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 down so that 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 do want what’s best for the safety of both parties, now and in the future.
In Short
You are hiring Kosta Housiadas to design and develop a website for the estimated total price as outlined in the proposal. Of course, it’s a little more complicated, but we’ll get to that.
What Do Both Parties Agree To?
As our customer, you have the power and ability to enter into this contract on behalf of yourself, company or organization. You agree to provide us with everything that we’ll need to complete the project – including text, images, and other information. You agree to review our work, provide feedback and approval in a timely manner too. Deadlines work two ways and you’ll also be bound by any dates that we set together. 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. We will endeavor to meet 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 that, we'll also maintain the confidentiality of everything you give us.
Key Details
Design
If we are designing your application we’ll create designs for the look-and-feel, layout, and functionality of your website. This contract includes one main 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'll pay us in full for the time we've spent working 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.
Browser Testing
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.
We test our work in current versions of major desktop and mobile browsers including those made by Apple (Safari) and Google (Chrome). The landscape of web browsers and devices changes regularly and our approach is to look forward, not back. Users of older or less capable browsers or devices will experience a design that is appropriate to the capabilities of their software.
Text Content
Unless agreed separately, we're not responsible for inputting text into your website and are not responsible for errors or omissions.
Graphics & Photographs
Any graphic files, like a logo, should be supplied in an editable vector format. Any photographs should be supplied in a high resolution digital format. If you choose to 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 your options or ability to change your mind.
The estimate/quotation prices at the beginning of this document are based on the amount of work we estimate we'll need to accomplish everything you told us you want to achieve. If you want to change your mind, or add anything new, that won't be a problem. However, you will be charged accordingly and these additional costs will need to be agreed to before the extra work commences. This additional work will affect deadlines and they will be moved accordingly. We’ll be upfront about all of this if and when it happens to make 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 significantly throughout the process, we reserve the right to deem the current project cancelled. At this point you will pay us in full for all the work we have done and may commission us to complete the new project based on the new requirements. This will require a new quote and contract.
Project Timeline & Conditions
The construction of your website will be done in phases. We can revise, tweak, and adjust each phase as much as necessary to achieve your desired outcome. Once you are happy with the results, we require written approval to move to the next phase.
Any change that requires us to move backwards into a previously approved phase will be considered a ‘change order’ and be billed at $75 per hour. You will be notified if any requests constitute a change order previous to the work being completed.
[ 50% Payment to Begin Work ]
Phase 1: Sitemap
Development of a simple “map” of your website. We need to account for all pages that will be included in your website and how they will be structured in terms of hierarchy.
Phase 2: Colors & Typography
We will create the color palette and & typography that will be used throughout your project. This could be based on or expanded upon your current branding, or completely custom if you don’t have any existing branding in place.
Phase 3: Homepage Design
We will design the header (with navigation), homepage and footer layout for your website. If your content hasn’t been supplied we will use placeholder text which we can be replaced.
Phase 4: Interior Page & Template Design
During phase 4 we will design one (1) interior page, plus any other ‘unique’ templated pages like a Blog page or Locations page. If your content hasn’t been supplied we will use placeholder text which we can be replaced.
[ 25% Payment Upon Approval of Phase 4 ]
Phase 5: All Content Due
At this point you’ll need to supply us with the final content for your website. This includes all text, photographs, logos, graphics, and/or assets that will need to be included in your website build.
If content hasn’t been supplied within 21 days of approval of Phase 4, the project will be billed in full and placed on “hold” until the content is completed. Any project on “hold” will have to be rescheduled into development once the hold has been lifted and could result in further delays due to the developers current workload.
Phase 6: Full Site Development
With all the design elements & content in place, we will finish developing the remainder of the pages in your sitemap. At the end of this stage your website will be nearly completed!
Phase 7: Pre-Launch Checklist
Once the full site has been approved, we will put it through a checklist to ensure everything is in place for a successful website launch. We will also select a day and time to launch your site.
[ 25% Balance Due + Change Orders (if applicable)]
Phase 8: Launch
During this phase we will point your domain to your newly designed site. This will require access to your domain registrar and DNS information (don’t worry if that sounds foreign, we can help you access this).
Phase 9: Testing & Debugging
Over the course of the next 30 days we will test and debug any issues with your site. This does not include making changes to previous phases, only fixing any unintended errors or omissions on our part.
Technical Support
You may already have professional website hosting, you might even manage that hosting in-house; if that’s the case, great. If you don’t manage your own website hosting, or your current hosting environment does not support the solution we are providing, we can set up an account for you at one of our preferred, third-party hosting providers. We will charge you a one-off fee for installing your site on this server, then the updates to, and management of that server, plus any support issues will be up to you.
You also have the option to choose us to manage your website hosting via our Care Plans. If so, your website will be hosted on our preferred partner's web servers, and we will manage your web hosting to free you from having to deal with any technical aspects; something most of our clients don’t want to do.
Legal stuff
We can’t guarantee that the functions contained in any web page templates or in a completed website will always be error-free and 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 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 any elements of text, graphics, photos, designs, trademarks, or other artwork that you provide us for inclusion in the website are either owned by your good selves, or that you have permission to use them. When we receive your final payment, copyright is automatically assigned as follows:
- You own the graphics and other visual elements that we create for you for this project.
- You also own text content, photographs and other data you provided 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’ll give you a copy of all files and you should store them really safely as we are not required to keep them or provide any native source files we used to make them.
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 in books about web design.
Payments
We are 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, you agree to stick tight to the following payment schedule.
- 50% payment upfront
- 50% balance once the application has been tested and everyone agrees it is ready to go live
NB: If you are unable to supply all of the right content at this stage, it does not mean we have not done our job. Once the site has been tested and is ready to go live, either with your content or placeholder images and dummy text, we will issue the final invoice. Once the final invoice is paid we will hand over the keys and show you how to put your own content in once it’s ready. If the final invoice is not paid within the credit terms we have given you, we are under no obligation to keep the site on our testing server or continue with the project in any way.
Care Plan Contract Agreement
A Care Plan is a month-to-month contract to provide ongoing services for your website. Ongoing website maintenance for updates, backups, licenses, security, support, and any edits is crucial to your website’s success. Due to the nature of technology and content management systems, monitoring and maintaining these aspects is a necessity.
Cancel Any Time
Care Plan commitment is on a monthly basis where each month's service is prepaid.
What Do Care Plans Include?
Managed Web Hosting
Your website will be hosted on our preferred partner's web servers so that it can be accessible to visitors across the world wide web. We carefully choose web hosting providers that are specifically optimized for WordPress, which guarantee 99.9% uptime.
Security
Like any software, your website is vulnerable to hackers and viruses. Our premium security platforms help protect your website against attacks that can infect or break it. This paired with off-site backups is the best plan you can have in place to protect your website.
Website Backups
Included in your care plan are scheduled website backups. Technology can be fickle some times, but should anything go wrong, we can have your site back up and running with minimal down time.
Software Updates
Most content management systems, especially open-sourced software like WordPress, are frequently updated for enhanced functionality and security. While these updates happen sporadically, we will download and install updates once a month (excluding crucial security updates, which will be installed as they become available). Updates will include any third-party plugins, software or applications.
Licenses
Your website likely uses third-party plugins that are licensed to us via a GPL license which allows us to use our license on your website. With a Care Plan you can retain the use of our license to ensure all updates to any of our roster of plugins. If you choose to forego a Care Plan, the licenses for these plugins will be removed from your website but you will retain the functionality of the plugins up to the date the license was removed. You can acquire your own license for any of these plugins. For more information on what plugins you have and where they can be purchased, please email [email protected]. It’s possible not all of your licenses will be covered under your maintenance plan. If we purchased a license that is for your use only we will inform you of what the renewal fees will be (otherwise assume we have it all covered!).
Analytics
Care Plan members will receive access to a Google Analytics dashboard. Google Analytics allows you to track the usage of your website including visits, page views, demographics, traffic acquisition, and much more.
Maintenance
It is likely that as time goes by you will want to make changes to your website. Our hourly rate to make changes is $125 per hour, but care plan members are eligible for a discounted rate of $75 per hour.
Standard and Premium Care Plans include website content edits, which are changes to existing text and photographs. Standard care plans include three content edits per month, and Premium care plans include "unlimited" content edits which is one content edit request per day. Each content edit task you request is capped at 30 minutes, and any requests beyond the allotted amount covered by your care plan will be billed at a discounted rate of $75 per hour.
What Does a Care Plan Not Include?
- Content edits that require more than 30 minutes
- Domain registration and renewals
- Social media management
- Graphic design including the creation of graphics, ads, flyers, or logos
- Ongoing Search Engine Optimization
Payment Agreement
Your Care Plan invoice will be automatically issued on the same day every month. The invoice is due upon receipt. After 15 days of non-payment you will receive a notice of past-due invoice. After 30 days of non-payment your website hosting account will be suspended. In order to restore service you will need to get current on all bills, and setup automatic drafts for each month’s bill.
You can request a backup of your website at any time, but after 90 days late payment we will not be required to provide you with a backup of your website. If your website hosting account has been suspended for more than 90 days, you will no longer be eligible for a Website Care Plan.
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 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 exclusive jurisdiction of the courts of The State of North Carolina.