Universal Webmasters
- Contract -
Table of Contents
P. 1 – Summary P. 2 – Billing P. 3 – Services: SetupP. 4 – Services: Managed Plan P. 5 – Communication
P. 6 - Miscellaneous
Summary
We will always do our best to fulfill your needs and meet your expectations, but it’s important to have things written down so everyone knows what’s what. This contract doesn’t contain any complex legal jargon – just a simple explanation of what you, our client, can expect from us, Universal Webmasters, and what we expect from you.
Billing
You are responsible for sticking to our fees and payment schedule. We will send out timely invoices and reminders and give you ample opportunity to make payment.
Our Setup Fee is billed 50% upon commitment, before we begin building, and 50% upon completion of your website, before we launch. Any discounts will be applied evenly to both payments.
If you choose to sign up for our Managed Plan, your first billing will be included in the same invoice with your second Setup Fee payment.
We use electronic invoices that will be delivered to your email inbox, and you can make payment with PayPal or any credit card. We do not accept checks or bank transfers.
In the event of non-payment, we reserve the right to interrupt your service. We may stop processing your updates and tasks, and in extreme cases, we may take your website offline until the outstanding balance is resolved – though we hope that’s never necessary!
Services: Setup
Our Setup includes:
Design consultation
Basic SEO
Speed testing and optimization
Google Analytics setup
One year of hosting
Domain name registration and management
Unlimited email addresses
Security features
At the end of each year, you will be billed a $69 renewal fee to renew your hosting and domain name.
Setup follows a basic timeline:
First Payment: We send you a PayPal invoice for 50% of your Setup Fee and wait to receive your
payment.
Initial Consultation: We send you our Setup Guide by email and wait to receive your responses.
Preliminary Build: We use the information you give us to build a preliminary design, and submit
this for your feedback.
Refinement: We continue making changes and additions based on your content, revisions, and
requests until you’re ready to launch your new website.
Second Payment: We send you a PayPal invoice for the remainder of your Setup Fee, and your
Managed Plan monthly fee(s) if applicable, and wait to receive your payment.
Launch: We launch your website!
We’ll answer your emails and complete the tasks you give us in a speedy fashion. However, we are dependent on your feedback – we can only work as fast as you do. Keep this in mind when discussing deadlines and timelines.
You are responsible for:
Giving us feedback throughout the design process. We want to make sure you get the design
you’re after!
Sending us content. This includes logos, text, images, and other important files. You’ll find more
on this in the Communication section of this contract.
Services: Managed Plan
Our Managed Plan includes:
Security updates to your WordPress installation, your theme, and your plugins
Regular backups
Uptime monitoring
5 free Credits
Credits
Credits are redeemable for website updates. In most cases, one Credit equals one task. Some larger tasks (building an online form, creating a complex page, installing a plugin, etc.) may be worth more than one Credit. We will let you know if this is case and request permission before we do any work.
We provide a Credit tracking system for our clients to help you stay on top of your Credit usage. Contact us if you’d like to learn more about it.
If you have chosen a monthly billing term, you may continue to send us tasks after you have used up your 5 free Credits. The extra Credits you use will be billed along with your next monthly billing.
If you have chosen a longer billing term, your free Credits are aggregated. For example, with a six-month billing term, you’ll have 30 free Credits available to use at any point in those six months. When you’re getting close to using up all of your free Credits, we will prompt you to purchase a Pack of extra Credits. Pre-paid Packs of Credits will not expire. Unused free Credits do not roll over from month to month.
Updates and Tasks
Communication
We only accept tasks and feedback by email. It’s very important that we both have a written record to
refer back to – it helps make sure nothing gets misconstrued, forgotten, or otherwise muddled. If you’d like to speak to us by phone, you’ll need to make an appointment by email.
Providing Feedback
We’ll do our best to follow your instructions and ask for clarification when necessary, but you are responsible for making sure the tasks and feedback you give us are specific and understandable. Here’s an example:
Don’t say “Please put this picture on the home page.”
Do say “Please put this picture in the home page slider,” or “Please center this picture underneath the
first paragraph on the home page.”
You don’t need to go into painstaking detail – unless you want to! We’re humans, not robots, so we’ll try to make smart assumptions and make sure everything looks good.
Files and Formats
You are responsible for giving us your content in a format we can work with. We can accept most common file types, but here are our preferences:
Text: Within the body of the email, or attached as a Word document. You can intersperse comments or
instructions throughout the text if necessary.
Images: JPGs are preferable for photography, and PNGs for anything with transparency (some logos and
graphics have transparent portions). These should be attachments, not embedded in the body of an email or Word document. Descriptive file names are helpful.
Audio: In most cases, original audio (music, podcasts, interviews, etc.) should be uploaded to an
appropriate audio hosting site such as SoundCloud. We can then embed the audio on your website. There are exceptions – contact us if you’re not sure.
Video: In all cases, video should be uploaded to YouTube or Vimeo. We can then embed the video on
your website.
Other files: We can accept and publish PDFs, Excel sheets, Publisher documents, and most other
common files. We can also work with Adobe Photoshop and Illustrator files if absolutely necessary, but keep in mind that we are not graphic designers.
Miscellaneous
Additional Expenses
Sometimes, you might decide that your website needs additional resources that must be purchased. Most commonly, this means stock photography or a third-party plugin to add extra functions or features to your website.
Most of the time, we will bill you for the cost of the stock photography or plugin, then complete the purchase ourselves to avoid any accidental mis-purchases. We will never make a purchase or bill you without first discussing the options with you and getting your permission.
There may be a scenario in which we will ask you to complete the purchase yourself. If this is the case, we’ll do our best to advise and assist you.
Showcasing Our Work
We love building our portfolio and showing off our clients, so we may:
Link to your website in our portfolio.
Share before-and-after images of your website.
Ask you for a testimonial if you are so inclined.
We may also discuss you and your website in a blog post, case study, or other medium. We will not share any sensitive information. We may include quotes, anecdotes, and some non-sensitive statistics – never any ‘hard numbers’.
We will present our finished product to you, and you’ll have one week to look it over and request minor changes or revisions.
Copyright
You are responsible for ensuring that you have the proper rights and permissions to the content you send us, and that your content does not infringe copyright.
