The sad reality is that as a contractor, you have to operate under the assumption that you will sometimes have trouble getting paid. If I was starting contract

The sad reality is that as a contractor, you have to operate under the assumption that you will sometimes have trouble getting paid. If I was starting contract work for a new client, I would ask them to pay up front by the day. It is trivially easy to set up a one-click "pay for 1 day of work" button with Stripe (saving credit card info after the first payment) so it should not be a huge burden for the client.* I would eat Stripe's fee in exchange for peace of mind. Note that this is good for the client too: hypothetically, if they don't like my work, they can pull the plug without being on the hook for future work (if I do my job right, this will never happen). * Some corporate client's can't do this because of rules about what can go on a credit card. That's fine because those bigger businesses are generally used to paying invoices on time in my experience.