Paid in Full

The paperwork that gets a freelancer paid: worked out, filled in and explained, for your first clients in the US or the UK.

Someone emails: "Could you do this for us? What would you charge?" This book takes you from that message to the money arriving in your bank, one document at a time. It assumes you have never priced a job, written a proposal or sent an invoice, and explains every word the first time it appears.

What you will be able to do

• Work out your rate from what you need to earn, your costs and the hours you can really bill, instead of guessing or copying someone else
• Price a job from an honest estimate, offer three options, and take a deposit
• Write a proposal with a scope a client cannot misread, including what is not included
• Agree it in writing with a short, plain-English agreement, and know where US state and city laws require one
• Handle extra requests by pricing them before you do them
• Invoice correctly in the US or the UK, with due dates written as dates
• Get paid when a client is late: a five-message chase calendar, the UK late-payment interest worked to the penny, what the US freelance-payment laws give you, and small claims

How it teaches

You follow three invented freelancers through real-sized jobs, with every sum checked: Dani, a graphic designer in Chicago pricing a logo project; Hannah, a copywriter in Bristol paid by the day, whose client paid 47 days late; and Marcus, a virtual assistant in New York on a monthly retainer. You see each of their documents in full, with numbered notes explaining every part: an estimate, a proposal, an agreement, a change request, four invoices, the reminder emails and the late-payment claim.

Where free contract builders leave every number blank, this book gives a suggested starting number for each blank (deposit, payment terms, rounds of changes, notice) and says when to change it. The US and UK rules sit side by side. Every legal and tax fact names its official source, checked in October 2026. The book explains the law in plain words; it is not legal advice for your situation, and it says where a lawyer is worth an hour.

What you get

• Paid in Full (PDF, 60 pages, US Letter) with clickable bookmarks
• Editable templates (ZIP, Word and Excel, open in Google Docs and Sheets too): a rate and price calculator; first-call questions; a proposal; a freelance agreement for US clients and one for UK clients; a change request; US and UK invoices that add themselves up, an invoice register, a time log and a UK late-payment interest calculator; and the payment reminder messages, a US final demand and a UK letter before claim
• Printable forms (PDF, 8 pages): floor-rate worksheet, job estimate, first-call notes, change request, every-job checklist, invoice register and chase calendar

For anyone taking their first freelance clients for a service: design, writing, editing, admin, bookkeeping, photography, coding, consulting. All people and businesses in the examples are invented.