About these terms
Envy Creative is the trading name of Stephen Davis, a sole trader. In these terms, “I”, “me” and “my” mean Stephen Davis trading as Envy Creative. “You” means the business or organisation named in the proposal.
Address: 22 Tower Hill, Clitheroe, Lancashire, BB7 1PD, United Kingdom. Email: hello@envy-creative.com. Telephone: 07835 694973.
These terms apply to every project and service I provide, including website design and development, e-commerce, web applications, branding, graphic design, print, SEO, hosting and support. My services are for businesses only and are not offered to consumers.
Our agreement
Our agreement is made up of the proposal (or quotation) and these terms. If the two conflict, the proposal takes priority.
The agreement starts when you accept the proposal in writing (email is fine) or pay the deposit. The person accepting confirms they are authorised to do so for the business.
The proposal and these terms are the whole agreement between us. You confirm that you have not relied on any statement, estimate, forecast or promise that is not written in the proposal, including anything about sales, bookings, enquiries, traffic or search rankings.
What’s included and changes
The proposal sets out exactly what is included. Anything not listed is not included, for example copywriting, adding content, photography, stock images, paid plugins or licences, data migration, third-party integrations, training and ongoing support.
The proposal states how many rounds of revisions are included. Further revisions, new features, new requirements or a change of direction are extra work, charged at my standard rate. I’ll tell you the cost before starting any extra work.
Your responsibilities
You agree to:
- provide content, images, logins, information and feedback promptly, in the formats I ask for;
- nominate one person to give feedback and approvals;
- carefully check all content, prices, product details, contact details and functionality before approving anything;
- make sure you own or have permission to use everything you give me (text, images, logos, fonts, product data), and that it is accurate and lawful;
- make sure your website and business comply with the laws that apply to you, such as privacy and cookie notices, data protection, consumer law, accessibility, terms of sale and industry regulations, unless the proposal says I will handle a specific requirement;
- carry out your own trade mark and name checks before adopting any new branding, name or logo;
- keep your own backups of your website, data and files, and secure records of your passwords.
I don’t provide legal advice, and I’m not responsible for the accuracy, legality or ownership of anything you supply.
Timescales
Any dates or timescales I give are estimates. I’ll do my best to meet them, but they are not guaranteed, time is not of the essence, and I’m not liable for delays or for any loss caused by a delay.
If content, feedback or payment arrives late, the timetable will move and the project may need to wait for my next available slot. If a project is on hold for more than 30 days because I’m waiting on you, I may invoice for the work completed so far. If it is on hold for more than 60 days, I may treat it as cancelled by you (see “Cancelling or ending”). Restarting a paused project may be charged.
Fees and payment
- Unless the proposal says otherwise, a 50% deposit is payable before work starts, and the balance is due before launch, handover or release of any files.
- Invoices are payable within 7 days of the invoice date, in pounds sterling. You pay any bank or transfer charges.
- Third-party costs such as hosting, domains, plugins, licences and print are payable by you and may be invoiced in advance.
- Estimates for time-based work are estimates, not fixed prices.
- You may not withhold or deduct money from an invoice because of a dispute about something else. Any undisputed part of an invoice must be paid on time.
If payment is late, I may charge interest and compensation under the Late Payment of Commercial Debts (Interest) Act 1998, plus reasonable recovery costs. I may also pause work, withhold handover and suspend any services (including hosting) after giving you 7 days’ written notice.
Approval, launch and fixes
Before anything goes live or to print, I’ll ask you to approve it. Work is treated as approved when you confirm in writing, when it is made live or used, or if you haven’t raised any issues within 14 days of it being delivered to you. Once approved, any errors in approved content are your responsibility and further changes are chargeable.
For 30 days after launch, I’ll fix free of charge any bugs in my work that stop it doing what the proposal describes. After that, fixes are chargeable unless you have a support plan. Fixing the problem is your main remedy for defects.
Free fixes don’t cover problems caused by changes made by you or anyone else, updates to software, plugins, themes, platforms or browsers, third-party services, hosting I don’t provide, misuse, or new requirements.
Websites are tested on current versions of the main browsers (Chrome, Safari, Edge and Firefox) on desktop and mobile at the time of launch. Older browsers and specific devices are only tested if agreed. Sites may look slightly different across different browsers and screen sizes.
Results are not guaranteed
I will carry out the agreed work with reasonable care and skill. All other terms that might otherwise be implied by law, such as fitness for a particular purpose, are excluded as far as the law allows.
I can’t control how your customers, the market or search engines respond to my work, so I don’t guarantee any business result, including:
- sales, revenue, enquiries, bookings or conversion rates;
- search rankings, traffic or visibility, including after a new website, redesign, platform change or migration, when temporary fluctuations are normal;
- how customers or the public respond to new branding, design or marketing;
- that a website or service will be uninterrupted, error-free or free from security vulnerabilities.
Your business performance depends on many things outside my control, such as competition, pricing, seasonality, the economy, your products and service, advertising, platform and search engine changes, and how your website is managed after launch. Decisions about your business, including whether and when to launch, remain yours.
Hosting, domains and third-party services
Hosting is optional and its details are set out in the proposal. Hosting is billed in advance and renews automatically for the same period unless you give at least 30 days’ written notice before the renewal date. Hosting uses third-party infrastructure, so I can’t guarantee it will be uninterrupted. Any backups I take are a courtesy unless the proposal includes a backup service, and you shouldn’t rely on them as your only copy.
I may suspend hosting immediately if it is used for anything unlawful, harmful or that puts the service at risk. Unpaid hosting may be suspended after written notice, and data may be deleted 30 days after suspension.
Domains I register for you will be registered in your name where possible. You are responsible for paying renewal fees on time and keeping your contact details up to date. I’m not liable if a domain lapses because a renewal wasn’t paid or I couldn’t reach you.
Third-party services such as Shopify, WordPress, WooCommerce, Magento, plugins, themes, payment gateways, email providers, APIs and Google are governed by their own terms. I’m not responsible for their availability, security, pricing, changes or withdrawal. Updating your website to work with third-party changes is chargeable unless covered by a support plan.
Ownership and copyright
You keep ownership of everything you supply. Once you have paid in full, copyright in the final bespoke designs, artwork and code I created for your project passes to you, and I’ll sign a written assignment if you need one. Until you have paid in full, everything I’ve created remains mine and may only be used for review.
I keep ownership of my pre-existing materials, reusable code, frameworks, tools and techniques, and any unused concepts or rejected designs. Where any of these form part of your finished work, you receive a permanent, non-exclusive, royalty-free licence to use and modify them as part of that work.
Third-party and open-source components remain subject to their own licences. Editable source files are only supplied if the proposal includes them.
I may show completed work in my portfolio and name you as a client, and may include a small design credit in your website footer, unless you ask me not to. I won’t share anything confidential.
Confidentiality and data protection
We will each keep the other’s confidential information private and use it only for the project, unless it is already public or the law requires it to be disclosed.
We will each comply with UK data protection law. You are responsible for the personal data of your customers and staff, including your privacy notice and the lawful basis for collecting it. Where I process personal data on your behalf, I’ll only do so on your instructions and will keep it secure, and we’ll put a data processing agreement in place where the law requires one. Please don’t send me live customer or payment data unless it is genuinely needed.
Liability and indemnity
Please read this section carefully. It limits what I can be held responsible for, and my prices are set on the basis that these limits apply.
Losses I’m not responsible for. I am not liable to you for any of the following, whether direct or indirect, however caused (including by negligence or breach of contract), and even if I was aware they might happen:
- loss of profit, revenue, sales, turnover or income;
- loss of, or a fall in, bookings, enquiries, orders, customers or contracts;
- loss of business, business opportunities, goodwill or reputation;
- loss of search rankings, website traffic or online visibility;
- loss of anticipated savings;
- loss or corruption of data, or the cost of restoring it;
- business interruption, or wasted staff or management time;
- any indirect or consequential loss.
This applies to all of my work, including building a new website, redesigning or updating an existing one, changing platform or hosting, creating new branding, and any design, marketing or SEO work, and to any drop in your sales, bookings or performance that you believe is connected with it.
Things outside my control. I’m not liable for any loss caused by content, information or instructions you provided; changes made to your website or systems by you or anyone else; third-party products and services; hacking, viruses or other malicious acts by third parties (unless caused by my failure to carry out security work I agreed to provide); your failure to keep backups; or your own business decisions.
Overall limit. My total liability to you for all claims connected with a project, however they arise, is limited to the fees you have actually paid me for that project. For ongoing services such as hosting, support or retainers, it is limited to the fees you paid for that service in the 12 months before the claim arose. If something I’ve done is wrong, you agree to give me a reasonable opportunity to put it right first.
Time limit for claims. You must tell me about any claim in writing within 12 months of the relevant work being completed (or, for ongoing services, of the event giving rise to it). After that, I will have no liability for it.
Your responsibility to me. You will indemnify me (meaning you will cover my losses, costs and reasonable legal fees) against any claim made against me by someone else arising from material you supplied, your instructions, how you run your business or website (including your products, prices, claims and handling of customer data), or your breach of these terms or the law.
What isn’t limited. Nothing in these terms limits or excludes liability for death or personal injury caused by negligence, for fraud or fraudulent misrepresentation, or for anything else that cannot legally be limited or excluded. These limits don’t reduce your obligation to pay my fees.
Why these limits are fair. My fees reflect these limits, and you are best placed to understand and insure against risks to your own business, such as loss of income. If you need me to accept a higher level of liability, please raise it before accepting a proposal. We can discuss it, although it may affect the price.
Cancelling or ending
If you cancel a project, please tell me in writing. You will pay for all work done up to the cancellation date (a fair proportion of a fixed price, or my standard rate for time-based work), plus any third-party costs already committed. The deposit is non-refundable once work has started, because it reserves time in my schedule and covers initial planning and setup. If the work done is worth more than the deposit, you’ll pay the difference.
I may suspend or end our agreement by written notice if you don’t pay on time, if you breach these terms and don’t put it right within 14 days of being asked, if your business becomes insolvent, or if you behave abusively or unlawfully. The same payment terms apply.
Ongoing services such as hosting, support and retainers run for any minimum term in the proposal. Otherwise, either of us can end them with 30 days’ written notice.
When an agreement ends, I’ll hand over the paid-for work and your materials once all invoices are paid. Help with migrating to another provider is chargeable.
Events outside my control
I’m not liable for any delay or failure caused by events outside my reasonable control. As a sole trader, this includes my illness, injury or a family emergency, as well as things like power or internet failures, third-party outages, cyber attacks, severe weather and government action. I’ll let you know as soon as I can. If the problem lasts more than 60 days, either of us may end the affected work by written notice, and you’ll pay for the work done up to that point.
Disputes and general terms
If you have a concern, please contact me first at hello@envy-creative.com. We’ll both try to resolve it in good faith within 30 days before taking any other action.
- Our agreement is governed by the law of England and Wales, and the courts of England and Wales have exclusive jurisdiction.
- Notices can be sent by email to the addresses we normally use.
- I may use trusted subcontractors and remain responsible for their work. You may not transfer the agreement to anyone else without my written consent.
- If any part of these terms is found to be unenforceable, the rest still applies.
- If I don’t enforce a right straight away, I can still enforce it later.
- Nobody other than you and me has any right to enforce these terms.
- I may update these terms from time to time. The version in place when you accept a proposal applies to that project. For ongoing services, updated terms apply 30 days after I notify you.