An Agreement in Plain English Terms of Service

Summary

We will always do our best to fulfill your needs and meet your goals, but sometimes it is best to have a few simple things written down so that we both know what is what, who should do what, and what happens if things go wrong. In this contract you won't find complicated legal terms or large passages of unreadable text. We have no desire to trick you into agreeing to 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 North Sea Design to design and develop a website for the price of:

$2,350 plus $50/month


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 organization. You agree to provide us with everything that we need to complete the project including text, images, and other information as and when we need it, and in the format that we ask for. You agree to review our work, provide feedback and sign-off approval in a timely manner too. Deadlines work two ways and you will 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. 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 will also maintain the confidentiality of any information that you give us.


Details of the works

We will create a design for the look-and-feel, layout, and functionality of your website. This contract includes one website design. If you're not happy with the design at this stage, you may cancel this contract and receive a full refund. You also have the opportunity to make up to 15 suggested changes to the design. Upon receiving these changes a refund is no longer possible. Read more about our Refund Policy.

HTML/CSS layout templates

Our websites include HTML markup and CSS templates. We will develop these using valid HTML5 markup and CSS3 for styling. We will test all our markup and CSS in current versions of all major browsers including those made by Apple, Microsoft, Mozilla, and Google. We will also test to ensure that pages will display visually in a similar, albeit not necessarily an identical way, in Microsoft Internet Explorer 7 for Windows as this browser is now past its sell-by date.

We will not test these templates in old or abandoned browsers, for example Microsoft Internet Explorer 5, 5.5 or 6 for Windows or Mac, previous versions of Apple's Safari, Mozilla Firefox, or Opera.

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 a rate of $75.00 per hour. Please contact us if you are interested in our help in this way.

Photographs

Any photographs you supply us with should be in digital format. If stock photos are needed you will need to purchase and supply them in a timely manner.

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 pricing plan at the beginning of this document is based on the number of days that 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 and add extra features that won't be a problem. You will be charged at a rate of $75.00 per hour for additional features.

Technical support

Technical support is made available to all paying customers. We host our customer websites as a part of the monthly plan all customers are required to have. We take care of all updates to, and management of the hosting server, as well as any support issues that may arise. Our monthly plan includes website hosting, content management tools, and up to 3 website user accounts at a rate of $50.00 per month.


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. We also can't guarantee that your website will be online and available 100% of the time. Certain activities, like web server maintenance require having websites offline while they are being performed. In the rare event of a prolonged outage (more than 3 hours) a refund will be issued for the entire month in which the prolonged outage occurred.

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 selfs, or that you have permission to use them.

When we receive your final sign-off of our design, 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 HTML 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 also 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

All billing occurs in advance. Your monthly billing date will be determined by the day of the month of your first payment. Billing will then recur every month on the same date until you cancel.

Once you are billed for a month's service, no refund will be issued (you have to pay for the entire month) — the only exception will be made in the event of prolonged website outage as outlined above.

For example, if you are billed on the 21st of each month and you cancel on the 23rd you will not be charged again but no refund will be made.

But where is all the horrible small print?

Just like a parking ticket, you cannot 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 located in Snohomish County of Washington State.