Net 60 payment terms: what they mean and how to negotiate them

“Net” is the full invoice amount, with no discount taken. The number after it is the days the buyer has to pay. So “net 60” on an invoice dated October 1 means the whole amount is due 60 calendar days later, on November 30. Calendar days, not business days, unless the contract says otherwise.

Three variants change the date more than the number does:

• Net 60 from the invoice date. The clock starts on the date printed on your invoice. This is the version to accept, if you accept any.
• Net 60 from receipt of a proper invoice. The clock starts when their payables team logs an invoice that meets every rule in their vendor manual: the PO number, the right entity, the right address, the approver’s name. One missing field and the clock never starts.
• Net 60 EOM (end of month). The 60 days count from the last day of the month the invoice is dated in. An invoice dated October 1 is then due December 30, not November 30.

For a sense of the market’s floor: when a U.S. federal agency buys and the contract names no date, its default due date is 30 days after the payment period starts, under the Prompt Payment rules.¹

A client’s MSA rarely says “net 60” alone. It wraps it in conditions that push the date further out:

Four things stand out. The clock starts at their receipt. “Properly submitted” depends on a document they can change. One disputed line holds the whole invoice. And paying late costs them nothing.

Pay-when-paid. Firms that work as a subcontractor, for an agency or a systems integrator, also meet this one: “Supplier shall be paid within ten (10) days after Contractor receives payment from its client for the corresponding work.” That is a pay-when-paid clause. Courts often read it as a timing rule: you still get paid within a reasonable time even if the end client never pays. A pay-if-paid clause is different: it makes their payment a condition of yours, so if the end client never pays, you never do. California courts will not enforce pay-if-paid in construction contracts.² Outside construction, and outside California, assume the words mean what they say, and strike any “condition precedent” language.

Ask for the date that matters most to you, and give the client the paperwork rule it needs. Paste this in as a tracked change over their clause:

If they cannot move off 60 days, offer the trade, not a refusal:

If you are the subcontractor on a pay-when-paid clause:

In their Word file, with changes tracked:

1. Strike “after Client’s receipt thereof” and type “after the invoice date.” Comment: “Starts the clock on a date both of us can see.”
2. Strike “sixty (60)” and type “thirty (30).” Comment: “Our standard terms; we can discuss a deposit if 30 is hard for your payables cycle.”
3. Strike “and complies with Client’s Supplier Invoicing Guidelines, as amended from time to time.” Comment: “Happy to follow the guidelines; please attach the current version as an exhibit so they cannot change under us.”
4. After “pending resolution of any dispute,” insert “provided Client pays the undisputed portion by the due date.”
5. Strike the last sentence and insert the interest sentence from the counter above.

Five marks, each with a reason, get approved fast. A rewrite of their whole clause goes back to legal and waits.

Their payables team runs on fixed cycles your contact cannot change. Give them something to say yes to:

• A deposit. One month of fees up front makes net 60 cost you almost nothing in the first months.
• Monthly invoices. Net 45 monthly can beat net 30 on milestones: the first invoice goes out sooner.
• Interest on late amounts. It costs them nothing if they pay on time, and it moves your invoice up their queue if they do not.
• A discount for early payment. “2/10 net 45” lets them take 2% off for paying within 10 days.
• The price. If none of that works, quote net 60 as a higher fee. The wait has a cost, and someone pays it.
• A pause right. The right to stop work when an undisputed invoice is 15 or more days late is the one that makes every other term real.

Ask once, in writing, before the MSA is signed. After signature, your leverage is a request for a favor.

UK note: in the UK, a payment term over 60 days between businesses must be fair to both sides, and if a contract names no date, payment is late 30 days after the invoice or the delivery, whichever is later. Statutory interest on a late business debt is 8% above the Bank of England base rate.³⁴

Tommos (tommos.ai) is a CRM whose AI agents, the tommos, take a B2B inquiry to a signed contract. On the Sign plan, $899 a month for the firm, the payment terms you agreed become the invoices themselves.

When a deal is won, Tommo Closer reads the signed paper in the client’s folder and proposes the payment schedule on a card: each amount, the date or the event it is due on, and its payment term. An amount due “on delivery of the final report” carries the date the paper’s own project plan expects that delivery, and says where it read it. You accept the schedule or change it, and it becomes a fact of the deal. If the paper gives no terms, Tommo asks a person.

When an amount comes due, Tommo Closer proposes the invoice on a card: the lines, the amount, the due date, the PO number and the letter that carries it. A person approves each invoice. One press makes it in Mercury and sends nothing; a second press sends the letter with the PDF and the payment link. Mercury is connected once in Settings, and Tommos reads each invoice’s status from it. When an invoice passes its due date unpaid, Tommo drafts the reminder on a card, on the schedule of reminders you set; after the last one, it asks a person.

Before the invoice, on the same plan, Tommo Legal reads the client’s MSA against your positions, payment terms included, and writes a clause memo with the wording to send back, with tracked changes in their own Word file.

How Tommo Closer works · Every plan

• Net 60 means full payment 60 calendar days after the clock starts; find out exactly when it starts.
• On monthly invoices, net 60 keeps about one more month of your fees on the client’s books than net 30.
• Counter with net 30 from the invoice date, the undisputed part paid on time, and interest on late amounts.
• If they hold at 60, trade it for a deposit, monthly invoicing or a higher price.
• Strike pay-if-paid; accept pay-when-paid only with an outside date.
• For the rest of the client’s MSA, use the ten-clause review and the MSA checklist.

This is not legal advice. It comes from practice; for a large contract, an hour of a lawyer’s time is worth it.

1. 5 CFR § 1315.4(g)(1)(iv), Prompt Payment, payment due dates, Cornell Law School LII, read Oct 13, 2026
2. Haight Brown & Bonesteel LLP, “One Word Makes All The Difference: The Distinction Between ‘Pay If Paid’ and ‘Pay When Paid’ Clauses” (Mar 30, 2016), read Oct 13, 2026
3. GOV.UK, “Late commercial payments: charging interest and debt recovery”, read Oct 13, 2026
4. GOV.UK, “Late commercial payments: charging interest”, read Oct 13, 2026