Pay-Monthly Website Terms of Service
Summary:
We will always do our absolute best to fulfill your needs and meet and exceed your expectations, but it’s important to have things written down so that we both know what’s what, who should do what and when, and what will happen if something goes wrong. In this document you won’t find any complicated legal terms or long passages of unreadable text. We’ve no desire to trick you into agreeing to something that you might later regret. What we do want is what’s best for both parties, now and in the future.
We will always do our best to treat each and every website with the same care we would afford to our own website. You and your website are important to us. By paying for one of our Small Business Website plans, you automatically agree to the following, so please be sure you have read it fully and agree with it.
So in short;
You (paying user of our “Small Business Website” plan) are hiring us (SFWP INC.) to design, develop and provide maintenance for a website as outlined in our previous correspondence and in accordance with the plans and information available on our website. Of course it’s a little more complicated, but we’ll get to that.
What do both parties agree to do?
You: You have the authority to enter into this agreement on behalf of yourself, your company or your organisation. You’ll give us everything we need to complete the project as and when and in the format we need it. You’ll review our work, provide feedback and approval in a timely manner too. Deadlines work two ways, so you’ll also be bound by dates we set together. You agree to stick to the payment schedule set out at the end of this agreement.
Us: We have the experience and ability to do everything we’ve agreed with you and we’ll do it all in a professional and timely manner. We’ll endeavour to meet every deadline that’s set and on top of that we’ll maintain the confidentiality of everything you give us.
Design
We create look-and-feel designs, and flexible layouts that adapt to the capabilities of many devices and screen sizes. We love feedback because it helps to point us in the right direction, so you’ll have plenty of opportunities to review our work and provide feedback as we move through the process. We’ll share our development environment with you and have regular, possibly daily contact. If, at any stage, you’re not happy with the direction our work is taking, you’ll pay us in full for everything we’ve produced until that point and cancel this agreement.
Our Small Business Website plans come included with a free website refresh after a certain period of time. Our Starter plan qualifies for a free site refresh every three years, and the Enhanced and Ultimate plans qualify for a refresh every two years. This means that down the road as time passes and your website ages, we wil refresh your site for you at no extra cost; you simply continue paying the same price and we’ll refresh your site for you.
Text content
We’re not responsible for writing any text copy; for this service we use the text from your existing website, or new text that you’ll write for us, as outlined in our previous correspondence. If any new text needs to be written, this is your responsibility. If you’d like us to write new content or text for you, we can do so at our standard hourly rate of $75/hour.
Photographs
You will need to supply us with all relevant graphic files and photographs you would like us to use in the design of your site. Graphic files should in an editable digital format. You should supply photographs in a high resolution digital format. If you choose to use stock photographs, you may purchase the images yourselves and send them to us.
Content Management System
We create websites based on WordPress – the world’s most popular content management system. This gives us huge flexibility in the design of your website while being able to keep your costs down since we don’t have to start entirely from scratch.
Devices, Screen Sizes and Browsers
We will build your website in such a way that the functionality, usability and customer experience are fitting for the device type and screen size on which the website is viewed. Not all features available on a desktop browser are available on mobile devices, but we will ensure your website works well and looks great regardless of the screen size on which it is viewed – desktop, tablet, or mobile.
We will build your website with modern browsers in mind. It may still work properly on older and outdated browsers, but we make no guarantee of such.
Technical support
This agreement is for our Small Business Website Design plans, and stritcly includes only the features included in each plan, as listed on our website. Not all plans contain the same set of features, but will include some or all of the following, depending on the plan chosen.
Design of your website, hosting for your website, monthly maintenance, website backups and WordPress updates are included in all plans. Integration with Google Analytics, Search Console, and Facebook Pixels, and other services are included in the more expensive plans.
We do not provide support for your third-party email accounts or any other form of technical assistance as part of our plans. The only technical support we provide is that which is directly related to your website and the plan you are paying for.
Changes and revisions
We don’t want to limit your ability to change your mind. Not every type of website qualifies for our Pay-Monthly / Small Business Website plans, and while we want to be flexible to help as many as possible, sometimes we will need to charge extra based on what you’ve told us you want to achieve. If partway through the design process you want to change your mind or add anything new, we’ll review the changes to determine how much extra time it will add to the project. If the amount of time required is deemed by us to be too high, we can provide a separate estimate for how much those changes will cost.
Legal stuff
We can’t guarantee that our work will be error-free and so we are not liable to you or any third-party for damages, including but not limited to lost profits, lost savings or other incidental, consequential or special damages, even if you have advised us of them. While we will always endeavour to do our absolute best, mistakes can be made, servers can fail, internet can go out, and all manner of unforseen things. You agree to not hold us liable to you or any third-party for anything whatsoever, such as damages, including but not limited to lost profits, lost savings or other incidental, consequential or special damages. Finally, if any provision of this agreement shall be unlawful, void, or for any reason unenforceable, then that provision shall be deemed severable from this agreement and shall not affect the validity and enforceability of any remaining provisions.
If you are part of a regulated industry of any kind, it is strictly your responsibility to know the rules and regulations of your industry and to let us know if our design in any way breaches the rules. We are not professionals in every industry, and so we rely on you to know your industry and to direct us on how to keep your website, and its content, in line with the regulations.
Phew.
Copyrights
First, you guarantee that all elements of text, images or other artwork you provide are either owned by your good selves, or that you’ve received permission to use them.
Once the website is launched copyright will be automatically assigned as follows:
You’ll own the visual elements that we create for this project. You own all elements of text, images and data you provided, unless someone else owns them.
We’ll own the unique combination of these elements that constitutes a complete design and we’ll license it for your use, exclusively and in perpetuity for this project only, unless we agree otherwise. In easier to understand terms: you hold the copyright on the content and we hold the copyright on the way it’s arranged. You can’t duplicate this site and use it for another project, but the content still belongs to you for use elsewhere.
We love to show off our work and share what we’ve learned with other people, so we reserve the right to display and link to your project as part of our portfolio and to write about it on websites, in magazine articles, books and similar entities. We also reserve the right to place a link to our website in the footer of your website so visitors will know who created it for you.
If you should ever decide that you no longer wish to have your website with us anymore, your license to use the design of this project will be revoked and you will no longer be allowed to use this site, on our server or anywhere else.
Payments
We’re sure you understand how important it is as a small business that you pay the invoices that we send you promptly. As we’re also sure you’ll want to stay friends, so you agree to stick tight to the payment schedule.
We require automatic credit card payments to be authorized and each month we will charge your card for proper amount for the month ahead. If at any point you wish to cancel, you must notify us in writing. If charging your credit card fails, we will attempt to contact you to obtain updated payment information. We undestand that life is busy and staying on top of things is difficult sometimes. We want your website and your business to succeed, and so we will do everything we can to work with you to reinstate your payments. However, we do reserve the right to suspend the hosting at any time for any website where payment has failed or been declined and payment is overdue.
Because there is no upfront cost for the website design on our Pay-Monthly / Small Business Website plans, we require automatic payments to start before we do any work on your site. Yes, this means you will be paying us monthly throughout the design process. We aim to have each website done from start to finish within 30 days, but this really depends on you and how quickly you provide content for the website. Paying monthly during the initial design phase also helps to motivate you to provide the content to us so that we can launch your new website sooner.
But where’s all the horrible small print?
Just like a parking ticket, you can’t transfer this agreement to anyone else without our permission. This agreement stays in place and need not be renewed. If for some reason one part of this agreement becomes invalid or unenforceable, the remaining parts of it remain in place.
Although the language is simple, the intentions are serious and this agreement is a legal document under exclusive jurisdiction of Ontario courts.
We’re excited to be working with you!
Edward & Kate from stressfreewp