Standard Terms of Service
These are the standard terms for website design and build work by Gideon Simning ("the Studio"). They are written in plain language on purpose. If anything here is unclear, ask before you pay, and you will get a straight answer.
1. How these terms work
These terms cover the parts that are the same on every project: payment rules, hosting, ownership, and the limits of what the Studio promises. They do not describe your particular project.
The specifics of your project, meaning exactly what was built and what it costs, are set out on your invoice or payment page and in the website you have already been shown. Those two things read together are the deal.
If you have also signed a separate written agreement for your project, that agreement controls wherever it differs from this page.
2. Price and payment
- The price for your project is stated on your invoice or payment page. It is paid in two equal halves.
- The first half is a deposit, due to start. It is not refundable. The site is already built and you have already seen it, so the deposit pays for work that is already done. Launch work begins once it is received.
- The second half is due within 7 days of your site going live.
- A domain name is never included in the price. You register and renew it yourself, in your own name, at your own registrar, and you pay that registrar directly.
- The site goes live once the deposit has cleared and the domain is set up.
- If the deposit has not arrived within 14 days, the Studio may cancel in writing. Nothing launches, the site and its files stay with the Studio, and neither of us owes the other anything.
- If the second half has not arrived within 7 days of launch, the Studio will tell you so in writing first. If it is still unpaid 7 days after that notice, the Studio may take the site offline until it is paid. Your domain stays yours the whole time, so you can point it somewhere else whenever you want. The deposit is not refunded.
- If launch is waiting only on you, for example on a domain choice or a final confirmation, for more than 60 days after the deposit, the work counts as delivered and the second half becomes due. Picking it up again later is treated as new work under Section 3, and the Studio will make restarting as easy as it can.
3. Later changes
There is no monthly fee and nothing to subscribe to. Work beyond what your project covers is billed only when you ask for it, at $50 per hour. The Studio tells you roughly what a change will cost before starting it. Nothing is built or billed without your OK.
4. Hosting and accounts
- To keep things simple, your site is hosted on an account the Studio manages.
- The Studio hosts the site at no charge. That is a courtesy, not a commitment. The Studio may stop hosting the site on its own account at any time and for any reason. If it does, it tells you in writing, and you then create your own hosting account for the site to run on. The Studio hands over the complete site files so the site can go up on that account.
- You can ask for a full handover of the site files, and of any accounts the Studio manages for the site, at any time.
- The domain is your expense and stays in your name. It never sits on the Studio's accounts. That means you can point your domain anywhere, any time, without needing the Studio's permission.
- Your site depends on outside services, such as the hosting platform, your booking or ordering provider, and your domain registrar. If one of them has an outage or changes its terms, that is not a failure by the Studio. The Studio will help move to an alternative under Section 3.
5. What you own
Once the price is paid in full, you own the finished website and its content. Your domain is yours from day one, registered in your own name. The Studio will hand over the complete site files, or any of the accounts it manages for the site, whenever you ask. If things end between us, you keep everything you have paid for.
6. Content and photos
You confirm that the photographs, testimonials, and other material you supply for the site are yours to use. If someone brings a legal claim about material you supplied or approved, for example a photo you did not have the rights to, that claim is yours to resolve, not the Studio's.
The Studio will not publish claims about your business that you have not made or approved. Statements about licensing or insurance appear on the site only if you confirm they are true.
7. What the Studio promises, and what it does not
The Studio promises its process: careful work, security best practices, accessibility and performance checks by measurement, and a response to any request within 48 hours on business days.
The Studio does not promise search rankings, traffic levels, or that any website can be made immune to attack. No one can honestly promise those things.
8. If things go wrong
If either of us fails to hold up our side, the other may end things in writing. The Studio's total liability is capped at the amount you have paid, and neither of us is responsible to the other for indirect losses, such as lost profits or lost business.
9. General
These terms, together with your invoice or payment page, are the whole agreement between us and replace earlier discussions. Changes must be in writing. The Studio may show your finished site in its own portfolio unless you ask it not to. These terms are governed by the laws of the State of Colorado.
The Studio may update this page for future projects. The version that applies to your project is the one in effect on the day you paid your deposit, shown at the top of this page.
About this page
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Questions about anything above: gideon@rootworkautomation.com. Nothing here is legal advice.