Send a professional contract in minutes — and actually get paid on time
Independent contractor agreements, freelance services agreements, and statements of work drafted from industry-standard patterns. Send, sign, and file — without buying a full legal stack.
ESIGN, UETA, and eIDAS recognised e-signatures. Free plan, no credit card required.
What goes wrong today
The day-to-day contract pain for freelancers & consultants — spelled out concretely, not dressed up.
You start work on a handshake because sending a 12-page Word doc looks heavy, then six weeks in the client is disputing the scope and you have nothing in writing that covers you.
You do have a contract, but it's the same template you found online in 2021 — no IP assignment clarity, no late-fee language, and no clear trigger for when you can stop work if invoices go unpaid.
When tax time, a lender application, or a new client's procurement team asks for your standard services agreement, you do not have one single version you can point at.
How FastContracts handles it
No magic — real product features mapped to the pain above.
A professional contract ready in minutes, not hours
Pick a services agreement or SOW template, fill in the parties, scope, fees, and timeline, and route it for signature. The document is drafted from patterns professional firms use — IP ownership, payment terms, late fees, suspension rights — not a copy-paste from a forum.
Clear IP and payment terms so you do not chase invoices
Templates include explicit IP ownership and licence wording (so you are not giving away the work for free), and late-fee and suspension-on-non-payment language so you have real leverage if a client slow-pays.
Master + SOW structure for repeat clients
Put the legal terms you reuse across every engagement in a master services agreement signed once, then fire off lightweight statements of work for each new project. You do not renegotiate the whole contract every time.
Audit trail for tax, lender, and enterprise procurement
Signed PDFs carry a tamper-evident audit trail. When a mortgage lender wants proof of income, an enterprise procurement team wants your signed MSA, or an accountant wants your 1099 contracts in one place, the files are the evidence.
Templates for freelancers & consultants
The agreements this segment actually uses, pre-built with the clauses you expect to see.
Why FastContracts for freelancers & consultants
Purpose-built for freelancers, consultants, and solo operators who need a professional contract out the door without a legal subscription stack.
Drafted with independent workers in mind
Templates assume the contractor retains ownership of pre-existing IP, that deliverables are clearly defined, and that the contractor can stop work on non-payment — the opposite of most enterprise templates, which are drafted for the buying side.
Fast to send, light on admin
Structured form fields for parties, scope, fees, and timeline. Fill in the blanks, send for signature, and move on. No buying a legal subscription stack to send one contract a month.
Works for enterprise clients too
When a larger client sends you their paper, you can counter with your MSA + SOW structure. The master + SOW pattern is the standard in B2B services and is what procurement teams expect.
Signed on a phone, from anywhere
Clients sign on whatever device they have in front of them. No 'I need to get to my laptop' — the signing flow is mobile-native and the signed PDF is in everyone's inbox within a minute.
Frequently asked questions
The questions freelancers & consultants ask before they commit.
Do I really need a contract for small freelance jobs?
The cheapest contract is the one that prevents a dispute. A short, signed services agreement with the scope, deliverables, fees, and late-fee terms is ten minutes of work that pays for itself the first time a client tries to expand the scope without expanding the fee. For hourly, long-running, or IP-heavy work, a written contract is essentially mandatory.
Independent contractor agreement vs. consulting agreement — which do I use?
Substantively they overlap. 'Independent contractor' is commonly used for longer engagements with more structured deliverables and often emphasises worker-classification language. 'Consulting' is often used for advisory work with a defined scope, milestones, and perhaps a retainer. Pick the template that better fits the commercial shape of the work; the core legal terms are similar.
Who owns the work I produce?
Under default US law, a contractor generally owns what they create unless the contract expressly assigns it to the client. Many client-provided templates assign all IP to the client; many of FastContracts' contractor-side templates retain IP with the contractor and license it to the client. Read the template before you send it, and make sure the IP terms match the commercial deal you agreed.
What if a client does not pay an invoice?
Templates include late-fee language (typically 1.5% per month on unpaid balances, subject to state limits), interest, and suspension-of-work rights on non-payment. Enforcement in court is a separate process, but a signed contract with clear payment terms is the leverage that gets most invoices paid before it comes to that.
Can I use these templates for international clients?
Yes, but think about governing law and dispute resolution explicitly. For a freelancer in the US working with a client in the EU, picking a governing law and a dispute forum (or an arbitration seat) that both sides find workable matters. The international-business template variant is drafted for exactly this case.
Ready to send your next project for signature?
Pick a template, fill in the fields, and route for signature. Your signed PDF comes back with a tamper-evident audit trail.
FastContracts provides contract templates and e-signature software. Templates are drafted from industry-standard patterns for informational purposes and are not legal advice. For high-stakes agreements, have a qualified attorney in your jurisdiction review the final document before signing. Read the full disclaimer.