When you order your WordPress website package from WP Websites Wales, I’ll ask you to sign an agreement which sets out your and my rights and responsibilities when we work together.

As this agreement will vary from one client to the next (because no two clients, or web design projects, are the same), I won’t publish the entire thing here.

Instead, below is a summary of the most important parts of a typical WP Websites Wales client agreement. A quick read-through of this page is a good way to make sure you have a basic understanding of what working with me will entail, before you place an order. 

Staged payments policy

I work strictly on a staged payments basis. This means you’ll pay a deposit before I start work, and make another payment before your website goes live. 

Once you’ve decided on a WordPress website package and maintenance package (and optional extras, if you need any) I’ll let you know what it’s all going to cost. When you’ve agreed to the price I’ve quoted, I’ll send your agreement which will include a payment schedule with details of what you need to pay, and when. 

One-pager website fees

If you’ve ordered a one-pager website, you’ll pay 50% of the build cost as a deposit, and payment has to clear before I can start work. When the website is signed off and ready to launch, you’ll pay the other 50%. Then, starting within a month, you’ll start paying your monthly maintenance fees by standing order. 

If you’ve opted to hire me to write your website’s copy, the fees for this will be included as part of the build cost. If you’re hiring me to write blog posts for you regularly, the fees for this will be added to your monthly maintenance fees.

Multi-page website fees

If you’ve ordered a brochure, ecommerce or other multi-page website, I’ll add together the build cost with your first year’s annual maintenance fees. You’ll pay 50% of the total of these costs as your deposit, which needs to clear before I can start work. The remaining 50% you’ll pay after signing the website off and before it launches. After that, I’ll invoice for the annual fees for the maintenance package you’ve chosen, every year around the anniversary of the date we signed the agreement.

If you’ve opted to hire me to write your website’s copy, the fees for this will be included as part of the build cost. If you’re hiring me to write blog posts for you on a regular basis, I’ll invoice you for this service separately, every month.

Maintenance fees

What exactly are the ‘maintenance fees’ I talked about above?

If you engage me to build your website, part of the fees I’ll charge you will relate to keeping your website maintained after it’s gone live. There are several maintenance packages to choose from, and your agreement will show which of these you’ve chosen.

Depending on the web design and maintenance packages you’ve chosen, maintenance fees will typically include things like domain, hosting and SSL certificate renewal fees and a charge for the monthly housekeeping tasks I’ll be carrying out to keep your website secure and running smoothly. If your website includes special functionality that I was only able to achieve by buying premium plugins, your maintenance fees will include the cost of these premium plugins.

If you’ve chosen a content management package, or ecommerce website management package, your maintenance fees will also include a charge for these.

Confused?

Don’t worry, I’ll give you a full breakdown of fees, including proposed payment dates, when I provide you with a quote for the work. If you accept my quote I’ll also include a payment schedule in the agreement you’ll sign before we start work, so everything will be clear.

Cancellation

If you’ve ordered a one-pager website, you agree to a minimum one-year contract.

If you want to cancel during the first year, you agree to pay the rest of the year’s maintenance charges (this is the same as the terms of most mobile phone contracts). After the first year, you can cancel at any time without paying the rest of that subsequent year’s charges, but as a matter of courtesy I ask that you give me a month’s notice and let me know the reason for cancellation.

If you’ve ordered a multi-page website, the contract isn’t fixed-term so you can cancel at any time, but on the understanding that I won’t refund any payments you’ve made to me. 

Non-payment

The agreement includes a section on what happens if you don’t pay any of my invoices.

One-pager websites

You’ll be paying your maintenance fees monthly, by standing order. If payment bounces or you cancel the standing order and you haven’t discussed it with me (or are ignoring my attempts to discuss it with you), I’ll put your website into maintenance mode so your visitors will see a ‘down for maintenance’ message instead of your usual content. 

If the payment issue isn’t resolved within 30 days (i.e. there’s a second missed payment), I’ll give you notice that I’m deleting your website.

Multi-page websites

You’ll be paying your maintenance fees annually, and I’ll be invoicing you on 30-days payment terms. If your payment hasn’t been made at 30 days, I’ll be in touch to ask why. If the issue isn’t resolved by the time the payment is 30 days overdue, I’ll put your website into maintenance mode so your visitors will see a ‘down for maintenance’ message instead of your usual content.

If your payment is 60 days late or more, I’ll give you notice that I’m deleting your website.

Just to be clear – you will lose your website, including all of its content, the domain name and any email addresses associated with it, if we get to the ‘I’m deleting your website’ stage.

Copyright and ownership

When you sign the agreement, you’ll be guaranteeing that you have the right to use any content you give me to add to your website. This includes (but isn’t limited to) text, photos, illustrations, diagrams, audio files and videos.

Your right to use this content will usually be because:

• You produced the content yourself
• You have paid someone to produce the content for you
• Someone has given you written permission to use the content
• The content is provided on a royalty-free or GNU/GPL licence 

You’ll also agree that if you’ve provided me with content you weren’t supposed to use, you’ll accept full responsibility if the copyright owners come after you.

I’ll confirm that you own your domain, but not your WordPress theme (which I use on licence). You’ll own any copy you pay me to write on your behalf, and any illustrations/graphics you pay me to create exclusively for your use.

Site credits

I’ll place a discreet “Website by WP Websites Wales” link in the footer of your website.

Stock images usually need to carry image credits (even where the photographer does not insist upon this, it’s still the polite thing to do). So if you’ve given me stock images to use, I’ll ask you for a link to where you downloaded the image, so that I can credit the image creator.

Passwords

Once you’ve paid for your website and it’s gone live, I’ll provide you with passwords for things like any mailboxes I’ve created for you, Google Search Console, wordpress.com (if used for the Jetpack plugin) and any social media accounts you’ve asked me to create for you.

I’ll keep the master administrator account details for your WordPress installation, and your hosting and domain name control panel login details, securely for you. If you decide to switch providers, I’ll pass these details to your new web designer once you’ve instructed me in writing to do so. I don’t believe in being obstructive if my clients decide to move on, so please be assured I’ll make sure the move goes smoothly for you.

If you’re going to be updating your website’s content yourself, I’ll create a pared-down WordPress user account for you,  which gives you access only to the areas of the website you’ll be updating (for example, pages, posts and media). This is so you can’t accidentally ‘break’ your website by altering settings that shouldn’t be altered.

If you’re updating your website’s content yourself, I’ll provide you with instructions and will be on hand to answer questions if you get stuck.

Find out more

If you have a question about my business terms, or the WordPress website services I provide, please get in touch.