You delivered the video. The brand loved it. It’s been three months, and you still haven’t been paid.
Nobody broke a rule. The delay is sitting in your contract, in two small words you probably skimmed past: “Net-90”. For a net 90 payment creator deal, that phrase lets the brand hold your money for 90 days after a certain moment, entirely legally, because you signed off on it.
Most guides stop there, at the number. That’s the wrong place to look. By the end of this one you’ll know what “Net-X” means, why the trigger behind it decides your wait far more than the number does, and the exact lines to ask for so you stop bankrolling someone else’s cash flow.
First, the number (it’s the easy part)
“Net-X” is bog-standard commercial language. The X is simply how many days the brand has to pay you once the clock starts. Net-30 is thirty days, Net-60 is sixty, Net-90 is ninety.
So “Net-90” is a promise: you’ll be paid no later than 90 days after the countdown begins.
Read that sentence again, because there’s a trap in it. The number tells you how long the countdown runs. It says absolutely nothing about when it starts. And the start line, not the length of the race, is where most of your waiting actually happens.
The bit nobody points at: the payment trigger
This is the whole game.
The payment trigger is the event that sets the clock ticking. Change the trigger and the same “Net-30” can mean you’re paid next month, or four months from now. Here are the common ones, best for you at the top:
- On signing. The clock starts the day the deal is signed. This is as good as it gets.
- On delivery. It starts when you hand over the content. Clean, fair, easy to prove.
- On publish or go-live. It starts only once the post is live, and the brand usually controls that date.
- On approval. It starts only after the brand formally signs off. Delays love this one.
- On invoice. It starts when you send the invoice, which you often can’t send until after approval.
See what happens at the bottom of that list? “On approval” hands the brand a pause button. They drag out feedback, and your clock hasn’t even begun. Two friendly-looking terms, stacked together, quietly become a very long wait.
Watch Net-60 turn into a four-month wait
Numbers make this real, so let’s walk one through.
You’ve got 40k followers and you land a UGC deal worth $2,000. The terms read: Net-60, payment triggered on brand approval, invoice required after approval. Sounds fine. Here’s how it actually plays out.
- Day 0: you sign and start filming.
- Day 14: you deliver.
- Day 21: the brand asks for revisions.
- Day 35: you send the revisions back. Then silence.
- Day 52: they finally approve. Only now can you invoice.
- Day 53: invoice submitted. The Net-60 clock starts here.
- Day 113: payment due.
You finished the actual work inside two weeks. You get paid nearly four months later. And the brand didn’t breach a single line of the agreement. The contract said 60. The trigger made it 113.
Why this lands on you, not them
A late payment barely registers for a big company. Holding cash longer actually flatters their books, so from their side, Net-90 is just tidy accounting.
Your side looks nothing like that.
You paid for the kit, the edit, the location and your own hours before a penny came in, so your costs are all upfront. When the money runs late you can’t exactly escalate: they have an accounts-payable team, you have a polite follow-up email and a sinking feeling. And every pound stuck in one unpaid invoice is a pound you can’t put back into growing your channel.
Long terms don’t remove the financial risk of a deal. They just shift it onto the person least able to absorb it. That’s you.
You’re not powerless after signing
Here’s the encouraging part. Some of the strongest protections are things you write in before you sign, and brands expect to see them.
Ask for late-payment interest. Plenty of contracts say nothing about a brand paying late, and that silence quietly works in their favour. A short clause fixes it: overdue invoices accrue interest, say a set percentage per month past the due date. It’s a small penalty that gives them an actual reason to hit the deadline. In some regions, interest on overdue commercial invoices is backed by law even without a clause, but that varies by country, so don’t lean on it. Written down, it’s simply easier to point at.
Ask to be paid regardless. Your fee shouldn’t hang on things you don’t control: the campaign launching, the brand’s budget cycle, or some client of theirs paying them. You did the work; the work is what you’re owed for.
Cap the approval time. If payment triggers on approval, put a deadline on the approving. A line like “content is deemed approved if no feedback is given within X business days” stops the brand freezing your clock by simply going quiet.
What good actually looks like
You won’t win every point, and you don’t need to. Aim for a fair pairing of number and trigger, something like:
- Net-15 or Net-30, not Net-60 or Net-90.
- An early, defined trigger: on signing or on delivery, never on approval or go-live.
- 50% upfront with the balance on delivery, which alone protects you if the project falls apart halfway.
- A deemed-approval clause, so feedback delays can’t stall the payment.
- Late-payment interest written in, so the deadline has teeth on both sides.
Put those together and a vague “we’ll pay you eventually” becomes a schedule you can genuinely budget around.
Say it out loud (steal these)
You don’t need to be aggressive. You need to be specific. Try one of these more or less word for word:
- “Can we move this to Net-30 from delivery rather than Net-90 from approval?”
- “I work 50% upfront, 50% on delivery. Can we set it up that way?”
- “Can we add that content is deemed approved if there’s no feedback within five business days?”
- “Could we include a small late-payment interest term so the due date is firm for both of us?”
Most brands expect a bit of back-and-forth on terms. Asking calmly reads as professional, not difficult.
Key takeaway: Negotiate both the payment trigger and the number of days: together they decide when you actually get paid, not the “Net-X” number alone.
How Contractiv8 helps
Payment terms are one of the 16 risk areas Contractiv8 checks. Upload a brand deal and it scans the wording against our library of 81 creator-contract clause patterns, flagging things like a distant payment trigger, a missing late-payment term, or an approval clause with no time cap, then it hands you the top 3 questions to raise before you sign.
Your contract is never processed by AI, never used to train language models, and never leaves our secured database. It’s proprietary clause pattern-matching, not AI, so you get clarity without handing your deal to a black box.
Run your next brand deal through Contractiv8 for a free risk scan, before you sign.
Related reading: - “50% Upfront: Why Milestone Payments Protect Creators” - “‘On Approval’ Clauses: When Feedback Delays Freeze Your Pay” - “Kill Fees Explained: Getting Paid When a Campaign Is Cancelled”
Contractiv8 is a diagnostic tool, not a law firm. This article is general educational information, not legal advice; for high-value or unusual deals, consider a professional review.