The norm is what works best for you not necessarily your client. In this economy it is best to keep new clients on a short leash  and a limited line of credit until they prove themselves. You might want to consider an accommodation to your good clients with a demonstrated track record of timely payment. However, do it sparingly. If you check the older posts on SOT you will read of cases where even once good clients became problem clients. Remember, there is no loyalty in this business. You are only as good as your last title search, and a client will turn on you as soon as he finds an abstractor that will do the same work for $5.00 less.

I have seen several VM's or Title Companies advertising who made it seem that they are offering a good deal. Promises of high volume in return for discounts which either never materialize or decline a short time thereafter. It turns out that they are offering to pay less for a title search than the market value two years earlier. ...most of it would go into your gas tank. So in addition to timely payment...there has to be a reasonable profit.

In Connecticut the slow pay/no pay/volume discounts don't work because of our political organization. We do not have any county government. In most states the land records are kept in a county court house. In these states an abstractor can spend the entire day at a single court house, and perform 3 or 4 searches. In Connecticut we more than  100 cities and towns each of which maintains its own land records. Connecticut abstractors spend a lot of time on the road traveling between town halls each day. To do the same 3 or 4 title searches the Connecticut  abstractor may lose 2 hours of search time simply traveling from one town hall to the next. Someone called me a few weeks ago , and asked if I would do a current owner search for $45.00. It was laughable.  Four years earlier that same search would have cost them $75.00.