Fire Tips: 7 Ways to Get Paid for Your Creative Work

If you’re a freelancer, independent contractor, consultant, or working on commissioned pieces, this is for you.

Red pens are working over time this week.

With tariffs causing the costs of doing business to spike and markets to crash, budgets are tightening. For you, this may look like cutting back on everyday expenses, but for C-suites across America, this means they’re bloodying their vendor lists, slashing various services that were once considered obvious and essential completely out of the picture.

I’ve been there, and it’s not fun. When revenue declined, I was tasked with cutting freelance budgets, B2B and SAAS partnerships, and even staff headcounts. Who and what could we live without while keeping operations and output virtually unscathed? I had to decide—and fast.

Unfortunately, I can tell you that creative services that can either be brought in-house or temporarily paused without much impact are usually first on the chopping block. Photography, social media management, marketing, copywriting, graphic design, events, branding work, and video production are super attractive to the crimson cross-out.

If you’re a creative like me who depends on these relationships as your income, this can be terrifying. Looking for new clients may be a silent landscape; meanwhile, you’re getting emails from existing clients telling you they “need to cut back.”

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But, for every company that’s reducing costs by dropping creatives, there’s another one that’s on the fast track to virality, and they need to keep pushing. They’re looking for talent and your unique skills could be exactly what they need. So, you need to keep pushing too.

If you’ve landed a job working for the next hot brand full-time, congrats! Your salary is baked into the role and the creative work you’re doing is likely 100% owned by the company (your contract or employee handbook will outline this in detail). The below doesn’t apply to you.

If you’ve signed on as a freelancer, independent contractor, consultant, or you’re working on a commissioned piece, take it from me: You should still treat these opportunities as if they might disappear tomorrow—especially when it comes to invoices and getting paid. So, everything below applies to you.

Here are 7 ways to manage your own operations to ensure that, no matter how a working relationship fares in the short or long term, you’ll get paid for the work you’ve done.

Note: These tips are a basic overview. I’m not an attorney and can’t offer you legal advice, so please consult one for more personalized recommendations.