How should I structure payments across project milestones? — answered by Engineer Saeed Baatiah
A common balanced split: 30% on signing to reserve the time and start work, 40% spread across milestones you can see and try yourself — not internal stages invisible to you — and 30% on launch with full access handed over. Tie every payment to a tangible deliverable named in the contract. Paying for "time elapsed" instead of "milestone delivered" is the single biggest cause of open-ended delay.