Deposits: how much to ask for and when

Between 25% and 50% on anything where you buy materials, taken before you order them.

The number depends on where your risk sits. If the job is mostly your labour, a smaller deposit covers the scheduling risk. If you are buying £2,000 of materials on day one, the deposit should cover the materials — otherwise you are lending the client £2,000 at 0% and carrying the loss if they change their mind.

Ask at quote stage, in writing, as a line in the price. Asking after acceptance feels like a renegotiation and invites pushback.

What a deposit is actually for

Not "showing commitment", though it does that. A deposit covers what you cannot recover if the customer walks away: materials bought for their job specifically, and a date you turned other work away to hold.

That gives you the arithmetic. Add the materials you must buy before starting to the value of the diary time you are committing, and that is your floor. Everything above it is negotiation.

Working percentages

• Labour-only, under a week: nothing. There is nothing to recover.
• Materials-heavy trade work: 25–50%, roughly the materials cost.
• Bespoke or made-to-measure: 50%. Timber cut for one customer's alcove has no resale value.
• Creative and professional projects: 50% up front is the industry norm and worth holding to.
• Event work — weddings, photography: 20–30% as a non-refundable booking fee, because you are turning down every other booking for that date.
• Long construction projects: a mobilisation payment plus stage payments, rather than one large deposit.

Consumer protection limits

Several jurisdictions restrict what you can keep from a consumer deposit if they cancel, and blanket "non-refundable" terms can be unenforceable against consumers even when clearly written. The safe position is that you may retain your actual losses — materials bought, work done, demonstrable diary loss — rather than an arbitrary percentage. Event industries are the common exception, where a genuine pre-estimate of loss for a specific date is usually defensible.

B2B is different and much freer. Between businesses, what you agree generally stands.

Ask at the right moment

With the quote, not after acceptance. A deposit stated in the quote is a term of the offer. The same request made once they have said yes reads as a new condition, and it is the point at which a customer starts wondering whether you are short of money.

Invoice it properly

Issue a deposit invoice, not a text message asking for a transfer. It creates the record, it gives the customer something to pay against, and in most tax systems receiving the money creates a tax point you need a document for. Then the final invoice shows the full job value with the deposit deducted, so the balance due is what is genuinely owed. Invoicing for a deposit sets out the sequence.

If they refuse

Sometimes reasonable — a large organisation with a procurement process may genuinely be unable to pay in advance, and that is not a warning sign. A domestic customer who objects on principle to a deposit for a job requiring £2,000 of materials is a different matter.

The middle path is to buy nothing until money arrives. Quote it, agree it, and start when the deposit clears. That is not a threat, it is a sequence, and it protects you without a confrontation.

EstimateBill tracks what is unpaid, reminds you on the due date, and writes the follow-up message for you in three tones. See how the reminders work.