10 day payment terms is not compatible with my experience of freelancing for small & medium sized businesses. With corporate or government clients that amount

10 day payment terms is not compatible with my experience of freelancing for small & medium sized businesses. With corporate or government clients that amount is just not even realistic at all. 30 days is fairly standard. 45 or even 90 days is not unrealistic for larger contracts. I also think that 10% per week late fee - though I certainly understand and sympathize with a freelancers grief - it gives me a somewhat unprofessional impression of a freelancer who is either not financially stable or just vindictive. When I hire somebody I like to feel that they will be around next month. A more friendly approach with long-term benefit is to just stop working with clients who don't pay on time. To make your life more stable as a freelancer I can say from experience that you want to obtain repeat clients as soon as possible - clients who want you to work on either retainer, or at least agree to some minimum amount of hours per month. Over time get rid of clients that don't pay on time or are problematic in other ways. Once you get past that point freelancing can be a really enjoyable and profitable to earn a living. Until you get there, though, you can tend to spend a decent amount of time haggling and arguing about money with your clients.