Did the work. Got stiffed. It costs more than the unpaid invoice — add in the hours you burn chasing the money. Here's your real annual number.
Getting stiffed costs you
$6,600
per year
Stop chasing. Lock in the money before the first spray.
PaidUp authorizes the customer's card before the work starts — a hold, like a hotel. You finish the job, you capture the payment. They can't ghost you. Built for US tradespeople. Join the waitlist.
When a customer stiffs you, the unpaid job is only line one. You already paid for materials. You burned a slot another paying customer could've had. Then you lose hours — sometimes days — on calls, texts, drive-bys, demand letters, and the mental load of it sitting unresolved. Multiply that by every stiff in a year and the number is almost always worse than tradespeople guess.
How this calculator works
Annual cost = (times stiffed × average job value) + (times stiffed × hours chasing each × your hourly worth). The first half is the money you never collected. The second half is the time you'll never get back — the part most contractors forget to count.
Frequently asked questions
How much does getting stiffed actually cost a contractor?
More than the unpaid invoice. A plumber stiffed on 4 jobs/yr at a $1,200 ticket loses $4,800 in work — plus, if each eats 6 hours of chasing at $75/hr, another $1,800 in wasted time. That's $6,600/yr, before stress or the materials you already paid for.
What can a tradesperson do to stop getting stiffed?
Prevention, not collection: authorize the customer's card before the work starts (a hold, like a hotel), then capture when the job is done. Deposits, written payment terms, and pre-auth all help. Chasing after the fact recovers cents on the dollar and burns weeks. PaidUp is built on the pre-auth model.
Is a mechanic's lien worth filing for a stiffed job?
Rarely for small jobs. Liens have strict state-by-state deadlines and notice rules, often need a lawyer ($500-$2,000 retainer), and take months. For a $1,200 unpaid invoice the math usually doesn't work. Prevention beats recovery.
How does card pre-authorization prevent getting stiffed?
You place a hold on the customer's card before the first bit of work — same mechanism a hotel uses for a deposit. The money is committed up front; you capture it when the job's done. They can't ghost you because the authorization was approved when there was zero dispute. That's the model PaidUp uses.
