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You’ve got one. Maybe two.

The client whose name on the screen makes your shoulders climb up towards your ears. They’re not the one who vanished owing you money — that one’s easy, you just stop answering. This one’s trickier. They pay. Late, after two reminders and a “so sorry, cash is tight this month,” but they pay. That’s the hook. That’s why they’re still on your books.

Late payment is practically a national pastime here. Through the first half of 2025 the stack of invoices left unpaid past 30 days actually grew rather than shrank, going by Business Partners’ read of the Treasury numbers. The private-sector version is quieter: it’s the client who treats your payment terms as a loose suggestion.

So you carry them. And you keep losing, a little, every month.

Run the number you’ve been dodging

Two minutes tonight. Pick the client who came to mind in the first line — you already had one, don’t pretend you didn’t.

Write down what they pay you in a normal month. Then write down the hours they actually take. Not just the work. The chasing. The “quick question” that turns into a forty-minute call. The job redone because they changed their mind on a Friday afternoon. The Sunday-night WhatsApp you answered because you were scared not to.

Divide the rand by the hours. That’s your real rate on that client.

Most founders never sit down and do this. They feel the drag for years and never put a figure on it. The figure is almost always worse than the feeling.

An empty diary makes bad clients look good

The quiet stretch is exactly why you hold on. When the diary’s thin, every paying client feels load-bearing — even the one standing on your foot. You’ll deal with it when things pick up, you tell yourself. You won’t. You’ll be flat out, and they’ll still be there, still phoning on a Sunday.

So look now, while you’ve got the head space that December will rob you of. A draining client costs more than hours. They take up room — the patience, the goodwill, the corner of your brain that wakes you at 2am — that a better client could be using.

You’re not firing anyone tonight. You’re doing the sum, and you’re not looking away from the answer.

Before you shut the laptop:

• Write the name down. The actual name.
• Work out their true hourly rate — rand divided by every hour they really cost you.
• Pick one move: put their price up, set one firm boundary, or quietly start replacing them.

No big speech. No burnt bridge. Just a number, and one decision off the back of it.

Hit reply with the rate you worked out — or the boundary you keep flinching from. I’ll go first: mine was a client I hung onto a good two years past the point I knew better.