Terms & Conditions
What are we agreeing to?
Me/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.
Important: A note on WordPress & Theme/Builder
Unless otherwise agreed, we deliver websites using WordPress CMS, WPAstra Theme and Beaver Builder Page Builder. Any hosting we provide is via Cloudways (Digital Ocean). These platforms/tools have been selected for their performance, flexibility, security and the fact that they are long-established and well-supported tools in the website design and build space.
Our start date is provisional upon the following:
- A signed Web Design Agreement.
- A non-refundable payment of 50% of the total invoice.
- All graphics and images via shared folder (if agreed).
- Written content – Fully proofed (unless we are doing your copy).
IMPORTANT: All copy should be supplied in its final, fully proofed form. Should you wish to make changes to the copy you will be given access to do so on handover. If you would like me to make these changes for you – this is no problem at all but will be subject to an additional cost (billed at a standard hourly rate). This cost will be added to the final invoice.
Quotes / Estimates are only valid for 30 days only.
You are welcome to push back the start date of your project at any time, but please be aware that should this time period expire, an additional admin may be charged to re-scope the project and to cover time spent re-familiarising ourselves with the job requirements.
We create designs that adapt to the capabilities of many devices and screen sizes. We create them iteratively and use predominantly WordPress and Beaver Builder so we won’t waste time mocking up every template as a static visual. You’ll have plenty of opportunities to review our work and provide feedback. We’ll share a development site with you and we’ll have regular contact by Email, WhatsApp or occasionally phone.
If, at any stage, you change your mind about what you want to be delivered or aren’t happy with the direction our work is taking, you’ll pay us in full for the time we’ve spent working until that point and may terminate this contract.
TEXT/WRITTEN CONTENT
Unless agreed separately, we’re not responsible for changing the spelling and grammar of your supplied content. You will have access to your site on handover and you can make any changes to your written content then. If you ask us to make the changes, these will be done at our standard hourly rate.
GRAPHICS AND PHOTOGRAPHS
You should supply graphic files in an editable, vector digital format. You should supply photographs in a high-resolution digital format. If you choose to buy stock photographs, we can suggest stock libraries. If you’d like us to choose photographs for you, we can provide a separate estimate or bill per hour.
BROWSER TESTING
We test our work in current versions of major desktop browsers including those made by Apple (Safari), Google (Chrome) and Mozilla Firefox. We won’t test in older versions unless agreed separately. If you need an enhanced design for an older browser, we can provide a separate estimate for that.
Browser testing no longer means attempting to make a website look the same in browsers of different capabilities or on devices with different size screens. It does mean ensuring that a person’s experience of a design should be appropriate to the capabilities of a browser or device.
MOBILE BROWSER TESTING
Testing using popular smaller screen devices is essential in ensuring that a person’s experience of a design is appropriate to the capabilities of the device they’re using.
We test our designs in:
- iOS: Safari and Google Chrome
- Android: Google Chrome
We won’t test specific Android devices, or other mobile browsers unless we agreed separately. If you need us to test using these devices, we can provide a separate estimate.
TECHNICAL SUPPORT
We’re not a website hosting company so we don’t offer support for website hosting, email or other services relating to hosting unless you decide you would like us to look after the hosting side of things under one of our monthly maintenance agreements. Our current preferred hosting partner is Cloudways as they provide an incredibly robust, secure and speedy environment for all websites. Otherwise, you may already have professional hosting and you might even manage that hosting in-house; if you do, great. If you don’t, we will recommend one of our preferred hosting providers. We can set up your site on a server, plus any statistics software such as analytics and will provide a separate estimate for that. Then, the updates to, and management of that server will be up to you.
WEBSITE SPEED
We will build each page to be as light and fast as possible, however, we can not guarantee the speed of your website as much of this depends on where it is hosted. We test all sites using either https://tools.pingdom.com or https://gtmetrix.com. If you would like us to optimise for any other service, we can provide a separate estimate for that.
SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMISATION (SEO)
We don’t guarantee improvements to your website’s search engine ranking, but the pages that we develop are accessible to search engines and built with best practices in mind. We use optimisation tools Yoast/SEO Press on your website to guarantee that all best practices have been followed.
CHANGES AND REVISIONS
Because we take the time at the beginning of your project to fully understand your brief, we tend to deliver exactly what you need in our first or second iteration of your website, and we offer two rounds of revisions to fine-tune anything that you would like changed as we want you to be completely happy with the finished result.
We don’t want to limit your ability to change your mind, but we need you to understand that random revisions and tweaks over and above the agreed specification can add in many hours or even days of work. The price at the beginning of this contract is based on the number of hours that we estimate we’ll need to accomplish everything you’ve told us you want to achieve, but we’re happy to be flexible. If you want to change your mind or add anything new, that won’t be a problem as we’ll provide a separate estimate for those additional tweaks.
SUPPLY OF FEEDBACK
We ask that you supply your feedback in a single email or document so that your requests can be done in one go rather than a bit here and a bit there. To keep things moving, each approval stage allows for 7 days for you to supply feedback. Failure to do so may incur a restart fee of no more than 25% of the total invoice.
SCOPE CREEP
Should either party need to update the scope of a project to achieve the desired outcome; these requests need to be submitted in writing. If these updates require a bit more work or the purchase of additional plugins – then both Parties will have to agree in writing to an updated cost for the project.
If the client does not provide the required approvals, feedback, or content for any 14-day period after a request has been initially made; the project is considered abandoned. All incomplete work will remain our property. The design and any paid fees or deposits made are non-refundable.
Clients wishing to restart an abandoned project will be subject to a 25% restart fee based on the total project estimate and the project work will commence subject to our availability. If the site is already live then the project is considered complete and final payment is due. The site remains our property until the final payment has been received.
On occasion to help clients spread the cost of their websites, we have agreed to launch the site before the final payment is made. However, as specified above the site remains our property until the final payment has been made, and if this is not received we reserve the right to take the site down, so it is no longer available to be viewed on the web.
REJECTED WORK
If you reject any of our work within the 7-day review period or do not approve subsequent work performed by us to remedy any points recorded as being unsatisfactory, and we, acting reasonably, consider that you have been unreasonable in any rejection of the work, we can elect to treat this contract as at an end and expect payment for the completed work.
CANCELLATION or TERMINATION OF A PROJECT
In the event of termination, the Client shall be liable to pay a further 25% of the total invoice plus any Expenses, Fees, and Additional Costs that may have been incurred through to the date of termination.
We love to show off our work, so we reserve the right to display all aspects of our creative work, including sketches, work-in-progress designs and the completed project on our portfolio and in articles on websites, in magazine articles and in books.
We’re sure you understand how important it is as a small business that you pay the invoices that we send you promptly and we ask that you adhere to the following schedule:
- 50% payment upfront and the final 50% before we give you access to the backend of your site (or 30 days from the start of the project – whichever occurs first).
- Account Details: Mettle Bank Account Account Name: Plume Web Design Account Number: 23-69-72
- Account Number 29328808
We issue invoices electronically. Our payment terms are 7 days from the date of invoice by BACS. All proposals are quoted in GBP and payments will be made at the equivalent conversion rate at the date the transfer is made.
You agree to pay all charges associated with international transfers of funds. The appropriate bank account details will be printed on our electronic invoice. We reserve the right to charge interest on all overdue debts at the rate of 2% per month or part of a month.
Warning:
Failure to pay the final amount will result in your site being removed from the internet until payment is made. Unfortunately, we are only able to keep the offline files associated with your website for a limited time (30 days).
Reinstating your site after this period will require a fresh design quote & possible admin fees.
Please be aware – in order to make space for other clients, we may well have to delete your files permanently after the 30-day period is up.
Neither of us can transfer this contract to anyone else without the other’s permission.
We both agree that we will adhere to all relevant laws and regulations in relation to our activities under this contract and not cause the other to breach any relevant laws or regulations.
This contract stays in place and need not be renewed. If for some reason 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 under the exclusive jurisdiction of English and Welsh courts.
By paying any part of our invoice you are thereby signifying your agreement to these terms.
Yvette Asker
September 2022