The job is done, it passed inspection or the client walked through it happy, and the final payment still has not shown up. You have sent a couple of messages and gotten nothing back. At this point the question is not whether to keep being polite. It is which of your actual options is worth your time.
This post covers the four real paths once the friendly follow-ups have stopped working: settling for less, small claims court, a mechanic's lien, and a collections agency. For each one: when it fits, what it actually costs, the deadline that can kill it, and the honest downside.
One thing up front: this is general information, not legal advice, and it is not specific to your state or your contract. If the balance is large, or this is heading toward a real dispute, talk to a local attorney before you commit to a path. The cost of an hour of their time is small compared to what a missed deadline can cost you.
Start here: which path even applies to you
Before picking a path, answer three questions.
Did you improve real property? Construction, remodeling, roofing, HVAC, electrical, plumbing, landscaping that adds permanent value, and similar trade work usually qualify for a mechanic's lien. A one-off repair, a service call, or non-construction work like consulting or design usually does not.
How much are you owed? Small claims court has a dollar cap that varies by state, commonly somewhere between $5,000 and $10,000, though it runs as low as around $2,500 in some states and as high as $25,000 in a couple of others (Nolo's state-by-state chart). If your balance is under your state's cap, small claims is worth a serious look. If it is well over, you are looking at a lien, collections, or a full civil suit with an attorney.
How much time has passed since you finished the work? This is the one that trips people up. Lien rights and filing deadlines are calculated from your last day on the job, not from when you got frustrated. If it has already been more than a few weeks since you finished, check your state's lien deadline today, before reading the rest of this post, because that clock may already be running out.
Roughly how it shakes out: small balance and a cooperative-but-slow client, try settling or small claims. Construction work with a meaningful balance and a recent completion date, look hard at a lien. A debt you have mentally written off, collections. Large balance or a real dispute over the work, call an attorney before doing any of the above.
Option 1: Settle for less, right now
When it fits: The client is not ghosting you entirely, there is some disagreement about the amount or the work, or you would rather have money in hand this week than a possible full payment in three months.
What it costs: Nothing but the discount itself, plus a few minutes to put it in writing. This is the cheapest and fastest option on this list.
The deadline risk: None, really, other than the client's willingness fading the longer this drags on.
The honest downside: You get less than you are owed, and if the client was always going to pay in full with a little pressure, you left money on the table. Get the settlement in writing before you accept a reduced payment. A line as simple as "I accept $X as payment in full for invoice #Y," signed by both of you, prevents the client from disputing it later.
Option 2: Small claims court
When it fits: The balance is under your state's small claims limit, you have a signed agreement and a paper trail, and the client is identifiable and reachable (you know where they live or where the business is registered).
What it costs: Filing fees are typically modest, often in the range of $30 to $100 depending on the state and the amount, and you generally do not need a lawyer since small claims court is designed for people to represent themselves. Your time is the real cost: preparing evidence, showing up for the hearing, and possibly a second trip to actually collect if you win.
The deadline risk: Two things matter here. First, your state's statute of limitations on written contracts, which is usually measured in years, not weeks, so this is less urgent than a lien. Second, small claims dollar limits and rules vary by state and sometimes by county, so confirm the current limit for your specific court before filing. Nolo maintains an updated chart by state and your state's court website will have the exact figure and local filing rules.
The honest downside: Winning a judgment is not the same as getting paid. If the client has no money, no job, or no assets, you may end up with a piece of paper that says you are right and no easy way to collect on it. Some contractors then use the judgment to pursue wage garnishment or a bank levy, but that is its own process with its own paperwork and cost.
Option 3: Mechanic's lien
When it fits: You did construction, remodeling, or improvement work on real property, in a state and for a type of job where lien laws apply to you, and you are still within your filing window.
What it costs: Filing fees are usually modest, often under $100 to $200 depending on the county recorder's office, but many contractors hire an attorney or a lien filing service for the first one because the notice requirements and paperwork have to be exact. That can run several hundred dollars. If you have to actually foreclose on the lien to force payment, that is a real legal proceeding with real legal costs.
The deadline risk: This is the sharpest deadline on this entire list. Lien filing windows vary enormously by state, from as short as around 45 days after your last day on the job in some states to well over 100 days in others, and the notice requirements (like a preliminary notice sent before you even start work, required in some states) can be just as strict as the filing deadline itself (mechanicslien.com's state-by-state deadline calculator is a useful starting point for checking your state and role on the job). Miss the deadline by a day and the lien right is generally gone for good, no exceptions.
The honest downside: A lien is powerful because it attaches to the property and can block a sale or refinance until it is resolved, which gets attention fast. But it is also the most procedural of the four options. Get the notice or the filing wrong and you may lose the right entirely without realizing it. If you have never filed one before and the balance is meaningful, this is exactly the situation where an attorney's hour is worth it.
Option 4: Collections agency
When it fits: The debt is older, you have mostly written it off mentally, and you would rather hand it to someone else than spend more of your own time chasing it. Also worth considering if the balance is too large for small claims and a lien is not available for the type of work you did.
What it costs: Agencies work on contingency, meaning they take a cut of whatever they recover and you owe nothing if they collect nothing. That cut is commonly somewhere in the range of 15 to 40 percent, with fresher, larger debts toward the lower end and older, smaller debts toward the higher end, sometimes as high as 50 percent for accounts over a year old (Southwest Recovery Services' breakdown of typical rates gives a sense of the range, though rates vary by agency).
The deadline risk: No hard filing deadline like a lien, but the same rule applies as everywhere else: older debt is harder to collect and commands a worse rate, so waiting does not help you here either.
The honest downside: You are giving up a real chunk of the money to get some of it back with less of your own effort. For a $3,000 invoice, losing 30 to 40 percent to an agency stings. For a debt you were never going to collect on your own anyway, some money beats none.
The paperwork that decides whether any of this works
None of the four options above matter much without two things: a signed agreement and a written record of what happened after.
A signed service agreement establishes the price, the scope, and the payment terms before there is any argument about them. Without it, small claims court becomes your word against theirs, and a mechanic's lien can be harder to support. With it, you have something to point to.
The message trail matters just as much. Every text, email, and invoice reminder you sent shows you tried to resolve this directly and gave the client fair notice, which matters to a judge, a lien process, and a collections agency alike. Save it all in one folder per client: the signed agreement, change orders, photos of completed work, and every follow-up message. Whichever path you take, that folder is most of your case.
Where to go from here
If you are reading this because you are already in the middle of a payment fight, your first move today is simple: check your state's small claims limit and, if this was construction or improvement work, check your lien deadline. Those two facts narrow your options fast, and the lien deadline in particular does not wait for you to feel ready.
If you want the underlying paperwork sorted out so this is less likely to happen on the next job, the Get-Paid Toolkit has the service agreement, deposit language, and a four-message escalation sequence built to be copied and sent today.
Whatever you decide, get it in writing, keep your message trail, and if the number is big enough to genuinely worry about, spend the money on an hour with a local attorney before you file anything. That conversation is far cheaper than a lien deadline you missed by a week or a lawsuit that goes sideways because the agreement was never signed.
Sources
- Nolo: State Small Claims Court Dollar Limits
- Mechanics Lien Deadline Calculator, All 50 States
- Southwest Recovery Services: Collection Agency Fees, Average Percentage & Who Pays
Related
Getting paid is only half of it. The other half is why a job that got paid in full can still lose you money, which comes down to your true hourly cost and the difference between markup and margin.