughest. Pick the one most likely to put money in your account with the least avoidable drag.
**A freelance kill fee isn't a favor you ask for-it's a risk-control you install so if a client ends a project midstream, you're not left holding unrecoverable work.** You're the CEO of a business-of-one, and your calendar is your inventory.
Unpaid invoices are an operating cash-flow risk, not just an annoyance. They force repeated decisions about follow-up and escalation, and payment friction is common. A February 13, 2025 Boston Fed summary reported that 80% of respondents in a 4,920-employer small-business dataset faced payment-related challenges.
Winning the case is only part of the job. Getting paid is a separate enforcement process, and [the court does not collect for you](https://selfhelp.courts.ca.gov/civil-lawsuit/judgment/how-collect). At this point, you are the judgment creditor and the other side is the judgment debtor. Your next decisions are about cash flow, time, and risk.
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Use your **payment on termination clause** as a pre-signature screening tool, not just cleanup language for later. If a client wants the right to end the deal for their own reasons, how they react to clear notice, payment, and change-control terms can tell you a lot. It can signal how they may behave when pressure hits, so define the terms before you negotiate:
If this deal can turn a business loss into a personal loss you cannot absorb, do not negotiate yet. First decide whether the exposure is survivable.