Name the debt, pick a deadline, and get a dated letter before action with the interest worked out. Built in this tab.
A bill sent, accepted and not paid. The letter references the invoice number and its due date.
Free today: 3/3 letters. All-Access removes the counter.
Nothing you type is uploaded — the letter is assembled in this tab and gone when you close it.
Every field starts with a value, so you can press the button before typing anything and read the whole letter. Interest is simple interest on the principal, counted from the day after the due date to the deadline — not to the date of the letter, because a letter that only demands today's interest invites a payment that stops the clock early.
A demand letter is the last cheap step before a claim. It states a debt, shows how it was worked out, gives a date to pay by, and says what happens if that date passes. It is not a threat and it is not a filing. What it buys you is a record: a dated document that says "on this day I told them what was owed and gave them fourteen days", which is the first thing a judge or a mediator asks about when a file lands on their desk.
The people who need one are almost never lawyers. A joiner chasing £4,860 for a kitchen fit. A freelancer whose invoice from March is still open in July. A tenant whose £1,800 deposit came back £600 short with no breakdown. A small agency that delivered a website and got "we'll sort it next month" for eleven weeks. All four have the same problem: the other side has stopped answering, and polite emails have stopped moving anything.
The letter changes the tone of the conversation because it changes what is at stake. A reminder email costs the recipient nothing to ignore. A letter that names a sum, a date, and a consequence costs them something to ignore, because the next document is a claim form with a court fee attached.
Strip away the legal language and a demand letter is five facts in a fixed order. Miss one and the letter reads as a complaint rather than a demand.
Interest is the part people get wrong most often, in both directions. Leaving it out is the more common mistake, because the amount looks small on a modest debt until you count the months.
The default rate in this tool is 12.75 per cent. That is not an arbitrary number: under the Late Payment of Commercial Debts (Interest) Act 1998, business-to-business debts in England and Wales carry interest at 8 per cent above the Bank of England base rate, and with the base rate at 4.75 per cent the statutory rate is 12.75 per cent. If the base rate moves, change the field — the tool does not look it up, because a rate it guessed silently would be worse than one you typed.
The arithmetic is simple interest, not compound: principal × rate ÷ 365 × days, counted from the day after the due date to the deadline date inclusive. A £4,860 invoice due on 28 February, with a letter dated 4 November and a deadline of 18 November, runs 263 days. That is £4,860 × 0.1275 ÷ 365 × 263, which comes to £446.49. The total demanded is £5,306.49. Under the same Act there is also fixed compensation for the cost of recovering the debt — £40 for a debt under £1,000, £70 up to £10,000, £100 above that — which is separate from interest and is not added automatically here, because it only applies to business debts and only in England and Wales.
If the contract sets its own rate, the contract wins, and it can be higher: 2 per cent a month is a common commercial term and works out at roughly 24 per cent a year. Usury limits cap what you can charge in most US states, and consumer debts are capped separately from commercial ones in the UK. Enter the rate you are entitled to, not the rate you would like.
Ridgeway Joinery, a four-person workshop in Bristol, fitted a kitchen in February for Harlow Interiors. The order was £9,720; £4,860 was paid on account and £4,860 fell due on invoice INV-2041, dated 28 February, terms 14 days. Nothing arrived. Three emails went unanswered, one phone call ended with "it's with our accountant".
On 4 November Ridgeway loads the invoice example, changes the names, keeps the amount at £4,860, sets the due date to 28 February, the letter date to 4 November, the deadline to 14 days, and leaves the rate at 12.75 per cent as a business-to-business debt. The letter comes out at just under one page. It opens with the sender and recipient blocks, then: the contract date, the invoice number and the balance outstanding. Then a paragraph headed "Amount claimed" with the principal, 263 days of interest at 12.75 per cent, and a total of £5,306.49. Then the deadline, stated as a calendar date, with the payment details. Then a final paragraph saying that if payment is not received by that date, a claim will be issued in the county court without further notice, with interest continuing and the court fee added.
Ridgeway sends it by first-class post with a certificate of posting, which costs nothing extra, and emails a PDF copy the same day. That combination matters: email proves it arrived instantly, and the postal copy with a certificate proves notice if the email is later denied. Nine days later £5,306.49 lands in the account. The letter took eleven minutes to write, and the only cost was a stamp.
A solicitor's letter before action costs £150 to £400 for a straightforward debt, and it does carry weight, because the reply goes to a professional rather than to you. A template downloaded from a stationery site costs £15 and arrives with three blank years in the dates and a rate that has been out of date since 2019. This tool sits between the two: the letter is assembled from your facts, the arithmetic is shown, and you can read it before it goes out. What it cannot do is tell you whether your claim is good, so for anything above a small claims limit, paying someone to read the letter is money well spent.
Fourteen days is the usual figure in England and Wales and in most US states, and seven days is used when the debt is already weeks overdue and you have written before. The deadline has to be long enough for a bank transfer to clear and for the other side to get advice. A deadline of 48 hours reads as pressure rather than a demand, and a court asked to award costs may say it was unreasonably short.
Only if a contract term, a statute or a course of dealing allows it. In England and Wales the Late Payment of Commercial Debts (Interest) Act 1998 sets 8 per cent above the Bank of England base rate for business-to-business debts, plus fixed compensation of 40, 70 or 100 pounds depending on the debt size. In the US, interest has to be in the contract or permitted by the state statute. This page does not decide which rule applies; you enter the rate and it does the arithmetic.
No. It is a letter, not a filing, and nothing is registered against the recipient. In England and Wales a letter before action is expected under the Practice Direction on Pre-Action Conduct before a claim is issued, and a party that issues without one can be penalised on costs. In the US it is a normal commercial step and some states require a written demand before certain statutory claims, such as mechanics liens or consumer protection claims.
No. It is a form that assembles the facts you type into the shape a demand letter usually takes. It does not check whether your claim is valid, whether the limitation period has run, whether the right entity is being addressed, or whether the rate you entered is lawful in your jurisdiction. For anything above a small claims limit, have a solicitor or attorney read it before it goes out.
The letter is evidence, not enforcement. If the deadline passes without payment or a substantive reply, the next step is a claim: small claims in England and Wales up to 10,000 pounds, or the equivalent limited-civil court in your US state. Keep the letter, the proof of posting and the reply. A dated letter with a reasonable deadline and a clear sum is the document a court will look at first.
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