You should have contracts for your freelance writing clients. But probably not for the reasons that you think.

Do freelance writers need contracts? Having a writing contract is an excellent way to avoid disagreements with clients. You can agree on how much you’ll be paid, how many revisions you’ll do, what the deadlines are, and other details in writing. But a contract may not provide as much protection as you think against clients who decide not to pay you.

In this article, I’ll explain some good reasons why you may want to have a freelance writing contract. But also how to avoid getting a false sense of security from them, and some extra things you can do to make sure you get paid for your work.

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Why Do Freelance Writers Need Contracts?

DISCLAIMER: I’m not a lawyer and this post does not constitute legal advice. You should always check with an actual lawyer, accountant, etc before making any important decisions about your freelance writing business.

Having a contract is a good way to make sure that both you and the client are on the same page.

Then if there’s a disagreement, you can refer back to the contract. And hopefully you had the foresight to include anything in there which may become a point of contention later.

Compensation

A big reason why you’ll want to have a contract is to have your compensation all spelled out in writing.

Your contract can include your rate per word or hour.

You can mention how many days after the completed work is received and approved that the client is going to pay.

You can even include things like kill fees if the client decides to cancel the project, or late fees if you don’t get paid on time.

This is also where you can spell out if you’re going to require any kind of deposit or retainer be paid in advance before you begin your work.

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Project Details

You can lay out exactly what the project will entail.

How many articles or blogs will you write?

How many words in total, or per piece?

Do you have to create outlines?

It’s also a great idea to limit the number of revisions that you’re willing to do on a particular piece, so you don’t end up having to revise it five or more times.

The more detail you can include, the less problems you’re likely to run into down the line.

Will A Contract Protect You From Non-Payment?

Many freelance writers write up contracts expecting that it’s going to protect them in case a client decides to stiff them and not pay for a project that they submit.

In most cases, this is sadly not the case.

Having a contract is one thing. But being able to enforce it is something completely different.

Even if you put a specific clause in your freelance writer contract that you’ll also collect attorney’s fees and legal costs, good luck actually collecting on them.

As a freelance writer who’s likely making $30,000 – $50,000 per year and running your own business, do you really have the time or money to take a client to court?

If you’re writing for a client that lives in your own city that’s one thing, and it’s probably a straightforward procedure to take them to small claims court. But if they live in a different state than you, chances are that you’re going to have a hard time enforcing your contract.

If you write for clients internationally, it’s even harder. If you live in the United States and a client in Australia decides to stop paying you, what process are you going to go through to collect?

I guarantee you that it’ll cost more than the few hundred dollars they didn’t pay you.

So having a contract is good for avoiding disagreements with clients, but I wouldn’t rely on it as a way to actually collect money from them.

Making Sure You Get Paid

If a contract won’t protect you from clients that try and rip you off, then what should you to?

I always recommend starting small and building trust.

Write one article for them, then get them to pay. Then you can work your way up to invoicing for 3 or 5 invoices at a time, and work your way up as you become more comfortable with them.

If you get any kind of bad gut feeling about a client, I’d always ask them to prepay in advance.

From my experience, most clients who are willing to agree to prepay for work are usually pretty trustworthy. If a client starts making excuses and isn’t even willing to pay 50% of the project upfront, that’s a bit sketchy and you should strongly consider if it’s worth the risk to work with them. Especially if you’re an established writer with some credibility.

Even if a client prepays you, there’s a chance they could reverse their payment with Paypal after the work is done. But I haven’t personally heard of that happening.

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What If You Don’t Get Paid?

If a client does decide to rip you off, there are other options you can look into. Especially if they publish your content on their site without paying for it.

I know one writer who has a website dedicated to posting work they’ve done for clients who don’t pay. That way both sites get hit with a duplicate content strike from Google and neither is likely to rank highly in search results. Kind of a petty thing to do, but definitely one way to get back at clients who don’t pay you.

There are also ways to contact Google directly and have their page taken out of the search results. And you may even be able to contact their hosting company and have their site taken down entirely. But you need a pretty strong case to prove that you wrote the content, still retain the copyright to it, and weren’t paid for it though.

I would just avoid all of that and only work with trustworthy clients that you have a good feeling about.

In all of the years that I’ve been freelance writing, I’ve never been majorly ripped off by a client. There were a few times that I started writing for someone, and things started to look shady after the first article, so I just dropped them. But generally your gut will be a pretty good guide to whether a client will be good to work with or not.

Conclusion

Freelance writing contracts are great to get all of the details about a project in writing. That way both you and the client are clear on what is expected from both of you.

You can discuss things like how much you’ll be paid, how many revisions you’re willing to do, what the deadline is, and other details.

I do feel that having a contract isn’t a very good safeguard to make sure you get paid. Most freelance writers don’t have the time or money needed to take clients to court to recover their costs. And most of the times, the amounts will only be a few hundred dollars and aren’t even worth it.

So use contracts to avoid disagreements, but stick with your gut to figure out if a client is actually going to pay you. And minimize the risk by taking prepayments or retainers.