Payment Schedule Template for Freelancers (Free) + Milestone Payment Generator (2026)

Published Feb 9, 2026 · 6 min read

A payment schedule is how you stop doing unpaid work. It doesn’t have to be aggressive — it just has to be clear. Below is a copy/paste template + a free generator to create deposit + milestone schedules with invoice/due dates.

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When should you use a payment schedule?

• any project longer than 1–2 weeks
• anything with unclear scope (design/dev, "a few pages", integrations)
• anything where you’ve been burned before ("we’ll pay at the end")

Not legal advice. If the project is enterprise, regulated, or has serious IP, get your contract reviewed.

3 freelancer-friendly payment plans

1) 50/50 (simple)

Best for small builds: deposit to start, final on delivery.

2) 30/40/30 (milestones)

Best for 3–6 week work: deposit, midpoint milestone, final delivery.

3) 25/25/25/25 (4 milestones)

Best for projects where the client changes their mind a lot. More checkpoints = less drama.

Copy/paste payment schedule template (plain text)

Replace placeholders and drop into your proposal/contract:

PAYMENT SCHEDULE

Client: [Client name]
Project: [Project name]
Total fee: [€X,XXX]
Payment terms: [Net 7]

Option A — 50/50
- Deposit: 50% ([€___]) — invoice date [YYYY-MM-DD], due [YYYY-MM-DD]
- Final payment (delivery): 50% ([€___]) — invoice date [YYYY-MM-DD], due [YYYY-MM-DD]

Option B — 30/40/30
- Deposit: 30% ([€___]) — invoice date [YYYY-MM-DD], due [YYYY-MM-DD]
- Milestone (midpoint): 40% ([€___]) — invoice date [YYYY-MM-DD], due [YYYY-MM-DD]
- Final payment (delivery): 30% ([€___]) — invoice date [YYYY-MM-DD], due [YYYY-MM-DD]

Late payments
If an invoice is more than [7] days late, work may be paused until payment is received.

One sentence that prevents scope creep

Add this to the schedule email:

If anything changes (scope or timeline), we’ll update the schedule before moving forward.