17hats Payment Reminder Alternative: 5 Lighter Tools That Chase Invoices Harder (Without Replacing Your CRM)

17hats is good at a lot of things. Leads, questionnaires, contracts, workflows, invoices, all in one place. What it's not great at is the part that happens after the invoice goes out and the client goes quiet.

If you've gone looking for a 17hats payment reminder alternative, you've probably hit the same wall: the built-in reminders exist, but they're a nudge, not a chase. This post rounds up five lighter tools that handle the follow-up while you keep 17hats for everything else.

Where 17hats invoice reminders fall short

To be fair to 17hats: it does send reminders. You can schedule an email before the due date, on the due date, and after. For a client who simply forgot, that's often enough.

The trouble starts with the client who didn't forget. Here's where 17hats invoice reminders are limited in practice:

• A fixed, short sequence. You get a handful of reminder slots on a preset timing. Once those fire, the invoice just sits there overdue. There's no "keep going every few days until it's paid" mode.
• One tone for every stage. The day-3 nudge and the day-30 nudge come from the same template. There's no escalation from friendly to firm to final notice.
• No automatic late fees. You can put a late fee on the invoice, but applying it is a manual step. Clients learn fast that the fee is theoretical.
• Weak visibility. You can see an invoice is unpaid. You can't easily see who's been reminded how many times, who opened what, and which accounts need a human call.
• Email only. No SMS, no WhatsApp. For clients who live in their texts, the email reminder is invisible.

It's just that 17hats late payment follow up was built as a feature, not as the product. A dedicated chaser is built the other way round.

The approach: keep 17hats, add a chaser

You don't need to migrate. Every tool below sits beside 17hats rather than replacing it.

The connection usually works one of three ways:

1. Zapier or Make. 17hats has a Zapier integration. When an invoice is created or marked unpaid, push it to the chaser. When it's paid, push that back.
2. Through your accounting software. If 17hats syncs to QuickBooks Online, some chasers read invoice status straight from QuickBooks.
3. Manual or CSV. For a small client list, you paste invoices in once a week.

5 dedicated 17hats payment reminder alternatives

1. Saldetto

Saldetto is built for exactly this gap: you invoice somewhere else, and it handles the chase. You add an invoice with an amount and due date, pick a sequence, and it sends reminders on schedule until the invoice is marked paid.

What it does well:

• Escalating sequences that shift tone as the days pass, from a soft pre-due heads-up to a firm final notice.
• Sends from your own email address, so replies land in your inbox and clients don't see a third-party sender.
• Late fee rules you set once. The reminder shows the updated balance automatically.
• A clean overdue view: who's been chased, how many times, who's ignoring you.

Where it's thinner: It's not a CRM and doesn't pretend to be. No contracts, no client portal for booking. That's the point, but if you wanted one tool to do everything, this isn't it.

Pricing: Flat monthly plan, no per-invoice or percentage fees.

Best for: Solo operators and small studios who love 17hats for the front end and just need someone to keep knocking on the door after the invoice goes out.

2. Paidnice

Paidnice is a reminder and late fee engine that hooks into Xero and QuickBooks Online. If your 17hats invoices sync into one of those, Paidnice sees them and takes over the follow-up.

What it does well:

• Automatic late fees and interest applied directly on the accounting side.
• Reminder sequences plus statements, so clients with several open invoices get one consolidated view.
• Genuinely automatic once wired up.

Where it's thinner: It's only as good as your accounting sync. If 17hats invoices don't land cleanly in Xero or QuickBooks, you'll be fixing sync issues instead of chasing invoices.

Pricing: Roughly $20 to $50 a month depending on invoice volume. Check current tiers.

Best for: 17hats users already running everything through Xero or QuickBooks who want fees enforced without lifting a finger.

3. Chaser

Chaser is the heavier option here. It's proper accounts receivable software with sequences, a payment portal, call reminders, and reporting.

What it does well:

• Multi-step escalation with different senders at different stages, so the final notice can come from "the studio" rather than from you.
• Call and SMS reminders alongside email.
• Solid reporting on days sales outstanding and who pays late consistently.

Where it's thinner: It's built for finance teams. The setup is longer, the interface assumes you know AR jargon, and the price reflects that. For a one-person photography business, most of it goes unused.

Pricing: Starts around $40 to $50 a month and climbs quickly with volume and features.

Best for: 17hats businesses that have grown to a few hundred invoices a year and want a real AR function without hiring for it.

4. Upflow

Upflow leans on a client-facing payment portal. Reminders link to a page where the client sees every open invoice and can pay right there.

What it does well:

• Portal plus reminders in one flow. The chase and the pay button are the same click.
• Team assignment if more than one person handles collections.
• Free tier for low volume.

Where it's thinner: It's aimed at B2B companies with an AP department on the other side. For consumer clients (couples, families, individuals), the portal is more friction than help. It also expects an accounting integration rather than a manual list.

Pricing: Free plan for basic use, paid plans from around $100 a month.

Best for: 17hats users with business clients who route invoices through accounts payable and would benefit from a self-serve statement.

5. Zapier + Gmail (the DIY route)

Before paying for anything, you can build a rough chaser from 17hats, Zapier, and Gmail. Trigger on invoice due, add delays, send templated emails, stop the sequence when a paid trigger fires.

What it does well:

• Cheap. If you're already on a Zapier plan, it's nearly free.
• Total control over wording and timing.

Where it's thinner: Stopping a sequence when a client pays midway is fiddly, and one broken zap means one client gets a "final notice" on a paid invoice. You also get no overdue dashboard; you're reading Zap history.

Pricing: Zapier plan cost, from about $20 a month for multi-step zaps.

Best for: Technical folks with a small client list who'd rather tinker than subscribe.

Quick comparison

| Tool | Runs alongside 17hats via | Escalating sequences | Auto late fees | SMS | Price feel |

|---|---|---|---|---|---|

| Saldetto | Zapier or manual add | Yes | Yes | Depends on plan | Low, flat |

| Paidnice | Xero / QuickBooks sync | Yes | Yes | No | Low to mid |

| Chaser | Accounting sync | Yes, multi-sender | Limited | Yes | Mid to high |

| Upflow | Accounting sync | Yes, portal-based | No | No | Free to mid |

| Zapier + Gmail | Native 17hats trigger | Only what you build | No | No | Low |

Which one should you pick?

The honest answer depends on what "17hats vs dedicated payment reminder tool" means for your business.

• If you invoice fewer than 30 clients a month and just want the follow-ups to happen without you thinking about them, Saldetto is the lightest fit. Set the sequence, mark invoices paid, done.
• If your books already live in Xero or QuickBooks and late fees are your main lever, Paidnice does the enforcement part best.
• If you've grown into a small team with hundreds of invoices and real AR reporting needs, Chaser is the one worth the price.
• If your clients are companies with AP departments, Upflow's portal removes the "can you resend that?" loop.
• If you'd rather build than buy, start with the Zapier route, and set a calendar reminder to check whether it's still working.

Whichever you choose, get the wording right before you automate it. The payment reminder email generator will draft a sequence you can drop straight into any of these tools, and the late fee calculator will tell you what a fair fee looks like before you switch it on.

17hats can keep running your business. It just doesn't need to be the one chasing your money.