How Much Deposit to Charge Before Starting an AI Project

For a new client and a project under a few thousand dollars, I charge 50% before I open Claude Code. That's not an aggressive number, it's the standard range that freelancers across every service industry, not just AI builds, land on when you ask them directly: 25% to 50% upfront, with 50% being the common default for smaller projects and new relationships where you have no payment history to lean on yet.

The AI part of the project doesn't change this math. If anything it argues for the higher end of the range, not the lower one: a Claude Code build moves fast once scope is locked, which means your exposure to unpaid work happens in the first few days, not spread out over a slow six-week timeline where you'd notice a payment problem before you'd sunk much time in.

A flat 50% deposit works until a project gets big enough that the other 50% due on delivery becomes its own risk, the client stops responding after your build is 90% done and you're chasing a large final invoice with no leverage left. Past a certain size, I stop using one deposit and switch to what I call the deposit ladder: a third at signing, a third at a build milestone we agree on up front, and a third at delivery.

The middle milestone in the ladder isn't arbitrary, tie it to something real: a working prototype, the core feature built, a staging link they can click. That gives the client a checkpoint to confirm the project is actually moving, and it gives you a natural moment to collect before you're carrying the full cost of a build that's most of the way done.

Cash flow is the reason people usually give for a deposit, and it's real, but it's not the main reason I hold the line on it. A deposit is a filter you run before you've spent a single hour on the project. A client who's genuinely ready to work with you pays it without much friction, because they already believe the project is worth doing. A client who pushes back hard on a standard deposit, especially on a small project where 50% isn't a large number, is telling you something about how the rest of the relationship is going to go.

State it once, plainly, as a normal part of how you work, not as a special condition you're imposing on this particular client. I say some version of: I require 50% to start and 50% at delivery, invoice goes out with the proposal, and I begin the build once the first half clears. No apology, no hedge, no over-explaining why. The clients who are going to be fine with it hear a normal business term. The ones who aren't will surface that now, at the cheapest possible point in the relationship, instead of later.

Put the number in writing before you start, not as a verbal agreement you're trusting them to remember. See [what to put in an AI project contract](/blog/what-to-put-in-an-ai-project-contract) for where the deposit terms sit alongside the rest of what belongs in there, and [paid discovery: how to charge for scoping an AI build](/blog/paid-discovery-phase-ai-projects) if the project needs a scoping phase before you're even ready to quote a deposit at all.

The deposit is answering a question, will this client actually pay me, and a repeat client already answered it the last time they paid your invoice on time. Requiring the same 50% upfront from someone who's paid you cleanly on three prior projects reads as either forgetting who you're talking to or not trusting them, neither of which is the message you want to send to your best clients. Drop to a smaller deposit, net-15 terms, or nothing upfront at all once the relationship has actual payment history behind it, and save the full deposit for where it's still doing real work: new clients and one-off projects.