Your pay should not land next season.
Net 90 is not a payment term: how creators actually get paid on time
You did the visit. You made the post. It is live, it is shared, it is already working for the brand. Then comes the invoice, the polite follow ups, and a phrase borrowed from big company accounting: net 90. That phrase does not describe when you earned the money. It describes how long someone else plans to hold it.
By Jeff, Founder, Magpie · November 6, 2026 · Magpie Learn hub
A pay date is a calendar date, or it is not a pay date
Net terms come from business to business accounting, where large suppliers invoice large buyers and both sides run on billing cycles. A creator post is not that. The work is finished the moment the post goes live, and the brand gets the full value from that moment. Stretching payment 30, 60, or 90 days past that point does not make the deal more professional. It makes the creator the brand's smallest and least protected lender. The plain definitions sit in the local creator marketing glossary if you want the short versions.
How long brands take to pay creators is not a mystery with one answer. It is a choice made in the terms, before the work starts. Pay on delivery and the money moves in days. Accept net 90 and the money moves in a quarter. Agree to nothing in writing and the money moves whenever someone gets around to it, because nothing is ever technically late.
Net 30, net 60, net 90, translated
- ✓Net 30: the full amount is due 30 days after the invoice date. Your post runs for a month before you see a cent.
- ✓Net 60: the same promise at 60 days. Two billing cycles, two months of the brand using your content, one payment at the end if the paperwork survives.
- ✓Net 90: a full quarter. Post in one season, get paid in the next. And the clock often starts at the invoice date, not the post date, so slow paperwork quietly adds more days.
- ✓No terms at all: the worst option dressed as the easiest. With no date written down, every follow up is a favor you are asking, not a debt that is due.
Illustrative example, labeled as such: a creator books a $200 paid post, the post goes live on day 2, and the brand pays on net 90 counted from the invoice. The money lands around day 92. The brand had a live, working post for roughly 90 of those days. The creator had an open invoice and a growing thread of follow up messages. Same post, same price. The only difference is who carried the wait.
Three costs hiding inside a slow pay cycle
- ✓Your costs were not net 90. Travel, gear, childcare, the meal you tipped on, the time you turned down other work for. Every cost of making the post was due immediately. Only the income was asked to wait.
- ✓The chasing is unpaid work. Invoicing, following up, re-sending details, checking in again. None of it is in your rate, and all of it lands on the creator. How creators make sure they actually get paid walks through the written terms that prevent most of it.
- ✓Slow terms hide real risk. A payment that is 90 days out has 90 days to get lost, deprioritized, or disputed over details nobody wrote down. The longer the gap between the post and the pay, the more the creator carries risk that was never priced into the rate they set on their creator profile and rate card.
Money held before the visit, released when the post is live
The fix is not a firmer follow up email. It is a different structure. Payment is collected before the work happens and held by a neutral party. The trigger for release is the one event both sides can see: the post going live. No invoice cycle, no accounts payable queue, no chasing. If the post never lands, the business gets its money back, which is exactly why businesses accept the structure. It protects them too.
That is how paid bookings run on Magpie. The business pays when it books. Magpie holds the money. When your post is live, the money is released to you. You set your own listed rate, with a $50 floor, and you keep 97 percent of it, with the 3 percent covering money transaction fees like card processing and transfers, so payment moves right away instead of you chasing an invoice. There are no net terms anywhere in the flow.
Comped visits are the separate, voluntary lane, and they carry no payment wait at all because no cash is owed. The standard is clear, in what a comped creator visit actually includes: 1 post or reel plus 1 story that shares the post, posted within 48 hours, honest and disclosed, with the meal, service, or experience as the pay. Post on time and you also earn Momentum points, and Momentum raises your visibility to local businesses for the next booking.
Working off a platform? The same principles travel. Ask for the rate, the deliverable, and the pay date in one written message before you visit, as how much a small creator should charge sets out for the rate itself. Ask for a deposit, or payment held by a third party, before the post. And if a brand will only offer net 90 with nothing held, price that honestly: you are being asked to lend the brand your work for a quarter, and you can say no.
What else do creators ask about getting paid?
What does net 90 mean for a creator?
Net 90 means the brand intends to pay 90 days after the invoice date, or after delivery, depending on the wording it uses. Net 30 and net 60 work the same way, at 30 and 60 days. The word net is accounting language for the full amount due by that day. For a creator, it means the post can be live, shared, and already selling for the brand for a full quarter before the money arrives.
How long do brands take to pay creators?
It depends entirely on the terms agreed before the work starts. A brand paying on delivery pays within days. A brand on net 30, net 60, or net 90 terms pays one, two, or three months after the invoice, and a brand with no written pay date can drift indefinitely, because nothing is technically late. That is why the pay date has to be a calendar date agreed up front, not a cycle mentioned after the post is live.
How can a creator get paid on time instead of chasing invoices?
Get the rate, the deliverable, and the pay trigger in writing before the visit, and tie payment to the post going live, not to the end of a campaign or an accounting cycle. The strongest structure is payment collected and held before the visit, then released when the post is live. A deposit up front is the next best option. Work with no written pay date and no money held is the setup that produces chasing.
How does payment work on a Magpie paid booking?
The business pays when it books, and Magpie holds the money until the post is live, then releases it. There are no net terms and no invoices to chase. The creator sets their own listed rate, with a $50 floor, and keeps 97 percent of it, with the 3 percent covering money transaction fees. If the visit or the post never lands, the business is refunded instead.
Get paid when the post goes live. Not a season later.
Set your own rate, take paid bookings with the money held before you visit, and keep 97 percent when your post is live.
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