How to Get Paid for Concrete Work Before the Truck Leaves

Short answer: To get paid for concrete work, get the money in hand before the ready-mix truck is dispatched, because a pour cannot be undone. Size the deposit in cubic yards — a 4-inch slab is square feet divided by 81 — plus excavation, forms, and steel. Draw at forms-and-steel set, take the concrete and pump money before pour day, and collect the balance at strip, saw-cut, and cleanup.

Concrete is the one trade where the largest single purchase arrives on a stranger’s schedule, sits in a drum that will not wait, and becomes permanent within hours. There is no version of this job where you recover the material. That single fact should shape every payment decision you make, from the deposit to the sentence about cracking that belongs in the contract. How the numbers behind it are built is covered in how to estimate concrete jobs.

Why does the money have to clear before the truck is dispatched?

Because dispatch is the point of no return, and every cost past it belongs to you.

A canceled load still costs money. A load ordered under the plant’s minimum carries a short-load fee. The delivery ticket states how much free unloading time each truck gets and what the plant charges per minute after that, so a site delay turns into demurrage on your invoice, not the customer’s. If access is tight enough to need a pump, that is a second vendor with a setup fee, an hourly rate, and a minimum, frequently on its own COD terms. Many suppliers keep newer accounts on COD as well, which means you are fronting the single biggest line on the job.

So the rule is blunt: the pre-pour money is cleared, not sent, not promised, before the order goes in. A deposit that is still floating on Tuesday afternoon does not pay for Wednesday morning’s trucks.

How do I size a deposit in cubic yards instead of percentages?

Show the volume arithmetic on the contract. A percentage invites a negotiation; a yardage calculation ends one, because the customer can check it.

Square feet times thickness in inches, divided by 324, gives cubic yards. In practice that collapses into one divisor per thickness.

Slab thickness	Divide square feet by	A 600 ft² driveway
4 in.	81	7.4 yd³
5 in.	64.8	9.3 yd³
6 in.	54	11.1 yd³
8 in. footing or thickened edge	40.5	14.8 yd³

Then add 5 to 10 percent for subgrade irregularity, spillage, and the fact that a “4-inch” slab over a hand-graded base is never exactly four inches. Thickened edges and footings add volume without adding a square foot of surface, so calculate them separately and add them in.

The deposit itself is a named list, not a round number: excavation and haul-off, base stone by the ton, form lumber and stakes by the linear foot, welded wire or rebar by the sheet and the stick, vapor barrier where specified, the concrete order at the specified compressive strength, admixtures, the pump if access requires one, and the permit. Mix strength is a specification and not a preference — a higher psi costs more per yard, and air entrainment for a freeze-thaw region costs more again. If a plan reviewer or the customer raises the spec after signing, that is a change order, not a favor.

The deposit does not cover your labor. Several states also cap residential deposits by percentage or dollar amount, so check your contractor board before a number goes on a form.

How should a concrete job break into draws?

Break it where a third party or a photograph can verify the milestone.

Milestone	What proves it	What the draw carries
Signing	Permit pulled, utilities located, material ordered	Permit, base stone, forms, and steel at cost
Excavation and base complete, compacted	Photos with a grade rod, compaction if required	A share of the labor
Forms set, steel tied, pre-pour inspection passed	The inspector’s sign-off	A share of the labor
Pour day	Cleared before the plant is called	The full concrete and pump cost, at cost
Forms stripped, joints saw-cut, site cleaned, cure applied	Walkthrough and photos	Remainder, collected on site

Treat the split as a shape rather than a rule. It should follow your own float, your supplier’s terms, and how many days of payroll sit between milestones. Two habits matter more than the percentages: every draw invoice goes out the same day the milestone is hit, and no stage starts until the previous draw has cleared. A concrete contractor working through an unpaid draw is financing someone’s driveway at zero percent with his own payroll.

What has to be in writing before the forms go in?

Five things, and the first one prevents more payment disputes than the other four combined.

• A cracking disclosure, signed. Concrete cracks. Control joints direct where it happens; they do not prevent it. Put the joint plan on the drawing: common guidance is panel spacing in feet no greater than two to three times the slab thickness in inches, so a 4-inch slab gets joints roughly every 8 to 12 feet, cut about a quarter of the slab depth, within the window your mix and the weather allow. A customer who signed that page does not withhold final payment over a hairline in month four.
• The finish, approved in advance. Broom direction, edge and joint tooling, and for stamped or integral color a sample the customer signed. Note in the same paragraph that color varies between loads and that efflorescence is normal, because both will show up and both look like defects to a homeowner.
• Cure and access restrictions. No foot traffic for a stated period, no vehicles for a stated period, and no deicing salts through the first winter. Put it on a handout and repeat it on the invoice.
• Site access and damage. A loaded ready-mix truck is extremely heavy. Photograph the lawn, the existing drive, and the curb before anyone arrives, and state in writing who owns ruts and cracked apron edges caused by truck access the customer directed.
• Washout. Concrete washout wastewater has to be contained rather than released; EPA’s rules for stormwater discharges from construction activities set minimum requirements, and a general contractor’s site will have a designated washout you are expected to use. On residential work it is your cost and your liability, so price it.

Which concrete extras turn into arguments if they are not priced first?

All of them are discovered mid-job, which is exactly why the unit price has to exist before the job starts.

Extra	Unit to price it in	Why it surfaces late
Over-excavation of unsuitable soil	Per cubic yard removed, plus per ton of imported base	Invisible until the machine is in the ground
Rock or buried debris	Hourly, with equipment	Cannot be quantified in advance at any price
Concrete pump	Setup fee plus hourly, with a minimum	Only known once access is actually measured
Short-load fee	Per load under the plant’s minimum	Small pours carry it, and small pours have the thinnest margin
Standby time	Per minute past the free unloading time on the ticket	Usually caused by a site delay somebody else created
Hot or cold weather measures	Admixture per yard, blankets, hydration, enclosure and heat	Weather-driven, so it has nothing to do with scope
Thickened edges and footings	Per linear foot	Adds yardage without adding surface area
Steel upgrade from mesh to bar	Per stick or per ton	Frequently specified late by an inspector or engineer
Demolition of existing concrete	Per square foot plus disposal by weight	An old reinforced slab costs multiples of an unreinforced one

Write the unit prices into the contract as conditional lines with a stated quantity included. When the extra appears, you photograph it, measure it, and bill the number the customer already agreed to. That converts the worst conversation in the trade into arithmetic.

How do I collect the balance when the slab cannot be driven on for a week?

By defining completion as your work being finished, not as the customer being able to park. One sentence in the contract does it: final payment is due at strip, saw-cut, and site cleanup. Without that sentence you are financing a cure period, and a cure period is when second thoughts happen.

Run the closeout as a payment event. Walk the slab with the customer, hand over the cure and deicer instructions, point at the control joints and remind them what the signed page said, and present the invoice standing on the driveway. Take a card, a tap, or the QR payment link printed on the invoice, and hand over a receipt as soon as the balance clears — the distinction between the two documents is covered in invoice vs receipt.

Never leave saw-cutting for “next time I’m in the area.” Uncut joints are both a cracking risk and an excuse to hold the entire balance over a two-hour task.

How do GCs, retainage, and pay-when-paid change the plan?

Concrete is usually the first trade on a site and one of the last to be paid, which is a structural problem and not a personality problem.

Pay applications run on a schedule of values, so break yours into the units you actually bill in — cubic yards placed, square feet finished, linear feet of forms and joints — rather than one lump for “concrete.” Progress payments come with conditional lien waivers and final payment with an unconditional one, and the unconditional waiver gets signed after the funds clear, never before.

Retainage is the line that hurts. A percentage held until project completion can sit for a year after your foundation work is done, and it is often the entire profit on the job. Price for it, and know before you bid whether the contract says pay-when-paid or pay-if-paid, because those two clauses allocate the owner’s default very differently. The invoicing mechanics for billing an organization rather than a homeowner are in how to invoice a company for freelance work.

What do I do when a concrete invoice goes past due?

Run a fixed ladder, on dates, starting the day the balance was due.

Day	Action
0	Final invoice presented at closeout walkthrough, payment requested on site
3	Text with the payment link and the signed cracking and joint plan attached
10	Call, offer to run the card immediately
15	Written notice that workmanship warranty coverage is suspended while the balance is open
20	Preliminary lien notice if your state requires one and the clock is still live
30	Decide: lien filing, small claims, or write it off

Concrete contractors have mechanics lien rights in every state, and many of those states start the clock at first furnishing of labor or material — which for you is excavation day, long before anyone is late. Look up your state’s notice deadlines once and calendar them the day you mobilize. The rest of the sequence is in how to get clients to pay.

What records make a concrete job collectible?

Six: the signed contract with the cracking disclosure and joint plan, the batch tickets from every truck, dated photos of subgrade, steel, and the finished pour, the pre-pour inspection sign-off, the signed change orders with their photos and measurements, and a sequentially numbered invoice with the plant and supply tickets behind the material figure. Batch tickets in particular are the document that answers a strength or mix dispute two years later, and they are also the ones that ride around in a truck door until they are unreadable.

Keel keeps that record on the phone — no account, no bank connection, no cloud, no login, and an App Store privacy label that reads Data Not Collected, so it works on a site with no signal. Photograph the batch ticket at the chute and the base stone ticket at the pit, and Apple Intelligence reads them on the device. Draw invoices go out from the job the hour the milestone is hit, with your own numbering, your logo and brand color, your license number in the footer, and the payment link printed as a QR code. Every leg between the yard, the plant, and the site logs as a mile. Freeboard shows cash minus the tax reserve, minus the invoices you have already committed, minus a buffer, which is the number that answers whether you can front the concrete on the next pour while retainage sits on the last one. The ledger is append-only and hash-chained, so what was billed and when does not quietly change, and the year exports as a single file. Free covers unlimited invoices, receipts, and mileage; Keel Pro is a one-time $249.99 Lifetime purchase, not a subscription.

Frequently asked questions

How much deposit should a concrete contractor take?

Enough to cover everything purchased before the pour, shown as a list rather than a percentage: permit, base stone, forms, steel, vapor barrier, and the concrete order priced by the cubic yard at the specified strength. Show the volume arithmetic so the customer can check it. Several states cap residential deposits, so confirm your contractor board’s limit before printing a figure.

Should I collect for the concrete before pour day?

Yes, and the funds should have cleared, not merely been sent. A dispatched load cannot be returned, a canceled one still costs money, and a pump is a second vendor with its own minimum. Once the trucks roll you have converted the customer’s money into a permanent improvement on their property, and your leverage goes with it.

What do I say when a customer refuses to pay because the slab cracked?

Point at the page they signed. Concrete cracks as it cures and moves, and control joints direct where that happens rather than preventing it. A signed cracking disclosure with the joint plan drawn on it, plus photos of the joints actually cut to depth and spacing, turns a withheld balance into a conversation about workmanship standards instead of surprise.

When is final payment due on a driveway that cannot be driven on yet?

At strip, saw-cut, and cleanup, if your contract says so. Define completion as your scope being finished rather than as the cure period expiring, otherwise you are financing seven days of waiting during which nothing you do can improve the outcome. Hand over the cure and deicing instructions at the same walkthrough where you present the invoice.

How do I bill for rock, bad soil, or a pump nobody expected?

With unit prices written into the contract before the job starts: per cubic yard of over-excavation, per ton of imported base, hourly with equipment for rock, and a setup plus hourly figure for a pump. Include a stated quantity in the base price, then photograph and measure anything beyond it. The customer already agreed to the rate, so the change order is arithmetic.

What is retainage and how should I price for it?

It is a percentage of each progress payment held back by a general contractor or owner, commonly until the whole project is complete. For a concrete sub who finishes early, that money can sit for many months after the work is done. Find the retainage percentage and release condition before you bid, and treat the held amount as delayed cash rather than as profit you already have.

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This article is general information, not professional or tax advice.