Roughly weekly for the first month, and change the medium each time instead of repeating yourself. Set the whole schedule when the invoice goes out, because a cadence you decide after the due date is already behind. There's no evidenced optimal frequency, so consistency is what to get right.
The short version
- A confirmation before the due date, then roughly weekly for the first month.
- Change medium instead of sending the same message again. A third identical email is unlikely to do much for you.
- Decide your schedule when the invoice goes out, not when it goes overdue.
- On a large invoice, confirm it's approved before the due date instead of chasing harder after it.
- No evidence supports a specific frequency, ours included, so predictability is what's defensible.
A cadence that works
| When | What to send |
|---|---|
| 3 days before due | Confirmation that it's received, approved and scheduled |
| Day 1 overdue | Short reminder, same channel as the invoice |
| Day 8 | Second reminder, naming the amount and the days overdue |
| Day 21 | Phone call to a named person |
| Day 30 | Formal notice, with the interest position stated |
| Beyond | Letter before action, then a decision on court or an agency |
The specific days matter less than having them written down and happening without you deciding each time.
The two rules that matter more than the frequency
Two things matter more than the number you land on.
Try not to send the same message three times, because repetition trains people to ignore you. It's usually better to change the channel: email, then a call, then a formal notice, so your escalation comes from the medium and not from stronger wording.
And set your schedule as you send the invoice. One decided after the due date depends on you having spare attention in a busy week, and that's the most reliable way for chasing never to happen. Businesses affected by late payment already spend an average of 86 hours a year on this, and most of those hours are unplanned.
Adjust for the invoice, not the mood
Invoice size tells you less about cadence than you'd expect. Among payments that do arrive late, the median delay is 8 days whether the invoice was for £50 or £5,000 (Adfin platform data, customer-initiated payments over 26 months), so a big one doesn't call for a heavier hand. What a big invoice changes is the cost of a slip, and that argues for confirming it's approved before the due date, while there's still time to fix a routing problem.
A repeat offender needs a different fix altogether. If you're chasing the same customer every month, your answer isn't more reminders, it's a direct debit mandate. Across our own data, 98.0% of invoices set to collect automatically get paid, against 90.8% of the ones collected on demand (Adfin platform data, requests created in the seven months to the end of January 2026).
What the evidence can't tell you
There's no reliable evidence for an optimal chasing frequency in general, or for the best day or hour to send a reminder, and we can't publish one either. What you can get at is narrower and more useful: your particular client's own record of what they've replied to and how quickly they paid afterwards. A general rule isn't on offer, and a pattern for one client usually is.
The median customer-initiated payment arrives 53 hours after the request, and 42.9% land inside 24 hours (Adfin platform data). Most of the money comes in shortly after someone reads the request, and the rest trails away, so you'll get more out of making sure it's read than out of tuning the gaps between reminders.
A cadence per client instead of a number
The weekly rhythm above is a reasonable default, and a default is all it is. No evidence supports a specific frequency, so the way to improve on it isn't a better number, it's a different one for each of your clients.
Some of your clients pay on the first reminder and find a second one irritating. Some ignore email for a fortnight and then settle the same day you telephone. Some go quiet every December for reasons that have nothing to do with you. You can hold all that in your head for a handful of accounts, but not for two hundred.
That's what agentic chasing is for. You set the boundaries, so which channels are allowed, how persistent it can be and what goes out without your approval, and the agent then varies the cadence by what each client has actually done before. It's a narrower claim than the ones you'll read elsewhere, and it survives contact with the evidence. There's no best time to send a reminder in general, and there can still be a better time for this particular client of yours.
Common questions
How often should you chase an unpaid invoice? About weekly for the first month, starting with a confirmation before the due date, and changing medium each time instead of repeating the same message. Set the schedule when you send the invoice.
Is it too soon to chase the day after the due date? No. A short reminder the day after is routine and establishes that you notice. Waiting a fortnight makes the conversation harder, not more polite.
How many times should I chase before escalating? Two written reminders and a call is a reasonable point to move to a formal notice, usually around a month past due. What matters more is that each step differs from the last.
Should I chase every day if it's badly overdue? No. Daily contact reads as harassment and trains the recipient to ignore you. Escalate the medium instead of increasing the frequency.
What's the best day of the week to send a reminder? There isn't a reliable answer, and the confident ones you'll find tend not to be sourced. There's no dependable public evidence, and we can't settle it from our own reporting either.
What if chasing isn't working at all? Change the mechanism rather than the message. A client you chase every month belongs on a mandate, and it collects on the due date without anybody having to ask.
Sources
- Small Business Commissioner — late payment research (accurate as of August 2026)
This article explains how credit control works and is not legal advice. The statutory interest rate moves with the Bank of England base rate, so check the current position before relying on a figure. Last updated August 2026.
