How to ask a client to pay an overdue invoice
The invoice is a week late and you have been rewriting the same email in your head for three days. Here is the thing nobody says out loud: a late invoice is almost never a decision. It is a forgotten task sitting in someone's inbox under forty other forgotten tasks. Your job is not to argue. It is to make paying you the easiest thing on their list today.
Day one after the due date
Reply on the original invoice thread so the invoice is right there. Say the number, the date it was due, and how to pay. Nothing else.
Hi Dana, invoice 1042 for $1,800 was due on the 3rd. Here's the payment link again: [link]. Let me know if anything's holding it up on your side.
No "sorry to bother you". No "just checking in". You did the work. Asking to be paid for it is not a favour.
Day seven
Same thread. Same facts, plus one new thing: a date.
Hi Dana, following up on invoice 1042, $1,800, now a week overdue. Can you confirm it'll go out by Friday? If someone else handles payments, send me their name and I'll go to them directly.
The second sentence matters. Half of late invoices are stuck with a person you have never met. Offering to go to them takes the work off your client.
Day fourteen
Now it gets formal, still polite. Name the late fee if your agreement has one, and say what happens to ongoing work.
Hi Dana, invoice 1042 is now two weeks overdue. Per our agreement a 2% late fee applies from the 17th. I'll pause new work until it's settled. Happy to get on it the moment it clears.
What not to do
Don't send it at 11pm. Don't stack three follow-ups in two days. Don't apologise. Don't threaten anything you won't actually do.
Want the version that's already written? The Overdue Invoice is one page, polite and firm, and written so it only has to be sent once. $12, instant download.
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Or take all thirteen files for $29 once.