How and When You Get Paid
You are paid your trade rate in full. Deposits and balances come to you through Mortaro, passed on without unnecessary delay.
Getting paid
You are paid your trade rate in full. Deposits and balances reach you without unnecessary delay.
The payment structure is two payments. The customer pays a 25% deposit to secure the works, and the balance on completion. Both are payments to you as the main contractor, collected by us as payment administration agent and passed on without unnecessary delay.
You do not chase the deposit. You do not chase the balance. You do not wait weeks while an invoice sits in someone's inbox.
This page explains who pays whom, how the money moves, what our role is and where it stops, and why we have no reason to hold on to your money. For the rest of the arrangement, start with our contractor network overview.
The structure
Who pays whom
The construction contract is between you and the customer. You are the appointed main contractor, named in the quotation, and the customer's payments for the work are payments to you.
Our role is payment administration agent. We collect the deposit and the final balance from the customer and pass them to you. We do this on your behalf so that you are not the one asking a customer for money while you are also trying to build their roof.
We do not hold customer funds and we are not an escrow service. Money is not parked with us pending some later release. It is collected and passed on to you without unnecessary delay.
Keeping these roles separate is what makes the arrangement straightforward. You carry out the work and are paid for it. We run the administration around it. At no point does a customer payment become our money, and at no point does our fee come out of yours.
Customers pay by bank transfer. Handling the payment conversation is our job: if a customer has a question about what is due or when, they ask us. The shorter version of this page is at how do payments work.
The payment flow
How the money moves, step by step
The customer accepts the quotation
The quotation names you as the appointed main contractor and sets out the price, the scope and your warranty terms. We prepare and issue it from your trade-rate submission, as set out in who writes the quotation.
The customer pays the 25% deposit
By bank transfer. The deposit secures the works and is a payment to you as main contractor.
We pass the deposit to you
Without unnecessary delay once it is received. You are not waiting on a payment run or an approval process.
We organise the start date
We agree the start date with the customer around your diary, so you arrive at a job that is confirmed and paid for in part.
You carry out the work
While you are on the tools, we keep communicating with the customer and deal with their questions. See who talks to the customer.
The customer pays the balance on completion
We collect the final payment and pass it to you without unnecessary delay. Chasing it, if chasing is needed, is our job.
Why it is prompt
We have no reason to sit on your money
We are not an escrow service and we do not hold customer funds, so there is nothing to gain by holding a payment back. What we do have is every reason to pay you quickly: a contractor who is paid on time is a contractor who stays in the network, answers the next opportunity and treats the next customer well. Prompt payment is not a favour. It is how the network keeps its best people.
Your rate
Your trade rate, paid in full
You price the job at your trade rate. That is the figure you are paid. Our fee is added on top of it in the customer's quotation, and nothing is deducted from your figure along the way.
That means there is no surprise at the end of a job: no commission taken off the balance, no admin charge, no lead fee netted against your payment. The number you submitted is the number that reaches you. The detail on pricing is in trade rates explained.
We do not publish our percentage, for the same reason you do not publish your margin. It is our own commercial arrangement, and it does not come out of your price. The direct answer to that question is at do you take a percentage.
Nor is there anything to pay us before work arrives. No membership, no subscription, no charge per lead and no charge for quotes that do not convert. See no upfront lead fees explained.
What we handle
The payment admin you no longer do
Collecting the deposit
We ask for it, take it by bank transfer, and confirm it with the customer. You do not have the awkward money conversation at the site visit.
Passing it on
Deposits are passed to you without unnecessary delay once received, so the job starts with money in your account.
Customer payment questions
What is due, when, and how to pay. Customers ask us, and we answer, while you get on with the work.
Collecting the balance
On completion, we collect the final payment from the customer. You are not left sending reminders once you have moved on to the next job.
Chasing, if it is needed
Chasing final payments is ordinarily unpaid labour for a contractor. Here it is ours.
No bills from us
We never invoice you for leads, membership or quotations. There is nothing flowing the other way.
The deposit
What the deposit means for you
The 25% deposit is paid by the customer to secure the works. For you, it means a job arrives in your diary with a customer who has committed to it, and their deposit passed on to you without unnecessary delay.
It also means the start date we organise with the customer is a real one. The customer has accepted a quotation naming you as main contractor and paid their deposit. You are not holding a date open for someone who might change their mind.
The balance is due on completion. Between the two payments, we keep the customer informed and deal with their questions, so the relationship is in good shape when the final payment falls due.
Where the role sits
What our payment role covers
Clear lines help everyone. This is exactly what we do with payments, and what stays with you.
Mortaro does
- Collect the deposit and the balance from the customer
- Pass both to you without unnecessary delay
- Handle customer questions about payment
- Chase the final payment if needed
- Add our fee on top of your rate in the quotation
Stays with you
- The construction contract with the customer
- Your trade-rate price, paid in full
- Your insurance and your methods
- The workmanship warranty you provide
- Putting right any defects in your work
The workmanship warranty is yours. Every contractor in the network agrees to a minimum of twelve months, usually running from completion, and longer is typical on larger works. If a customer reports a problem, we pass it to you and escalate it on the customer's behalf. Contractors who fail to put defective work right are removed from the network.
Compared with the usual
Why this is the part contractors ask about first
Contractors used to tendering routinely wait weeks to be paid for work they have already finished. Some of that is slow customers, some is long payment terms, and some is simply that nobody is chasing. For a small firm, that gap is the difference between a comfortable month and a difficult one.
Paying promptly is one of the things we care most about getting right. A deposit on acceptance and the balance on completion, passed on without unnecessary delay, means your cash flow follows the work rather than trailing weeks behind it.
It also changes the customer relationship. Because we handle the payment conversation, you are never the person asking for money at the end of a job. You finish, the customer pays, and you move on.
Prompt payment is also part of how we keep standards high. We ask a lot of contractors on response times, site visits and communication. It would be unreasonable to ask for all of that and then make people wait for their money, so we hold ourselves to the same principle: when a payment comes in, it goes out to you without unnecessary delay.
If you want to see the rest of what the arrangement covers, see what Mortaro handles for contractors and how contractor networks work.
Being straight about it
Who this payment model suits
It suits contractors who would rather be paid promptly and never chase a customer than handle the money themselves. For most small firms, that is an easy trade.
It is worth being clear about the other side. Customer payments come to you through us rather than directly, and the price the customer sees is your trade rate with our fee on top, presented under the Mortaro quotation template. If you want to set the customer's final price yourself and take every payment directly, a network is the wrong structure for you, and we would rather say so now.
If the model does suit you, the next step is to tell us about your business. What we look for is set out in what we need from contractors, and how joining works is in how do I join the network.
Straight answers
Payment questions
When do I receive the deposit?
Once the customer has paid it, we pass it to you without unnecessary delay. The deposit is 25% of the works and it is a payment to you as main contractor.
Does Mortaro hold the money until the job is finished?
No. We do not hold customer funds and we are not an escrow service. The deposit and the balance are collected and passed to you, each without unnecessary delay.
Is anything deducted from my payment?
No. You are paid your trade rate in full. Our fee is added on top in the customer's quotation. There is no commission, admin charge or lead fee taken from what you receive.
How do customers pay?
By bank transfer. We do not take card payments. We handle the payment conversation with the customer, so questions about what is due come to us.
Who chases the balance if the customer is slow?
We do. Collecting final payment on completion is part of our role as payment administration agent, so it is not something you have to pick up.
For contractors
Tell us about your business
Your trade, the areas you cover and the size of work you take on. A person reads every enquiry, and if it looks like a fit we will send you the full application.