Direct answer

The agency owes you, not their client. Here is how to get paid.

Your contract is with the agency, not with their client. In most agreements, their client's payment is their cash-flow problem, not a condition of yours, unless you signed clear wording that makes your pay depend on theirs. The job is to find out which of those two situations you are in, then work the agency with the record.

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Updated October 21, 2026. The two delivery records quoted below are real and public, with their client decision states read back from the live service on publication day.

Why "their client has not paid us yet" feels final, and why it is not

That sentence sounds like a fact about the world, as if no money exists anywhere in the chain. Read it more carefully and it is a fact about one link in the chain: the agency is waiting on someone else. You are waiting on the agency. Those are two different waits, with two different agreements behind them, and only one of them is yours. Chains pass delay downhill because delay is easy to pass: each party repeats the sentence it was given. What stops the sentence at your door is your own agreement, read closely, and a delivery record nobody in the chain can argue with. The steps below work in that order.

Step 1. Read your own agreement first, for the exact wording

Before you reply, find the payment wording in the agreement you actually signed and read it word by word. Timing wording is different from condition wording, and the difference decides the case. Timing wording talks about when: paid when the agency is paid, or inside a number of days after the agency is paid. It delays you, but it still treats your payment as owed. Condition wording talks about whether: paid only if the agency is paid. Under clear condition wording, an end client who never pays can mean the agency says nothing is owed at all. Note which kind you signed, in writing, for yourself. Note the outside date if there is one: many agreements cap the wait with a final date by which you are paid regardless, and that date, not the end client's schedule, is the date that governs you. If there is no written agreement, say so honestly in your own notes: the argument then runs on invoices, messages, and the delivery record, which makes the next steps even more important.

Step 2. Ask the agency for three facts, in writing

Now write to the agency, once, and ask for three facts: has the end client accepted the work, have they invoiced the end client, and what date do they expect to pay you. Keep the message short and factual, and ask for the answers in writing, by email or message, not on a call. Each answer tells you something different. Accepted and invoiced means the chain is moving and the only open question is timing. Accepted but not invoiced means the delay is inside the agency, and you can say so. Not accepted means there is a delivery or acceptance question to settle first, and step 3 is where you settle it. Vague answers are information too: an agency that will not say whether it has even invoiced its own client is telling you the wait has no owner, and an ownerless wait does not end on its own. Whatever they answer, you now have their position in their own words, dated, and every later step builds on it.

Step 3. Put your own house in order: delivery the agency can check and accept

Your delivery to the agency is a record they can check and accept, so the one argument that never survives is that your work was not delivered or not accepted. In a chain, the acceptance state is the fact everyone downstream argues about: the agency tells you the end client has questions, the end client was never shown a settled record, and your payment waits on an argument about acceptance that nobody can point to. When acceptance sits on the record, the agency cannot pass an acceptance argument down to you. The two public records below show the two states a record can be in:

Accepted: the decision is on the record

Pending: checked, and still waiting on a decision

Read the two cards together. The accepted record closes the delivery question: the work was checked, all 4 steps are on it, and the client decision is recorded with who decided and when. The pending record is honest in the other direction: all 5 steps are checked and saved, and the record shows the decision itself is still owed. Neither card claims the work was good, and neither moves any money. What they do is fix the acceptance fact in one place, so a payment conversation further down the chain is about payment, not about whether the work ever arrived.

Step 4. Agree a dated plan in writing, and pause new work until it is real

Open-ended waiting is how agency balances die. Replace it with a dated plan, agreed in writing: part now, balance by a date, or the full amount by a named date if part payment is genuinely not possible. A plan with dates can be kept or broken, and both outcomes tell you what to do next. A plan with no dates can only drift. At the same time, pause new work for the agency until the plan is real, politely and in writing. Say it as a scheduling fact, not a grievance: the current balance is open, so new work starts once the plan is met. Finish anything you are mid-step on if stopping would damage the work itself, deliver it as a record, and then hold. Every extra job you deliver into an unpaid chain makes the balance bigger and the hold harder to start later.

Step 5. Do not chase the end client directly

It is tempting to go around the agency to the end client, especially if you know who they are. Do not, unless your agreement allows it. Many agency agreements bar direct contact, direct billing, or working for the end client outside the agency, and breaking that term can breach your agency agreement and hand the agency a reason to withhold payment altogether. It also rarely works on its own terms: the end client has no agreement with you and will usually send you back to the agency. Pressure stays on the party who owes you. The agency chose its client, set its own terms with them, and carries their credit risk as part of its margin. That risk was priced into the chain long before it reached you.

Step 6. If the date passes, climb the same ladder as any unpaid invoice

When an agreed date passes with no payment, the route is the same ladder as any unpaid invoice, with the agency as the debtor. First a formal demand: the amount, the agreement it comes from, the delivery record and its acceptance state, and a date by which payment is required. After that date, the formal routes for the amount and your area: mediation, small claims court inside its limit, or a collections agency. Your file for any of those routes is already assembled if you worked the steps above: the signed wording, the three facts in writing, the delivery record, the dated plan, and the missed date. That file is the difference between a chain story, which is hard to act on, and a debt owed by one named party under one agreement, which is exactly what those routes are built for.

Step 7. Next time: close the chain gaps in advance

Three changes stop this problem on the next agency job. First, an outside payment date in the agreement: paid within a set number of days of your invoice regardless of where the agency is with its own client, so their cash flow never becomes your schedule. Second, acceptance recorded at delivery: the agency checks and accepts the handover, or flags a specific step, at the time the work lands, not weeks later when money is discussed. Third, staged invoices on long chains: invoice per stage, each stage delivered and accepted before the next starts, so the most that can ever sit unpaid is one stage, not a whole project passed through two other parties' payment runs.

What a record does not settle

A verifiable receipt proves the saved result was not changed since it was saved; it does not prove the work was good, does not prove the end client paid anyone, and cannot move money through a chain. Contract wording and local rules decide who owes what; this page is general information, not legal advice.

Frequently asked questions

The agency that hired me says their client has not paid them yet. How do I get paid?

Start from who owes you. Your agreement is with the agency, so in most agreements the agency owes you whether or not their client has paid them, unless you signed clear wording that makes your pay depend on theirs. Read your agreement first and note whether the wording is about timing or about condition, and note any outside date. Then ask the agency in writing whether the end client has accepted the work, whether they have invoiced the end client, and what date they expect to pay you. Put your own delivery on a record the agency can check and accept, agree a dated plan in writing for part now and the balance by a date, and pause new work until that plan is real. If the date passes, treat it like any unpaid invoice: formal demand, then mediation, small claims, or collections, with the agency as the debtor.

What is the difference between timing wording and condition wording in my agency agreement?

Timing wording says when you get paid in relation to their payment: for example, paid within a set number of days after the agency is paid. It delays payment but it still assumes you will be paid, and many agreements add an outside date that caps the wait. Condition wording says you get paid only if the agency is paid: if the end client never pays, the agency says nothing is owed at all. The difference is the whole case, which is why you read the exact words before you argue, and why vague memories of what was said on a call do not settle it. If the wording is not clear, say that plainly in writing and ask the agency to state their reading of it, so the disagreement is about words on a page, not about tone.

Should I contact the end client directly about payment?

Not unless your agreement with the agency allows it. Many agency agreements bar direct contact or direct billing, and breaking that term can breach your own agreement and hand the agency a reason to withhold payment. It also rarely works: the end client has no agreement with you, owes you nothing directly, and will usually refer you back to the agency. Keep the pressure on the party who owes you, in writing, with dates. If you already have a direct working relationship with the end client for delivery, a factual note that the work was delivered and accepted is different from a demand for money, and even that is safer after you have checked what your agreement allows.

Should I pause new work for the agency while I wait to be paid?

Yes, politely and in writing, once the first promised date has slipped. New work added to an unpaid balance only makes the balance bigger and your position weaker, because the agency learns that late payment changes nothing. Finish anything you are already mid-step on if stopping would damage the work itself, deliver it as a record, and then hold. Say the hold plainly: no new work starts until the dated plan is met or the balance clears. That is not a threat and it is not burning the relationship. Agencies work this way with their own clients, and a supplier who states a clear hold is easier to pay than one who keeps delivering while quietly resenting the wait.

How do I stop this happening on the next agency job?

Get two things into the agreement and one thing into the delivery. In the agreement: an outside payment date, so you are paid within a set number of days of your invoice regardless of where the agency is with their client, and acceptance recorded at delivery, so a later payment delay cannot be dressed up as a delivery argument. In the delivery: hand the work over as a record the agency can check and accept, step by step, so the acceptance state is already settled when money is discussed. When the work runs through Zambo, every step is saved as it happens and the agency gets one handover link to accept or flag. For $0.99, deliver agency work as an accepted record so non-payment is never dressed up as non-delivery: get the Day Pass. A Day Pass covers 24 hours, no subscription. Ongoing use is the Zambo Pass at $29 a month or $290 a year, and $19 a month for $ZAMBO holders, which adds private handover links, your branding, and the approval record as PDF and JSON files.

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