An invoice is directions to your money. Most of us write them the way we give directions in Lagos.
"Send me an invoice."
Three words you have been waiting for since the call ended. Now you are staring at a blank document wondering where the wallet address goes, and whether the person handling payments in Toronto knows what a network is.
So you do what everybody does. Paste the address into the chat, add "thanks!", then refresh your wallet every twenty minutes for two days.
Your Invoice Is Directions, Not Paperwork
We give directions by landmark here. "After the second speed bump, the house with the blue gate, ask for Iya Basira." Perfect, as long as the person coming has been there before.
Send a stranger from Ikeja with those directions and you will be on the phone at 7pm, describing a gate to someone reversing into a gutter.
A wallet address pasted into a chat is exactly those directions. Technically correct, missing everything a stranger needs. And your client's finance person is the stranger from Ikeja.
Say the Currency, Then Say It Again
Price the job in the thing you want to receive. If you want 500 USDT, the invoice says 500 USDT, not "₦750,000 worth of USDT".
The second a Naira figure goes on that page, somebody has to pick a rate. That somebody will not be you. Keep the invoice in the coin and check the rate yourself when the money lands.
The Street, Not Just the House Number
This is the line that costs people real money.
A wallet address on its own is a house number. Networks are the streets, and the same house number exists on several of them. Write the coin and the network, in full, on its own line. Then write it again in the email body, because people read one of the two.
Do not skip this. Send the right coin on the wrong network and the money is stuck in a place nobody can reach, not you, not your client, not support.
If the amount is serious, ask for one dollar first and wait for it to land. It feels awkward. It is much less awkward than the alternative.
Don’t Make Your Client Do Maths
Say who pays the network fee, in writing.
Leave it out and your $500 invoice arrives as $497 and change, and you are negotiating three dollars with a stranger in Berlin, by email, for nine days 😭
One line prevents all of it: "Network fees are paid by the sender. Amount expected on arrival: 500 USDT."
Everything a Normal Invoice Needs, Still
Getting paid in crypto does not excuse you from behaving like a business. Invoice number. Your name and your client's name. What you did, in words they can approve. Issue date and due date written the long way (17 Sep 2026), because day-first against month-first is a fight nobody wins.
No template you like? Mular has a free freelance invoice template on Figma. Duplicate it, add the coin, network and fee lines, and it is yours.
Then keep every one, with what that coin was worth in Naira the day it landed. No tax lecture from me, except this: the you of eighteen months from now would like those records to exist.
The Part Where I Admit This Isn’t For Everybody
I am not saying put a wallet address on every invoice you send.
Plenty of clients cannot pay one. Some finance departments can only send to a bank with a SWIFT code, and no amount of explaining moves them. If that is your client, take the bank route instead. No shame in it.
Crypto invoicing is for the client who already holds stablecoins. Otherwise, forcing it only makes you look difficult.
The Reframe
An invoice is not you asking to be paid. It is you removing every excuse not to pay you.
So write the directions for the stranger from Ikeja. House number, street name, and what time you close the gate. Once the money lands, you can go back to giving directions by landmark like a normal person.
Related reading, since you are here: How to get paid in crypto as a freelancer (the whole trip) and Invoice vs receipt (which document does what, and when).
An Invoice Your Client Can Actually Pay
Put your Mular USDT or USDC address on the invoice. What your client sends lands in a wallet you own, with nothing taken off the top for receiving it. When you want Naira, swap it in about 10 seconds and send it to your bank.*
Download Mular and open your free USDT, USDC, BTC and SOL accounts.
* Product details as at 17 Sep 2026. Receiving stablecoins into a Mular wallet is free. Sending to a Nigerian bank shows a ₦50 withdrawal fee, plus ₦50 stamp duty above ₦10,000. Fees change, so check the app before you confirm.
Written on 17 Sep 2026, after one too many "wait, which network?" messages. I have done the two-day refresh. I have also sent USDT to my own address on the wrong network and had to go and sit down quietly.