Free tool
Payment follow-up email generator
Fill in the invoice, pick how firm to be, and copy the email. Three templates for an overdue invoice: polite, firm and final. No signup, and nothing you type leaves your browser.
Runs in your browser. Nothing you type is sent anywhere or saved.
Your email
Subject
Invoice 1042 is now 10 days overdue
Send it as a reply in the thread where the invoice went, so they see the original right above it.
What should a payment follow-up email say?
A payment follow-up email should say which invoice, how much, when it was due, and how to pay, then ask for one thing: payment, or a date for it. Keep it short, send it as a reply in the thread where the invoice went, and get firmer with each message rather than longer.
That is all the generator above does. It puts those facts in the right order and changes the tone to match how late the money is. The three stages and the days they go out on are the same ones laid out in our payment follow-up schedule, which also covers what to send before the due date and when to hand an invoice to collections.
When to send each stage
Polite, around day 3
Assume it slipped. Most late invoices are not refusals, they are an email that got buried or a payment run that has not happened yet. Name the invoice, the amount and the date, give them the way to pay, and leave room for "already sent".
Firm, around day 10
Ask a direct question: when will it be paid? A date is a small, easy thing to reply with, and it turns a vague delay into a commitment you can hold them to. Offer to sort out any problem with the invoice, because sometimes that is the real reason.
Final, around day 21
Give a deadline and say what happens after it, then do that thing. Only mention a late fee if your contract or terms actually set one. Pausing ongoing work is usually the strongest lever a freelancer has, and it is fair to say so plainly.
The days are a guide, not a rule. If a client always pays on the first of the month, waiting for that run before the firm email is fine. If they have gone quiet on everything, not only the invoice, it is reasonable to move to the final stage sooner.
What to include every time
- The invoice number and amount. Whoever approves payments may be matching your email against a list. Make it easy.
- The due date, or how late it is. A date is a fact. “A while ago” is an opinion they can disagree with.
- The way to pay. A link if you have one, or a line pointing to the bank details. Every extra step is a reason to put it off.
- One clear ask. Pay, or tell me when. Not three questions in one email.
- The original invoice. Replying in the same thread keeps it one scroll away, so nobody has to ask you to send it again.
What not to say
- Long apologies. “So sorry to bother you” tells them the money is optional. You are asking to be paid for work they agreed to.
- Guesses about why. You do not know whether they forgot, ran short or lost the email. Leave the reason out and ask for the payment.
- Threats you will not carry out. Mentioning a lawyer or a fee your contract does not include costs you credibility on the one email where you need it most.
- Anything you would not want forwarded. Assume their finance team, their boss, or a court could read it one day. Calm and factual reads well to all three.
- CAPITALS and exclamation marks. A firm email gets firmer through what it says, not how it looks.
If the client is someone you want to keep working with, our guide to following up on an unpaid invoice without burning the relationship goes further into how to stay firm and still be someone they want to hire again.
Want these sent for you?
The hard part of chasing an invoice is rarely the wording. It is remembering to send the second email on day 10 and the third on day 21, and noticing when you no longer need to.
autoremind.ai does that part. You describe the invoice in one sentence, it writes a short sequence (up to four messages, each firmer than the last) and sends them from your own Gmail, in the thread the client already has. When they reply, the sequence stops, so nobody gets a reminder about something they already answered. It does not read your inbox to notice the reply: each follow-up carries a tracked reply address, and a reply to it is what stops the sequence.
Unlike this page, it uses AI to write the messages, and it only works with Gmail and Slack, not Outlook. Three live reminders are free, with no card.
