Do Jobber’s automatic payment reminders actually get you paid?

Most of this article is about the edges of that sentence, because the edges are where contractors lose money.

What the reminders do

Jobber calls them invoice follow-ups. There are two automations, so an invoice can receive up to two reminders. For each one you choose the title, the message text, and how many days after the invoice’s due date it goes out, up to a maximum of 90 days.¹

They go out shortly after 8am local time on the day they are set for.¹ They are sent the same way as the invoice: if you texted the invoice, the reminder is a text.¹²

The feature needs the Connect plan or above.¹ Jobber’s pricing page, which we opened on 2026-10-08, shows Connect at $139 a month, or $99 a month on annual billing, for one user. Extra users cost more.⁸

What you cannot set

The help pages we read describe two automations and no third, so there is no fifth reminder to switch on. We found no setting for the time of day either, and none for sending a reminder by a different channel from the invoice.¹

The timing is counted from the due date, not the send date. The due date comes from the payment terms you choose when you build the invoice, and the default terms are set in Work Settings.³ A job invoiced on long terms will not see its first reminder until those terms have run out.

Where they stop working

The contact has them switched off. A reminder goes only to clients and contacts who have “overdue invoice follow-ups” enabled in the communication settings on their profile.¹ If a customer was set up with that off, the automation will run on your side and nothing will arrive on theirs.

The invoice is still a draft. A draft has not been sent to the client or marked as sent. Past Due is a separate status, for an invoice past its due date and not paid.³ A reminder cannot chase an invoice the customer never received.

Two is fewer than the guidance. Jobber’s own article on outstanding invoices suggests reminders at one day late, one week, two weeks, one month and six weeks.⁶ That is five touches against the two you can automate. The gap is yours to fill by hand.

A reminder is a message. It tells the customer the invoice is due. It does not know whether they disputed the work, or whether the card on file declined.

What to put in the message

You can edit the message text, so use it. The default wording matters less than three things: the invoice number, the amount, and a plain sentence saying who to call. Our judgement is that a reminder with a real name and a phone number attached is easier to answer than one signed by a system. We have no figure to put on that, and Jobber does not give one.

Keep the first reminder friendly and the second factual. If the second one has to carry a late fee, the fee must already be in the agreement the customer signed, as described below. Introducing it for the first time in a reminder invites an argument you will lose.

A sequence that fits the two you get

Set the first follow-up a few days after the due date and the second a couple of weeks later. Those numbers are our suggestion; Jobber leaves the choice to you, up to 90 days.¹ Then put a diary entry of your own for the day after the second, with the customer’s phone number next to it.

The reminders do the routine part, and your call does the rest. If neither works, the invoice stays Past Due until you either collect it or write it off.³

When to pick up the phone

Jobber’s academy gives the order plainly: if you have tried email and text with no response, call.⁶ Our judgement, which is not Jobber’s: on a large balance, call before the second reminder goes out. A reminder that arrives after you have spoken reads as a courtesy. One that arrives instead of a conversation reads as a machine.

If it ends with a customer who is not going to pay, Jobber has a Bad Debt status for a valid invoice you will not collect. It writes off the remaining balance for your accounts.³ Use it when you have decided, not before.

Late fees

Jobber’s academy defines a late fee as a charge applied when a client fails to pay on time. It warns that states regulate the interest you can charge, and that a late fee policy has to be in your client contract with a signature acknowledging it.⁵

We did not find a Jobber help page describing late fees that are calculated and added to an invoice automatically, so we do not say that Jobber does it. What the academy article offers is wording for a payment policy.⁵ Its general advice is to agree payment terms, including whether you charge late fees, before the job starts.⁶

This is not legal advice. Check what your state allows.

Card on file

For recurring work, a saved card makes the reminder unnecessary. With automatic payments, a client with a saved card or bank payment is charged on the schedule you pick: after each visit, when the job closes, on the last day of the month, or on a custom date.⁴

Three limits matter. Automatic payments are for recurring jobs only, and they are off by default.⁴ A failed charge is attempted once; Jobber does not retry, and tells admin users by email and in the activity feed, with a banner on the invoice.⁴ And a card has to be saved first.

You can ask clients to save one by email or text, though the text wording is fixed and cannot be edited. A payment method field can also sit on request and booking forms.⁹ Jobber suggests telling the client in advance that the card will be saved for future charges, to reduce the chance of a dispute.¹⁰

For a one-off job, a card taken at booking is a habit rather than a feature. A reminder sent twice will not do that work for you, because by then the job is finished and the customer has everything they came for.

Where we come into it

We build software that reads a Jobber account and flags what the reminders leave behind: past due invoices whose contact has follow-ups switched off, and invoices where an automatic payment failed and nobody followed up.

You do not need us to run your reminders. If you want to see what is overdue and silent right now, we will read it once, free.