Studio Queues Team · Last updated June 24, 2026
Learn how much commission deposit to require and handle refunds legally. Covers standard range, non-refundable terms, and legal considerations.
You ask for "a deposit." The amount changes depending on your mood. Sometimes it's 25%. Sometimes it's 50%. Sometimes you forget to specify and the client just sends whatever. You don't have a real policy, just vibes.
Two weeks into a project, the client asks for their deposit back. You caved last time because you weren't sure if you could legally say no. You suspect you're either leaving money on the table by being too soft, or losing money to cancellations you should have been protected against, and you can't tell which.
This article is the policy. How much to ask for, when to ask for more, the legal distinction between a deposit and a retainer (which actually matters), the case for non-refundable terms, and the language that has to be in your TOS for any of this to hold up.
A commission deposit is a partial payment made at booking, applied toward the total cost, that confirms the client's slot and starts the work.
The word "deposit" gets used loosely. Legally, the way the payment is structured affects what can and can't happen with it later. Two terms that matter:
Deposit. A partial payment toward a total purchase price. Generally applied to the final balance. In most jurisdictions, deposits are presumed refundable unless explicitly contracted otherwise, and even then "non-refundable deposit" language is sometimes challenged successfully in court.
Retainer. A payment for the artist's time, availability, or commitment to the project, regardless of whether the work is completed. Retainers are generally easier to keep non-refundable because they pay for something distinct from the deliverable (the booking itself, the slot in the queue, the time committed).
The practical translation: if your TOS calls the upfront payment a "deposit" and you want it non-refundable, you may be on weaker legal ground than if you call it a "non-refundable booking fee" or a "non-refundable retainer." Same money, different legal frame. Talk to a lawyer for jurisdiction-specific advice, but the naming matters.
For the rest of this article, "deposit" is the common usage of the term and is what most artists use in practice. Where the legal distinction matters, it's flagged.
The standard range is 30 to 50 percent of the total commission price.
30 percent is the floor for most commission work. Lower than this and your booking-stage protection thins out. If a client cancels at sketch, 30% covers the time you've put in. Less than 30% and you're potentially in the hole on cancellations.
50 percent is the upper end of standard practice. Half up front, half on delivery, no milestones in between. Used by many artists who don't run a full milestone structure. Higher upfront protection, more friction for clients who balk at large deposits.
40 percent is the common middle ground when there's no specific reason to go higher or lower.
When to ask for more than 50 percent:
When to consider less than 30%:
Don't go below 25% as a policy floor. Below 25% and the deposit stops doing the job it's there for, which is to make cancellation cost the client something.
This is where most artists get nervous. The question of whether a "non-refundable deposit" can actually be enforced if a client demands their money back.
The honest answer is "it depends."
It depends on jurisdiction. Different countries and US states treat refund policies differently. Some are very merchant-friendly. Some default to consumer protection that overrides specific TOS language.
It depends on what the payment is called. As above, "non-refundable retainer" tends to hold up better than "non-refundable deposit" in most common-law jurisdictions, because the retainer pays for something specific (the booking, the time held) rather than a partial purchase of an unfinished good.
It depends on what work has been performed. A "non-refundable deposit" before any work has been done is harder to defend than one where you've already delivered a sketch. Courts and chargeback processes tend to look at whether the merchant has provided value.
It depends on the payment processor. PayPal, Stripe, and credit card networks have their own dispute processes that don't always honor merchant terms. A clearly written non-refundable clause in your TOS doesn't guarantee a win in a chargeback dispute, but it improves your evidence position.
The practical guidance:
Use the retainer framing rather than the deposit framing in your TOS. Either call the upfront payment a "non-refundable retainer" that covers your booking commitment and initial work, or structure it as a deposit that's "refundable in full only if cancellation occurs before work begins, and otherwise applied to work performed."
Tie non-refundability to specific events. "Non-refundable once the sketch has been delivered" is more enforceable than blanket "non-refundable from the moment of payment." Tying refundability to milestones (the milestone payments structure) gives the policy specific triggers.
Always record the policy agreement at intake. A click-to-accept TOS at submit creates the record that the client agreed to the refund policy before paying. Without that record, even a well-written policy is hard to enforce. The full breakdown is in the click-to-accept TOS guide.
Build in a partial-work clause. "Refund of unworked portion of deposit if cancellation occurs before delivery" is much more defensible than absolute non-refundability. The client gets back what hasn't been earned, you keep what has.
Not legal advice. The framing above is the general pattern across common-law jurisdictions. Get a lawyer to review the specific language for your situation.
The policy you put in your TOS is one thing. The policy you actually run is sometimes different, and that's fine if you're deliberate about it.
The strict-policy default:
This holds up legally in most cases. It's fair to both sides. It gives clients an out if circumstances change, and gives you protection against frivolous cancellations.
The flex case:
A long-time client has a real reason to cancel. Family emergency, financial issue, change in scope they need to handle. Your policy says non-refundable. You can choose to issue a refund anyway as a goodwill gesture. The policy gave you the option to say no, you're choosing to say yes. This is a strength, not a weakness.
The thing to avoid: caving on the policy because the client got angry, not because the situation warranted it. The first time you refund a non-refundable deposit to avoid conflict, you've trained future clients to push when they want their money back. The policy stops being a policy.
Set the strict policy in the TOS. Hold the line when the policy applies. Choose mercy on the cases where the situation actually calls for it, not on the cases where the client raised their voice.
The deposit is the first payment in a milestone structure. On a 30/30/40 split, the 30 percent at booking is the deposit. Same money, same protection, just labeled as the first milestone instead of a separate concept.
For artists running a milestone structure, the "deposit policy" and "milestone 1 release" are the same thing. The policy considerations from above (retainer framing, partial-work clauses, click-to-accept TOS) apply to milestone 1 specifically. The rest of the milestones follow the same logic with their own deliverable-based release triggers.
For artists not running milestones, the deposit is the only upfront payment and the rest is due on delivery. The deposit policy carries more weight because there's no intermediate payment buffer. A larger deposit (50% rather than 30%) is more common for non-milestone structures because the cancellation risk hits the deposit directly.
Studio Queues handles deposit collection at intake, with the click-to-accept TOS recorded at the same moment. The deposit amount is set when the commission is booked, the funds collect into the platform, and the policy is on record before any work starts. The argument about whether the deposit is refundable never happens at week three because the agreement was made at week zero with a timestamp.
The deposit policy isn't complicated. The trap is letting it stay vague and getting caught later when a client tests it.
Set the percentage in writing (30 to 50 percent, weighted to where the work actually is). Call it a non-refundable retainer in the TOS. Tie any non-refundability to specific events (work performed, deliverables released). Record the agreement at intake with a click-to-accept. Hold the policy when it applies, choose mercy when the situation calls for it.
That's the whole policy. Use the language in this article as a starting point, get a lawyer to review the specific wording, and stop running deposits on vibes.
