I ask for one third of the total, (labor & materials) at the contract signing, one third once work is started and balance upon completion of all services. I used to not do this on small jobs, anything under a grand and would do these without a contract, but learned my lesson the hard way. Last spring I agreed to do a job for a lady that owned and operated a string of child daycares in the area. It was just a small tape repair and ceiling repaint in one room. Thought this was going to be the beginning of a great business relationship, since the daycare centers require fairly regular maintance, repaints, hole patches, etc. Ended up having to take them to small claims court, which I was successful in getting a judgement for the $700 plus my court expenses, but good luck collecting on a judgement in this state. They didn't even bother to show up for court and all I could do with the judgement was to file a lien on their house, since this work was done in their home, not their business. That's all well & good, but until they decide the sell the house it's doubtful that I'll ever collect. Really ticked me off, because I know people who at that time had their kids in the deadbeat's daycare and they were paying in the neighborhood of $200 per wk to these people. A little quick math, 3 locations, about 50-50 kids per site, x $200 per kid, they're grossing like $30,000 a week!! So it's not like they were short on $$ or anything.