Late-paying clients nearly killed my freelance biz — so I built Nudgely to solve it
Hey IH 👋
I’m Marian, a solo founder bootstrapping Nudgely — a tool for freelancers and small businesses who are tired of chasing unpaid invoices manually.
I built it after nearly giving up freelancing because clients kept ghosting me after sending an invoice. Nudgely sends polite, automated email nudges on your behalf until the invoice gets paid (you set the tone and schedule).
I’m currently in early launch, and I’d love your feedback. If you’ve ever struggled with late payments, what would you want from a tool like this?
Happy to answer anything or return the favor if you’re building too 🙌
I had the same pain doing client work, the scary part wasnt sending invoice one, it was week two when nobody wanted to own the follow-up and cash got weird. I started with plain email nudges, tried Stripe reminders after that, and now I'm building ChaseFlow around that chasing gap, tbh the tone escalation only works once the workflow itself is clear. Curious if you found freelancers cared more about timing, wording, or just knowing who to chase next.I had the same pain doing client work, the scary part wasnt sending invoice one, it was week two when nobody wanted to own the follow-up and cash got weird. I started with plain email nudges, tried Stripe reminders after that, and now I'm building ChaseFlow around that chasing gap. The tone escalation only works once the workflow itself is clear. Curious if you found freelancers cared more about timing, wording, or just knowing who to chase next.
I went through this last year and lost 80. So I built RecoverKit - a Toolkit with 10 email templates: https://tryrecoverkit.com/toolkit/ Day 1 friendly, Day 3 firm, Day 7 final notice. Most clients pay by Day 3. Hope this helps!
The late payment problem is so real. I used to freelance and the worst part wasn't even the waiting — it was the mental overhead of tracking who owes what and when to follow up without being annoying. You end up spending more time managing receivables than doing actual work.
One question: how do you handle the tone escalation? Like, the first nudge should be friendly but by nudge #4 you kind of need to be firm. Do you let users customize the escalation path or is it templated? That's the part I always struggled with — finding the right balance between polite and "hey, pay me."
This a great solution for every freelancer.