What a Kill Fee Is and When to Charge It (October 2026)

A kill fee is the amount a client owes you when they cancel or terminate a project before it is finished. It is agreed in advance, usually as a percentage of the total fee, and it compensates you for work you have already completed and for dates you reserved and can no longer sell. This guide covers when to charge one, how much, and the wording to use.

Short version: if the client walks away mid-project, a kill fee decides how that gets paid. Without one in writing, you are usually left chasing only what you have already invoiced.

This is business information, not legal advice. Contract law and rules about deposits and cancellation charges vary by US state and change over time, so check any real contract with a licensed attorney or your union or association before you sign.

Updated for 2026.

What a Kill Fee Is and When to Charge It

A kill fee is an agreed payment you keep if a client cancels a project before it is finished, typically 25% to 50% of the total fee. Charge one when the client ends the work early, not when the project was late, sloppy, or delivered exactly as agreed.

It is not the same as a deposit. A deposit comes up front and is partly about securing the booking; a kill fee comes later and is partly about covering the hole the cancellation leaves. It is also not a substitute for invoicing the work you did deliver. Those are two separate payment events.

One more wrinkle worth knowing. In magazine and newspaper work, the publisher pays the freelancer a kill fee when an assigned piece is killed. In some small-press book contracts, the meaning inverts: the author pays the publisher to walk away from an advance. Same phrase, opposite direction, so read any clause carefully before you assume who owes whom.

What Does a Kill Fee Cover?

A well-drafted kill fee usually covers five things:

• Work already completed. Drafts, selects, edits, layouts, mixes, or cut footage delivered before the cancellation.
• Reserved capacity. Dates you blocked and turned down other work for.
• Partially completed work. The half-finished stage, plus the time it took to get there.
• Out-of-pocket costs. Studio time, gear rental, travel, model releases, stock, props, and crew already committed.
• A cancellation premium. The agreed flat amount that covers opportunity cost and the admin of winding the project down.

What it generally does not cover is future work you never started, profit you would have made had the project run to completion, or anything punitive. If your clause reads as a penalty rather than payment for value already given, expect resistance and expect a harder time collecting it.

Say plainly in the contract what the client receives when they pay. Most clauses hand over the work produced to that point. If you intend to hold the files until the fee clears, write that down too, and read how the NUJ Freelance Industrial Council frames pay for delivered work before you settle on terms.

When Is Charging a Kill Fee Appropriate?

Charge one when cancellation costs you something real:

• You have already started and the client stops the work mid-stream.
• Long lead times mean you committed resources weeks before delivery.
• You blocked shoot dates, studio slots, or edit-suite days that other clients wanted.
• You turned down overlapping work to hold those dates.
• You granted exclusivity, held assets, or signed a hold on your schedule for that client.
• You booked a subcontractor or crew member who now needs paying.
• Scope has ballooned through repeated revisions and then the budget disappears.
• A retainer or multi-month booking ends early after you blocked capacity for it.

Skip it, or soften it, in a few cases. A small job that takes an hour does not need a percentage clause. A brand-new client on a first project may see a kill fee as distrust, which can cost you the work. And if you already delivered the finished files to spec and the client simply declines to use them, that is not a cancellation, and the fee should be the full unpaid balance.

Guidance from the National Union of Journalists goes further: work that fulfils the contract should be paid in full whatever happens afterward, with release from exclusivity as the recognised exception. That is a high bar, but it is a useful reference point when a client offers half.

How Much Should You Charge?

There is no universal US rate. The workable ranges fall into a few familiar tiers, and which one fits depends on where the project stopped and what you had already spent.

Approach	Typical range	When it is defensible
Flat early cancellation	25% of the total fee	You committed little time or money, or the client cancelled soon after kickoff
Standard kill fee	33% to 50% of the total fee	Halfway through, or a long lead time with dates reserved. One-third to one-half is the band most often quoted for written work
Full unpaid balance	100% of what is still owed	Everything was delivered and accepted, or the client kept the files without paying
Work completed on a time basis	Hours worked at your agreed rate plus 25% to 50% of the remaining project fee	Open-ended scope where nobody can name the halfway point
Sliding scale by stage	Escalates as milestones pass	Longer projects where risk grows the further in you get

Two details sharpen the numbers. Escalate by stage rather than quoting one figure, which matches what practitioners report doing. And be explicit about the base: percentage of the total project fee, or percentage of the unpaid balance, are different amounts and clients hear them differently.

What Percentage of the Total Fee Should a Kill Fee Be?

For most creative project work, start at one-third of the total fee and go to one-half when you have reserved dates, granted exclusivity, or spent money. Written commissions and articles tend to land in that band. For small, fast jobs with no reservations, 25% is plenty. If the client receives finished, usable deliverables, quote the full unpaid balance and say why in one sentence.

How to Calculate a Kill Fee

Use a simple formula:

Kill fee owed = percentage of total fee + amount already invoiced and unpaid, less any deposit already received.

Then run it against the stage the project actually stopped at:

Stage at cancellation	Worked guidance
Before kickoff	25% of the total fee, or a smaller non-refundable deposit if dates were held
After kickoff, before delivery	50% of the total fee plus any committed costs not yet invoiced
Midway through	50% of the total fee plus hours worked above the milestone already invoiced
Delivered and accepted, then cancelled	100% of the unpaid balance; the kill fee no longer applies

Kill Fee Example for a Freelance Creative Project

Take a brand photo shoot priced at 3,200 US dollars, with a 20% deposit of 640 US dollars paid at signing and a 50% milestone invoiced on the shoot day. The client cancels after selects are delivered but before final retouching.

At this stage you have the crew day booked and the selects in hand, so a 50% kill fee applies: 1,600 US dollars. Add the unpaid milestone of 1,600 US dollars and subtract the 640 US dollar deposit already received. Total due is 2,560 US dollars. The client receives the selects; final retouched files transfer on full payment.

Run the same project cancelled two weeks earlier, before the crew was booked. A 25% figure gives 800 US dollars, minus the deposit already applied, so 160 US dollars of additional payment. The numbers move a lot by stage, which is exactly why a written schedule beats an improvised argument.

How to Add a Kill Fee to Your Contract

A collectable clause needs five things: the trigger event, the amount or the schedule, the payment deadline, what the client receives, and what happens to the work in the meantime. Vague wording such as a kill fee may apply is close to worthless because it names no percentage, no trigger, and no date.

Sample wording you can adapt:

If the Client cancels or terminates this Agreement for convenience before the Final Delivery, the Client shall pay the Contractor a cancellation fee equal to fifty percent (50%) of the total project fee, calculated against the stage reached, plus any committed third-party costs. Work produced and paid for to that date transfers to the Client upon receipt of full payment; source files remain the property of the Contractor until the balance is paid in full. Invoices issued under this clause are due within fourteen (14) days.

Adjust the percentage to the stage schedule, name the notice period, and state the payment deadline in days rather than the vaguer net-30. If your client is a publication or a union shop, check the NUJ Freelance Fees Guide, ASJA guidance, or your association’s standard terms first, since those often set a floor you cannot undercut. Have a lawyer read the clause before it goes out on work worth real money.

How to Discuss a Kill Fee With a Client

Frame it as protection for booked work, not as a threat. A neutral line: I include a cancellation fee in my terms so both of us are clear what happens if the schedule changes. It protects the dates I hold for you, and it is easier for you than negotiating it later.

Put it in the proposal as a single line under payment terms rather than raising it in the room. Clients read it as a professional standard instead of a demand aimed at them.

When a client counters with half, respond with the numbers rather than the principle. Something like: 50% is what the clause says at this stage, and I have the crew and studio committed on those dates. I can release you from exclusivity so the material is reusable, which is worth more than the difference between the two figures.

Then move to paperwork. Get the final scope, the deliverables list, and the payment schedule confirmed in writing before anything starts. If the client refuses a clause entirely, ask for at least a stated payment deadline on cancellation, since that is the piece most often missing.

Kill Fees, Deposits, and Cancellation Fees

These terms get used interchangeably in casual conversation, but they do different jobs:

Term	When it applies	Who pays	Typical amount
Deposit	At signing, to secure the booking	Client	20% to 50% of the total fee
Milestone payment	At agreed stages during the project	Client	A defined share of the total fee
Kill fee	When the client cancels before final delivery	Client	25% to 50% of the total fee, or the unpaid balance if delivered
Cancellation fee	A broader term that may or may not be tied to progress made	Client	Varies; can be flat or scheduled
Outstanding balance	For work already delivered and invoiced	Client	Whatever remains unpaid

Worked example: a designer is 80% through a project billed at 5,000 US dollars, with a 20% deposit of 1,000 US dollars taken up front. The client cancels. The deposit covers work started and dates held. The milestone invoices already cover the completed stages. The kill fee covers the remaining stretch of scheduled work that can no longer be sold. The unpaid balance applies only if finished files were delivered and accepted.

The four add up to different numbers for a reason. Quoting one figure for all of them is how freelancers end up either overcharging and losing the client, or undercharging and eating the loss.

Frequently Asked Questions

Conclusion

Decide your cancellation amount now, before the next project starts, and write it into the contract with a trigger, a percentage that escalates by stage, a payment deadline, and a line about what the client receives. Scale it to the risk of your actual work: more reserved dates and more committed costs justify a higher number.

Clear terms decided in advance beat a surprising fee after the argument. 2026