Designers & Creatives · Unpaid Invoices
You shipped the design. Now ship the consequences.
A New York attorney's guide for graphic and web designers who haven't been paid.
Design nonpayment follows a script: endless revisions, then silence, then "we went another direction": delivered after your work is already live on their site. New York law scripts the reply. If you designed as a freelancer and are owed $800 or more, a statute with double damages is on your side of the table.
Provided through DemandLetterNY.com, a service of Hochman Law PC.
The statute behind your invoice.
NY GEN. BUS. LAW ART. 44-A · FREELANCE ISN'T FREE ACT
The statewide Freelance Isn't Free Act covers freelance design work worth $800 or more, alone or aggregated over 120 days for one client. Payment was due by your contract date or within 30 days of completing the work. After that, the client's exposure is double the unpaid amount plus your attorney's fees, and if they never gave you a written contract, that is a separate violation with separate damages.
"We went another direction" is not a payment defense.
Work you performed at the client's request must be paid for even if they later shelve it. A kill-fee clause governs if you had one; without one, the client owes for work actually done. The revision carousel matters too: document every round they requested, because twelve rounds of "one more tweak" is evidence they directed and accepted your labor, not evidence the work was deficient.
Scope creep is billable, if you can show it.
- Pull the original scope: proposal, brief, or the email where the deal was struck.
- List every request beyond it, each with its thread. "Can you also just..." messages are the receipts.
- Reconstruct the timeline: assignment, deliveries, approvals, the invoice, the silence.
- Screenshot their live site or feeds using your work, with dates.
Should you withhold final files or kill the site?
Withholding undelivered final files pending payment is ordinary leverage: deliverables against payment is how commerce works. Sabotaging things already delivered or in the client's control (taking down their live site, revoking hosting you administer) is a different matter that can create claims against you. Keep the moral high ground; the statute is doing the pressure for you.
The sequence that gets invoices paid.
Work it in order, from the freelancer playbook: assemble the paper trail, send one clean written demand yourself, then escalate to an attorney demand letter that itemizes the Act's double-damages exposure. If that is ignored, the administrative complaint route and small claims court both remain open. Deadlines are covered in how long you have to act.
A flat-fee demand letter drafted and signed by a New York attorney often resolves it without a lawsuit. Start online at DemandLetterNY.com, a service of Hochman Law PC, or learn more about flat-fee demand letters.
Questions people ask us.
The client says the logo 'just wasn't right.' Do they still owe me?
Taste is not a defense to paying for commissioned work, especially after rounds of directed revisions. Genuine defect claims that first appear when the invoice arrives are rarely persuasive.
I quoted a project rate but the scope doubled. Can I demand more than the quote?
Often yes, for work beyond the agreed scope: your threads showing the added requests are the key evidence. An attorney letter can present the full number credibly.
They're using the unpaid design in their branding right now. Does that help me?
Considerably. Use of the work undercuts any quality defense, and if usage rights were conditioned on payment, continued use adds leverage beyond the invoice itself.
Web design retainer stopped paying mid-project: covered?
Yes. Retainer and milestone arrangements are covered freelance work; each missed payment past its due date is nonpayment under the Act.
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