Mutual Agreement
Between us, (Hotpink Websites) and you, (the 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 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 us to design and develop a website and/or other services as specified in the Proposal for the estimated total price given in our Proposal. Of course 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 into this contract on behalf of your company or organisation. You agree to provide us with everything that we’ll need to complete the project – including text, images and other information – as and when we need it and in the format we ask for. You agree to review our work, provide feedback and approval in a timely manner. 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 in 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 endeavour to meet all the deadlines set but we can’t be responsible for a missed launch date or a deadline especially if you have been late in supplying materials or have not approved or signed off our work on-time at any stage. We will also maintain the confidentiality of any information that you give us and expect the same from you.
Where we put in extra time to assist you in acquiring or recovering information such as website content or domain registrations, we may charge you for time and materials.
Getting Down to the Nitty Gritty
Design
If we are designing your application we’ll create a design 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 one round of revisions. If you’re not happy with the designs at this stage, you may continue to commission us to make further design revisions at our standard design rates.
HTML and CSS Layout Templates
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 from them. Users of older or less capable browsers or devices will experience a design that is appropriate to the capabilities of their software. We will also test that these templates perform well on Apple’s iPad and iPhone.
We will not test old or abandoned browsers, unless otherwise specified. If you need us to consider these older browsers, we will charge you at our standard rates for this service 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 though, and in addition to the estimate we will charge you at our standard copy writing or content input rate.
Photographs or Images
You will supply us photographs in an appropriate digital format. If you choose to buy stock photographs we can suggest vendors of stock photography. Any time we spend searching for and aquiring appropriate photographs will be charged at our standard rates for this service.
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 proposed prices in our proposal document are based on the amount of work we estimate we’ll need to accomplish everything that you have told us you want to achieve. If you do 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 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 up front 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.
We will advise you when the website project is complete and ask you to let us know about anything extra that you might want done at which time we will review your request. We can only use information and content available to us at the start of the project and anything provided at a later date may be considered as new work to be charged at our standard rates for this service.
Training
We will provide training at website launch via Skype for up to 2 hours. Additional training is available and will be charged at our standard rates for this service.
Technical Support
Depending on the Care Plan Package that you have chosen, you may have technical support included up to the time limits allowed by the package. Any additional support will be charged at our standard rates for that service. The Care Plan is part of this agreement and is an ongoing monthly payment.
We are facilitators of the website software and plugins. When code is changed or updated by the software developers, issues can arise that are outside of our control. We do not undertake to provide cpanel or admin access. Under the Care Plan, we use our best efforts to keep everything working for you.
While email hosting is included with your website hosting in some of the Care Plans that we offer, we only support delivery of emails to the server indicated as successful by viewing in the webmail account. If we offer assistance in setting up email accounts in your local mail programs, this is done on a best efforts basis and is not a guaranteed service and may be charged at our standard rates for this service. You should have local technical support for all purposes relating to your local services, including internet connections and email accounts.
Your should also advise us in advance if you use third party email server providers to avoid any interruption to service.
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.
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. We’ll give you a copy of all files on request 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. This may be charged at our standard rates for this service.
You also own text content, photographs and other data that you provided, unless someone else owns them. We own the markup, CSS and other code and we license it to you for use on our servers and only on 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 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 payment schedule defined in the Proposal/Invoice including the monthly or other payments. Where payments fall in arrears we reserve the right to suspend a website and email service, remove discounts already applied to your account and charge additional fees so it is best for you to call us in advance to make arrangements.
If you are unable to supply all of the right content for the website, 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 with placeholder images and dummy text, we will hand over the keys and show you how to put your own content in once it’s ready.
If any invoice is not paid within the credit terms we have given you, we are under no obligation to keep the site on our servers or continue with the project in anyway. We may add administration and collection fees to your invoice(s) and suspend any other discounts and allowances before sending to a professional collection agency who will also be entitled to add their fees for collection services rendered.
Cancellation
If you are unhappy for any reason, we ask that you please contact us to give us the opportunity to understand and fix any issues you might be having before cancelling a service.
If you postpone or cancel a project prior to completion, we will have the right to charge or retain 50% of the total Proposal cost if cancellation is received within the first 30 days. Beyond 30 days no refund will be given. If you cancel a Care Plan then all associated services will be terminated including software licenses. If you transfer your website to another hosting service we will charge you at our standard rates for this service.
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 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 Queensland.
Getting Started
Authorising this project simply requires approval of the proposal by email confirmation and/or the payment of fees, either of which implies acceptance of the Terms and Conditions as presented on this page.
