Between [company name]
And [customer name].
We’ll always do our best to fulfil your needs and meet 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 contract you won’t find any complicated legal terms or long passages of unreadable text. We’ve no desire to trick you into signing something that you might later regret. What we do want is what’s best for both parties, now and in the future.
You customer name, located at customer address (“You”) are hiring us company name (“We or Us”) to:
- Design and develop a web site
For the estimated total price of total as outlined in our previous correspondence.
You: You have the authority to enter into this contract on behalf of yourself, your company or your organisation. You’ll give us the assets and information we tell you we need to complete the project. You’ll do this when we ask and provide it in the formats we ask for. 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 also agree to stick to the payment schedule set out at the end of this contract.
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.
We create look-and-feel designs, and flexible layouts that adapt to the capabilities of many devices and screen sizes. We create designs iteratively and use predominantly HTML and CSS so we won’t waste time mocking up every template as a static visual. We may use visuals to indicate a creative direction (colour, texture and typography.)
You’ll have plenty of opportunities to review our work and provide feedback. We’ll either share a Dropbox, Google Drive folder or Github repository or development site with you and we’ll have regular, possibly daily contact via whichever method suits the project best.
We will set up a development website either on our servers or on a web server of your choice. We will deploy code to this at the end of each day, so you can see how the project is progressing.
If, at any stage, you change your mind about what you want to be delivered and are not happy with the direction our work is taking you’ll pay us in full for the time we’ve spent working with you until that point and terminate this contract.
Unless agreed separately, we’re not responsible for inputting text or images into your content management system or creating every page on your website.
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 search for photographs for you, we can provide a separate estimate for that.
We deliver applications developed from HTML markup, CSS stylesheets for styling and unobtrusive JavaScript for feature detection, poly-fills and behaviours. We follow modern semantic markup standards.
We deliver applications using the relevant server-side code for your project. This will always be written using common best-practices and design patterns. We will provide a repository on Bitbucket or Github for any future development of said code.
For the most part, we develop using 100% open-source code. There may, on occasion, be third party code added to your project which may incur yearly licensing costs. We will inform you if this is the case.
We will build the website on your preferred content management system. This may include the use of third party paid elements. You will be liable for the cost for these third party elements. We will inform you if there is anything extra we will need to charge you for in a timely fashion.
We will provide in-house training on how to use the content management system at a time that suits both parties.
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 will make sure that our applications are at least readable in ancient browsers, although they may not look great.
We test our work in current versions of major desktop browsers including those made by Apple (Safari), Google (Chrome), Microsoft (Edge), Mozilla Firefox and Opera. We’ll also test to ensure that people who use Microsoft Internet Explorer 11 for Windows get an appropriate experience. We won’t test in other older browsers unless we agreed separately. If you need an enhanced application for an older browser, we can provide a separate estimate for that.
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 applications in at least:
iOS 9: Safari, Google Chrome Android: Google Chrome on Android Emulator
We won’t test in Blackberry, Opera Mini/Mobile, specific Android devices, Windows or other mobile browsers unless we agreed separately. If you need us to test using these, we can provide an estimate for that.
We’re not a website hosting company so we don’t offer support for website hosting, email or other services relating to hosting. You may already have professional hosting and you might even manage that hosting in-house; if you do, great. If you don’t, we can set up an account for you at one of our preferred hosting providers. We can set up your site on a server, plus any statistics software such as Google Analytics and we can provide a separate estimate for that. Then, the updates to, and management of that server will be up to you. We can also deploy your development website to web hosting of your choice.
We can't guarantee improvements to your website’s search engine ranking, but the applications we develop are created to make it easy for search engines to read them.
We don’t want to limit your ability to change your mind. The price at the beginning of this contract is based on either (i) the number of weeks, or (ii) days, or (iii) a fixed price that we estimate in order for us to accomplish everything you’ve told us you want to achieve, we are happy to be flexible. If you want to change your mind or add anything new, that won’t be a problem as we can provide a separate estimate for any additional costs. If we deliver the project in a shorter time than agreed, we will adjust the final cost accordingly, unless we have agreed a fixed price for the entire project. If we overshoot the deadline by fault of our own, we will not charge you for this extra time.
We’ll carry out our work in accordance with good industry practice and at the standard expected from a suitably qualified person with relevant experience.
That said, we can’t guarantee that our work will be completely error-free (as is the case with all software), 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, even if you’ve advised us of them. We will, however make sure that our work is thoroughly stress tested and checked for errors prior to the time of delivery.
Your liability to us will also be limited to the amount of fees payable under this contract and you won’t be liable to us or any third-party for damages, including lost profits, lost savings or other incidental, consequential or special damages, even if we’ve advised you of them.
Finally, if any provision of this contract shall be unlawful, void, or for any reason unenforceable, then that provision shall be deemed severable from this contract and shall not affect the validity and enforceability of any remaining provisions.
Just to be clear, “Intellectual property rights” means all patents, rights to inventions, copyright (including rights in software) and related rights, trademarks, service marks, get up and trade names, internet domain names, rights to goodwill or to sue for passing off, rights in designs, database rights, rights in confidential information (including know-how) and any other intellectual property rights, in each case whether registered or unregistered and including all applications (or rights to apply) for, and renewals or extensions of, such rights and all similar or equivalent rights or forms of protection which subsist or shall subsist now or in the future in any part of the world.
First, you guarantee that all elements of text, images or other artwork you provide are either owned by yourselves, or that you have permission to use them. When you provide text, images or other artwork to us, you agree to protect us from any claim by a third party that we’re using their intellectual property.
We guarantee that all elements of the work we deliver to you are either owned by us or we’ve obtained permission to provide them to you. When we provide text, images or other artwork to you, we agree to protect you from any claim by a third party that you’re using their intellectual property. Provided you’ve paid for the work and that this contract hasn’t been terminated, we’ll assign all intellectual property rights to you as follows:
You’ll own the website we design for you plus the visual elements that we create for it. We’ll give you all source files and finished files and you should keep them somewhere safe as we’re not required to keep a copy. You own all intellectual property rights of text, images, site specification and data you provided, unless someone else owns them.
We’ll own any intellectual property rights for software we’ve developed prior to, or developed separately from, this project. This may include custom bolt ons and code we have developed prior to this project that is not covered by open-source licensing. We’ll own the unique combination of these elements that constitutes a complete application and we’ll license its use to you, exclusively and in perpetuity for this project only, unless we agree otherwise.
We will maintain the strictest confidence whilst working for your company. We will not share with or discuss any details of the project with any third parties whatsoever, at any time, ever. We will make sure that all assets in development are protected by passwords and we will act in a manner which maintains the utmost security between us.
We will not undertake any work for any client who has been retained by you for at least a period of twelve months after the project has been completed. We will also not undertake any work for any client that might cause a conflict of interest within this period.
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. Unless otherwise agreed with you.
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, you agree to stick tight to the following payment schedule.
Payment details
Payment schedule
We issue invoices electronically. Our payment terms are 30 days from the date of invoice by BACS transfer. All proposals are quoted in pounds and payments will be made at the equivalent conversion rate at the date the transfer is made.
We may ask you for a small deposit. If this is required we will need this to be paid before we begin work on the project.
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 10% per month or part of a month.
Just like a parking ticket, neither of us can transfer this contract to anyone else without the other’s permission.
We both agree that we’ll 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 in this document is plain, the intentions are serious and this contract is a legal document under exclusive jurisdiction of English and Welsh courts.
Signed by and on behalf of company name
Signed by and on behalf of **customer name
Date date
Everyone should sign above and keep a copy for their records.