Invoice Reminder Effectiveness 2026: 76% More Likely to Get Paid [Data]

Key Takeaways

Businesses that follow up on 100% of overdue invoices are 76% more likely to be paid within a week than those that don’t (Chaser, 2026 Accounts Receivable Report).
AR automation users get paid within two weeks 71% of the time, versus 47% for manual follow-up, a 52% relative advantage (Chaser, 2026).
Combining SMS and email reminders lifts the two-week paid rate to 73%, versus 49% for email alone, a 49% relative advantage (Chaser, 2026).
Email remains the most-used reminder channel at 91% adoption, ahead of phone calls (56%), SMS (23%), WhatsApp (15%), and LinkedIn (10%) (Chaser, 2026).
99% of companies using AI in accounts receivable reduced their days sales outstanding, and 75% cut it by six days or more (Billtrust / Wakefield Research, 2025).
Invoices with a “Thank you” closing line are paid 89.61% of the time, above the 78.62% baseline paid rate across all invoices (FreshBooks, 1M+ invoices analyzed).

Businesses that follow up on 100% of their overdue invoices are 76% more likely to be paid within a week than those that skip some invoices, according to Chaser’s 2026 Accounts Receivable Report. That single gap, between consistent follow-up and inconsistent follow-up, sits underneath most of the data on what actually makes a payment reminder work. This roundup pulls together the newest sourced numbers on reminder cadence, automation, channel choice, and wording, and what each one is worth in practice.

Figure 1: Businesses that follow up on every overdue invoice are 76% more likely to be paid within a week than those that don’t. Source: Chaser, 2026 Accounts Receivable Report.

How much more effective is consistent follow-up than partial follow-up?

Substantially more effective, and the gap is not close. Chaser’s 2026 Accounts Receivable Report, based on 163 validated responses from finance professionals in the UK, Australia, and more than 20 other countries, found that businesses following up on 100% of their overdue invoices get paid within one week of the due date 28% of the time. Businesses that leave some invoices uncontacted, a group that made up 31% of respondents, get paid within a week only 16% of the time. That is a 76% relative improvement from consistency alone, before any automation, channel, or wording changes enter the picture. The finding lines up with a simple mechanical explanation: an invoice that never receives a reminder has no prompt competing for a customer’s attention against every other bill in their inbox.

Figure 2: Businesses that follow up on every overdue invoice get paid within a week nearly twice as often as those that don’t. Source: Chaser, 2026 Accounts Receivable Report.

Does accounts receivable automation actually get invoices paid faster?

Consistency is one thing a person can, in theory, replicate manually. In practice, most don’t, which is where automation shows up in the data. Of the businesses Chaser surveyed for its 2026 report, 43% had adopted AR automation software, and those users get paid within two weeks 71% of the time, compared to 47% for businesses still relying on manual follow-up, a 52% relative advantage. That gap holds even before accounting for what the software actually does day to day: sending the same reminder, on the same schedule, to every overdue invoice, without depending on someone remembering to do it.

Figure 3: AR automation users get paid within two weeks at a notably higher rate than businesses using manual follow-up. Source: Chaser, 2026 Accounts Receivable Report.

A separate, larger study reaches a similar conclusion from a different angle. Billtrust’s 2025 study, conducted by Wakefield Research among 500 finance decision-makers at North American companies with revenue over $250 million, found that 99% of companies currently using AI in accounts receivable had reduced their days sales outstanding, and 75% cut it by six days or more. The two studies measure different company sizes and different outcomes (paid-within-two-weeks rate versus DSO reduction), but both point the same way: software that runs the reminder process on a schedule consistently outperforms a person remembering to do it manually.

Figure 4: Nearly all companies using AI in accounts receivable reduced their days sales outstanding, and most cut it by six days or more. Source: Billtrust / Wakefield Research, 2025.

Is combining reminder channels more effective than email alone?

Yes. Businesses that combine SMS and email reminders get paid within two weeks 73% of the time, compared to 49% for businesses relying on email alone, a 49% relative advantage, per Chaser’s 2026 report. The result suggests reminders compete with an overcrowded channel: an email can sit unread in an inbox for days behind newsletters and other unopened mail, while a text message is more likely to be seen the same day it arrives, simply because most people check text messages far more often than a business inbox. That doesn’t make email obsolete. It remains the backbone of most reminder workflows and pairs well with a second channel rather than being replaced by one.

Figure 5: Combining SMS and email reminders outperforms sending email reminders on their own. Source: Chaser, 2026 Accounts Receivable Report.

Which channel do businesses actually use to send reminders?

Email, by a wide margin, even though it isn’t the top performer alone. 91% of the finance professionals Chaser surveyed in 2026 use email for reminder follow-ups, ahead of phone calls at 56%, SMS at 23%, WhatsApp at 15%, and LinkedIn at 10%. The gap between adoption and effectiveness is the more useful finding here: email is the default because it is free, automatable, and low-friction to send at scale, not because it is the single most effective channel on its own. Businesses that add a second channel, most often SMS or a phone call, are the ones showing up in the stronger collection numbers above.

Figure 6: Email dominates reminder-channel adoption, but adoption and effectiveness are not the same thing. Source: Chaser, 2026 Accounts Receivable Report.

Does the wording of a reminder or invoice matter, not just whether one is sent?

It does. FreshBooks’s analysis of more than 1 million small business invoices found that a simple “Thank you” closing line correlates with an 89.61% ultimate paid rate, comfortably above the 78.62% baseline paid rate across all invoices in the dataset regardless of wording. A stated late-fee note (“Interest”) performed even better, at 92.15%. Term length has a similar effect on speed rather than the ultimate paid rate: invoices carrying a 7-day term get paid within a week 58.05% of the time, versus 40.22% for a 30-day term. None of this proves a polite closing line causes payment by itself, but it does show that reminders and invoices with a clear, specific ask outperform vague ones, a pattern that shows up in the reminder-cadence data above too: specific, consistent follow-up beats an ambiguous or absent one.

Reminder approach	Paid outcome	Comparison
Follow up on 100% of overdue invoices	28% paid within 1 week	vs. 16% for partial follow-up
AR automation software	71% paid within 2 weeks	vs. 47% for manual follow-up
SMS + email combined	73% paid within 2 weeks	vs. 49% for email alone

Table 1: The three biggest reminder-effectiveness gaps in Chaser’s 2026 data: follow-up consistency, automation, and channel combination. Source: Chaser, 2026 Accounts Receivable Report.

What does inconsistent reminding actually cost a business?

Time, mostly, and the bill is larger than the reminder-cadence numbers alone suggest. 65% of mid-sized US businesses spend an average of 14 hours a week on payment-collection admin, according to a Wakefield Research survey commissioned by Intuit QuickBooks. That is close to two full business days a week spent chasing money that is already owed, on top of whatever time goes into sending invoices in the first place. A reminder sequence that runs on autopilot is, in practical terms, a way of buying that time back rather than just a collections tactic.

The Bottom Line

The 2026 data is consistent across every study cited here: reminders work, but how they’re sent matters as much as whether they’re sent at all. Following up on every overdue invoice, not just some of them, is worth a 76% swing in the odds of getting paid within a week. Automation adds another measurable gain on top of that, and combining channels rather than relying on email alone adds a third. None of these levers require a bigger team, just a more consistent process. A BillyPaid payment reminder automates that follow-up on every invoice by default, so getting paid stops depending on someone remembering to send the next nudge.

Frequently Asked Questions

How much more likely are businesses to get paid when they follow up on every overdue invoice? 76% more likely to be paid within one week of the due date, according to Chaser’s 2026 Accounts Receivable Report. Among businesses that follow up on 100% of their overdue invoices, 28% get paid within a week, compared to just 16% of businesses that leave some invoices uncontacted.

Does accounts receivable automation software actually get invoices paid faster? Yes. Businesses using AR automation software are 52% more likely to be paid within two weeks than those relying on manual processes, per Chaser’s 2026 report: 71% of automation users get paid within two weeks, versus 47% of businesses using manual follow-up. Separately, a 2025 Billtrust and Wakefield Research study of 500 finance decision-makers found 99% of companies using AI in accounts receivable reduced their days sales outstanding, with 75% cutting it by six days or more.

Is combining reminder channels more effective than sending email alone? Yes. Businesses that combine SMS and email reminders are 49% more likely to be paid within two weeks than those relying on email alone, according to Chaser’s 2026 Accounts Receivable Report: 73% of SMS-plus-email users get paid within two weeks, compared to 49% of email-only users.

Which channel do most businesses actually use to send payment reminders? Email, by a wide margin. 91% of businesses use email for reminder follow-ups, according to Chaser’s 2026 Accounts Receivable Report, ahead of phone calls at 56%, SMS at 23%, WhatsApp at 15%, and LinkedIn at 10%. Email is the most-used channel, but the same report found it is not the most effective one on its own.