Client not responding or setting up new milestones for agreed amount

[heather_cl]

Hi there, what do you do when client has not paid the agreed upon amount, and is unresponsive? the initial contract was for 500, however she set up two milestones at $50 each for me to send initial designs. She paid those, but has offered no feedback and not set up any milestones for the rest of the amount. She has also stopped corresponding completely. I'm sure part of this is my fault for not having her set the milestones higher (that payment was not sufficient for the work I had done to get her those options) however I've never had an experience like this before. Any advice would be appreciated. Thanks!

[ashrafkhan81]

That is correct, the value of the milestones should be equal to or more than the results expected from that milestone.

Many new freelancers on this platform fall for this trap of $50 or lesser value milestone and keeping a big part of the total payment for the later milestones. By then most clients would have received complete work. It is good you realized it already, hopefully, you will not repeat this again!

So many possibilities that she has stopped responding, maybe she dropped the project? Maybe her clients dropped her? Maybe she did not like your work and did not want to continue or perhaps she was hit by a bus and is recovering in a hospital bed? Who knows?

The fact is it is very unlikely she will respond, though sometimes clients do have genuine problems and respond after few weeks, and it is very unlikely you will get the balance of the payment. Just close the contract on your end forget about it and move on!

[heather_cl]

Sounds like very good advice, and I will be more discerning about milestone amounts in the future, thank you for your response!