How to get paid before you hand over the files
Stop treating the invoice and the delivery as two separate events. Send one link that shows the client the finished work in a form they can review but not use, with the invoice attached to it. Paying the invoice releases the download.
This needs no difficult conversation and no judgement about the client. They see exactly what they are buying before they pay, which is more than a plain invoice gives them. And you never have to work out in advance whether this particular client is the kind who goes quiet after final delivery, because the answer stops changing the outcome.
The rest of this page is how to set it up: the contract wording, and what to do about source files that cannot go behind the gate.
Why the usual order fails
| The usual handoff | The gated handoff |
|---|---|
| Final files go out by WeTransfer or Drive | A preview link goes out, files stay held |
| Invoice follows, or rides along in the same email | Invoice sits on the same page as the preview |
| Client already has everything they wanted | Client has seen everything and holds nothing |
| Your remaining lever is asking politely | Payment releases the files by itself |
| Chasing is a task you own for weeks | Chasing is one schedule, written before you need it |
Leverage here is a property of sequence. Once the files land, every message you send is a request. Before they land, the same message is a step in a process. Identical words, and they get answered at very different rates.
The method
1Agree the release condition before the work starts
Write into the proposal that final files are released on final payment. When you say it matters more than how you word it: at proposal stage it reads as a description of how you work, whereas the same sentence on delivery day, with a specific client already waiting on specific files, reads as an accusation about that client, and they will hear it that way.
2Split the deliverable into what the gate can hold and what it cannot
List every item you owe. Then mark which ones are files that can sit behind a payment gate and which ones are not files at all: a domain transfer, a Figma invite, a handover call, a font licence purchased in the client's name. The non-files need their own sequencing and none of them belong in the gate.
3Build a preview that is reviewable and not usable
Downscale to roughly 800 pixels on the long edge (what Prooflock uses, and about where a raster stops being printable), export at a middling lossy quality, and put a visible mark carrying the client's own email address across the image. The email matters for two reasons: it makes a leaked file traceable, and it tells the client this copy was issued to them specifically.
Resist making the preview beautiful. The distance between the preview and the real file is what the payment buys, so every improvement you make to the preview is value you are handing over early.
This is not copy protection. Screenshots exist, and an upscaler will make a plausible-looking mess out of anything. What an 800-pixel watermarked raster reliably cannot do is go to a printer or a sign shop. The file that can is the one behind the gate.
4Put the invoice on the same page, with a deadline
The preview and the invoice belong on the same screen. Split across two emails, they reopen the gap you are trying to close, because the client can look at the work without ever opening the invoice.
Give the link an expiry. Two to three weeks is a reasonable default for a small business client paying by card, and below two weeks a halfway reminder has nowhere to sit. Then say what happens when it lapses, in the same message, so the date carries a consequence instead of just sitting there.
5Decide the chasing schedule once, in advance
Halfway to the deadline, three days before, and on the due date. Write those three sends before you need them, or automate them.
Chasing hurts because every follow-up is a fresh decision, made at a moment when you feel bad about the project. A schedule fixed in advance removes the decision and leaves only the send.
The contract language
1. Release condition
Final deliverables are released upon receipt of final payment. Before payment, Client receives watermarked previews for review and approval.
2. Definition of the deliverable
Final deliverables are: [brand guidelines PDF; logo exports in PNG and JPG at the sizes listed in Appendix A; vector source files in .ai and .eps]. Working files, unused concepts, and any file not listed above are not included in this agreement.
3. Expiry and reissue
The delivery link remains active for 30 days. If final payment is not received within that period the link expires, and re-delivery is subject to a $[X] reissue fee.
Clause 2 is the one that prevents the argument. “Can you send the working files first?” is only a negotiation if nobody wrote down what the job included. Once the list exists and is signed, the request becomes a change order with a price on it.
None of the above is legal advice, and enforceability varies by where you and the client are. On a project large enough that losing it would genuinely hurt, have someone qualified read the whole agreement.
Files the gate cannot carry
A brand identity handoff is not one file type. The guidelines are a PDF and the exports are images, both of which any gating tool will take. The vector logo is .ai, .eps, or .svg. Packaged fonts are .otf or .ttf. Most designers ship the lot as a single .zip.
Some tools in this category take any file type. Prooflock currently accepts images and PDFs only, so vector sources, archives, and fonts are rejected on upload. If your handoff is mostly a source archive, check that line before you commit to anything.
What to do regardless of which tool you use: gate the part the client wants most, and sequence the rest behind it.
- The gated link carries the guidelines PDF and the raster exports. That is what a small business owner needs to start using their brand, so that is what they will pay to unlock.
- The source archive goes out immediately after the payment clears, through whatever channel you already use.
The source files still leave only after the money has landed. The gate does not have to hold every file in the package, only the one the client wants first.
One case this does not fix: a client who explicitly refuses to pay until the source files are in their hands. No delivery tool resolves that. It is a negotiation, and Clause 2 above is the actual defense. It works only because it was agreed at a point when neither side had leverage yet.
What the delivery email says
Hi [Name], [Project] is finished. The link below has the full set with previews you can go through, plus the final invoice. The download unlocks as soon as the invoice is paid. If you want anything changed before then, tell me and I will send an updated version.
Four sentences, no apology, and no defense of the mechanism. The last line does the most work: offering revisions inside the gate is what keeps the process from reading as a hostage situation. The client can still get things changed. They just cannot get the finished files without paying for them.
If you have already sent the files
This page does not recover an invoice that is already unpaid on work already delivered. Different problem, different page. Start with a schedule for the follow-ups and a clear statement of what happens at each stage.
Where Prooflock fits
Everything above works by hand. Export a low-resolution watermarked set, upload it somewhere, send the invoice separately, and put the three reminders from step 5 in your calendar. Roughly half an hour per handoff, and it holds together as long as you keep sending the reminders yourself.
Prooflock is that workflow as a single link. Upload the files, set a price and a payment deadline, then send it. The client gets a page with watermarked previews, the invoice, and a download that unlocks when Stripe confirms the payment.
Prooflock is not the only tool that gates files behind payment. Three things here are worth weighing:
- No cut of your invoices, in any form.
- $12 a month, flat, whatever the project is worth. Tools that take a percentage get more expensive exactly as your work gets more valuable: 2% of a $3,000 brand identity is $60. The client's payment goes from their card to your own Stripe account.
- Your client never makes an account.
- They open a link, look at the work, and pay. There is no account to make and no password to remember on the day they were finally ready to pay you.
- The chasing and the expiry both run themselves.
- Reminders go out halfway to the deadline on longer terms, three days before, and on the due date, so nobody has to be the person writing the third follow-up. The link then expires at the end of the term you set, 7, 15, or 30 days, and the files are deleted instead of sitting on a server indefinitely.
Three things it will not do:
- Images and PDFs only. Vector sources, archives, and fonts are rejected on upload. Wider file support is planned and has not shipped. Until it does, use the sequencing above.
- Previews cover the first 12 files, and only files under 10MB. A larger guidelines PDF is still delivered behind the gate, but the client sees a filename where the preview would be.
- The client pays by card, there and then. If your invoices route through an accounts payable department on 60-day terms, gated delivery does not change that.
The previews are a deterrent rather than a protection, and the page says so further up. If hard preview security is the thing you are shopping for, this is not built for it.
Send your first gated handoff without paying for anything.
The free plan covers three active handoffs and 500MB. No card to start. Solo is $12 a month when you need more than three at once.
Create a delivery envelopeWorth knowing before you start: connecting Stripe takes 5 to 10 minutes, because it asks for bank details and identity. That is what makes the money go straight to you instead of through us. Do it now, not with a client waiting on a link.