TERMS AND CONDITIONS

Between us, Hoye Web Consulting,  Inc. and you, [Client].

Summary

We will always do our best to fulfill your needs and meet your goals, but sometimes it’s best to have a few things written so we both know what’s what, who should do what and what happens if stuff goes wrong. In this contract, you won’t find complicated legal terms or long passages of unreadable text. We have no desire to trick you into signing something that you might later regret. We want what’s best for the safety of both parties now.

In short

You [Client] are hiring us Hoye Web Consulting to design and develop a website for the estimated total price as outlined in our proposal. It’s a little more complicated, but we’ll get to that.

What Do Both Parties Agree To Do?

As our customer, you have the power and ability to enter this contract on behalf of your company or organization. You agree to provide us with everything that we must complete the project—including text, images, and other information—as and when we need it and in the required format. You agree to review our work, provide feedback and approval promptly too. Deadlines work two ways, and any dates we set together ’ll also bound you. You also agree to stick to the payment schedule set out at the end of this contract.

We have the experience and ability to perform the services you need from us, and we will carry them out in a professional and timely manner. Along the way, we will endeavor to meet all the deadlines set, but we can’t be responsible for a missed launch date or a deadline if you have been late in supplying materials or have not approved or signed off our work on-time at any stage. On top of this, we’ll also maintain the confidentiality of any information that you give us.

Getting Down to the Nitty-Gritty

Design

If we are designing your website, we’ll create designs for the look-and-feel, layout, and functionality of your website. This contract includes one major design plus the opportunity for you to make up to two rounds of revisions. If you’re not happy with the designs at this stage, you will pay us in full for all the work that we have produced until that point and you may either cancel this contract or continue to commission us to make further design revisions at our standard design rates.

HTML and CSS Layout Template

If the project includes HTML markup and CSS templates, we’ll develop these using valid HTML and CSS code. The landscape of web browsers and devices changes regularly and our approach is to look forward, not back. With that in mind, we will test all our markup and CSS in current versions of all major desktop browsers to ensure that we make the most of them. Users of older or less capable browsers or devices will experience a design appropriate to the capabilities of their software.

We do not cater to people using Microsoft Internet Explorer 7 and below and cannot predict the behavior of that browser.

We also test that these templates perform well on Apple’s iPad. We don’t test old or abandoned browsers, for example, Microsoft Internet Explorer 7 or 6 for Windows or Mac, previous versions of Apple’s Safari, Mozilla Firefox or Opera unless otherwise specified. If you need us to consider these older browsers, we will charge you at our standard old browser rate for any necessary additional design work, development and testing.

Text Content

We are not responsible for writing or inputting any text copy unless we specified it in the original estimate. We’ll be happy to help, and besides the estimate, we will charge you at our standard copywriting or content input rate.

Photographs

You will supply us with photographs in digital format. If you buy stock photographs, we can suggest vendors of stock photography.

Changes and Revisions

We know from plenty of experience that fixed-price contracts are rarely beneficial to you, as they often limit you to your first idea about how something should look, or how it might work. We don’t want to limit either your options or your opportunities to change your mind.

The estimate/quotation prices at the beginning of this document are based on the amount of work we estimate we must accomplish everything that you have told us you want to achieve. If you want to change your mind, add extra pages or templates or even add new functionality, that won’t be a problem. However, you will be charged and these additional costs will need to be agreed to before the extra work starts. The additional work will affect deadlines, and they will be moved accordingly. We’ll be up front about all of this if it makes sure we’re all on the same page before proceeding. We may also ask you to put requests in writing so we can keep track of changes. If the nature or functions of the project change during the process, we reserve the right to deem the current project canceled. You will pay us in full for all the work we have done and may commission us to complete the extra project based on the new requirements. These will require a new quote and contract.

Website Support Period

You will receive email support for 30 days after we deploy your site (out live). Hoye Web Consulting encourages you to use this time to carefully, and, with a WordPress site, load your information and process several test entries to become familiar with your new design’s functionality. After 30 days, there will be a charge for support depending on the frequency and complexity of your questions/edits. We limit the support period to the troubleshooting and fixing of items/content/functionality as specified in the initial proposal. Support or additional training requirements will be considered additional work and invoiced at the applicable rate.

Important Note about Website Security

The security of your website is your responsibility. You must keep your plugins and your WordPress version up to date via your website dashboard. If you do not, you risk being hacked. A security plugin can be added, but if it’s added after you have problems, then chances are your problems will continue. We offer Website Care Plans to help you with keeping your site updated for a monthly fee. However, if you contact us after trouble has begun, we cannot guarantee your site’s security.

Legal stuff

We can’t guarantee that the functions in any web page templates or a completed website will always be error free. So we can’t be liable to you or any third party for damages, including lost profits, lost savings or other incidental, consequential or special damages arising out of the operation of or inability to operate this website and any other web pages, even if you have advised us of the possibilities of such damages.

If any provision of this agreement shall be unlawful, void, or for any reason is unenforceable, then that provision shall be deemed severable from this agreement and shall not affect the validity and enforceability of any remaining provisions.

Copyrights

You guarantee to us that all elements of text, graphics, photos, designs, trademarks, or other artwork that you provide us to include in the website are owned by you or that you have permission to use them.

When we receive your last payment, we automatically assign copyright: You own the graphics and other visual elements that we create for you for this project.

We’ll give you a copy of all files, and store them safely, as it does not require us to keep them or provide any native source files we used to make them.

You also own text content, photographs and other data you provide, unless someone else owns them. We own the markup, CSS and other code and we license it to you for use on only this project. We love to show off our work and share what we have learned with other people, so we reserve the right to display and link to your completed project as part of our portfolio and to write about the project on websites, in magazine articles and books about web design.

Payments

We are sure you understand how important it is for a small business that you pay the invoices we send you promptly. As we’re also sure you’ll want to stay friends, you agree to stick tight to the following payment schedule: 50% deposit up front (non-refundable*)
30% deposit when the prototype is agreed to and signed off
20% balance once the website is ready to launch

*50% deposit is non-refundable. There is a seven-day grace period for a refundable deposit if the project has not been started or no work has been done.

But where’s all the horrible small print?

Just like a parking ticket. You can’t transfer this contract to anyone else without our permission. This contract stays in place and need not be renewed. If one part of this contract becomes invalid or unenforceable, the remaining parts of it remain in place. Although the language is simple, the intentions are serious, and this contract is a legal document.

This agreement is a variation of the original Contract Killer template by Andy Clarke.