Terms of Service

Agreement

As our customer, you have the power and ability to enter into an agreement on behalf of your company or organisation by accepting our terms of service. Or you have already requested our services and an invoice including Terms of Service has been supplied to you to progress any requested products or services. In these Terms of Service you agree to provide us or have provided us with everything that we need to complete the project or work including text, images and other information as and when we need it, and in the format that we ask for. You agree to review our work, provide feedback and sign-off approval in a timely manner too. Deadlines work two ways and you will also be bound by any dates that we set together. You also agree to stick to the payment schedule set out below.

We have the experience and ability to perform the services you need from us and we will carry them out in a professional and timely manner. Along the way we will endeavour to meet all the deadlines set but we can’t be responsible for a missed launch date or a deadline if you have been late in supplying materials or have not approved or signed off our work on-time at any stage. On top of this we will also maintain the confidentiality of any information that you give us.

Design

We will create designs for the look-and-feel, layout and functionality of your print or digital media. Design deliverables and allowable revisions are typically set out in the estimates or invoice or can be agreed upon via email. If you’re not happy with the designs after the quoted allowances, you will pay us in full for all of the work that we have produced until that point and you may either cancel this agreement and project or continue to commission us to make further design revisions at the rate set out in our original estimate or as per our hourly rate.

Changes and Revisions

We know from plenty of experience that fixed-price contracts and estimates sometimes have limited benefits, as they often limit you to your first idea about how something should look, or how it might work. We don’t want to limit either your options or your opportunities to change your mind.

The estimated hours or quoted costs we provide to you are based on the amount of time, resources and effort that we estimate we’ll need to accomplish everything that you have told us you want to achieve. If you do want to change your mind, receive new concepts, add extra pages, add new functionality etc. that won’t be a problem. You will be charged at our standard hourly rate and this will be billed on top of original estimate. Along the way we might ask you to put requests in writing so we can keep track of changes and requested revisions.

Testing & Proofing

We will test all finalised websites or digital media using the most current web and digital standards but we will also require clients to do adequate testing and proofing from their end and provide final approval for the project. Please note, we do not or rarely test websites in old or abandoned browsers or niche third party services/products with limited users. If you need to show the same or similar visual design to visitors using these older browsers or niche third party services/products, we will charge you at an hourly rate of $160 per hour for any necessary additional design or code changes and their testing.

For print media we will also proof and pre-press all print content using the most up-to-date print standards, but again will require client to do similar adequate testing and proofing from their end before signing off and having us go to print.

Text content

We may have written a best-seller but we’re not responsible for writing or inputting any text copy unless we specified it in the original estimate. We’ll be happy to help though, and in addition to the estimate we will charge you at $160 per hour for copywriting or content input.

Photographs & Video

Most designs will incorporate freely available or library stock photos, imagery or video at no extra cost to you depending on the design. However, if you have very specific requirements for imagery or video, and you specify you would like something different other than what’s been supplied, you will be required to supply us with these images or videos in digital format at your cost. Alternatively, we will factor in the time we spend searching for appropriate imagery and video and you will be charged at $160 per hour plus media buy costs for this. If you choose to buy your own stock resources we can suggest vendors of stock resources, but do keep in mind, we have very high and specific standards for this imagery and video, and what you might choose yourselves may not be the best fit for the design.

Managed Wordress Hosting

It is mandatory for all Metamode developed websites to go on a Metamode Managed WordPress Plan as part of any website package offer or estimate Metamode provides. This is to ensure a high quality of ongoing service and security of website. All plans must be subscribed to before website launch. Your plan’s inclusions e.g. time allowance for site changes cannot be rolled over into following months. Any technical issues or faults that arise from bugs in CMS, theme, plugins, hosting etc. that cannot be resolved by simple updates and maintenance may incur labour charges at our standard hourly rate of $160 per hour to rectify in a timely manner if required.

Any significant modifications or changes to source code made to Client’s website that are performed by any third party other than Metamode will automatically void the maintenance and security assurances included with a Metamode Managed WordPress Hosting Plan. Metamode is unable to support code, plugins or software implemented by Third Parties or Other Suppliers it has not vetted or authorised as we cannot provide any quality assurance or guarantee on this work. Although the maintenance part of plan would be ceased and support no longer provided, hosting can still remain in place if required by client.

Maintenance plan also does not cover any issues that may arise from improper usage of CMS or website due to client user error, lack of knowledge or damage from third party. If issues, errors or bugs arise from client or third party misuse, standard hourly rates of $160 per hour to debug and repair issues will apply.

Technical Support

If you do require help with anything beyond the design and development of your print or digital media as outlined in quotes or estimates, we’ll be happy to help and will charge you $160 per hour. If you require help with anything to do with your website hosting or maintenance that is not covered under a Metamode Managed WordPress Plan, that will also incur additional costs. For example, if you need help and instructions to operate your WordPress site, ongoing help with setting up your emails etc. this will be charged at our standard hourly rate.

Please note that our hosting services are through a cloud reseller account, and although our web hosting suppliers are brilliant, we’re also limited to the extent of their technical support. That being said, it is usually prompt and we typically get responses within the hour, 24 hours day, 7 days a week. If your website is on one of our Metamode Managed WordPress Plans, then you’ll be entitled to the support as outlined in that particular plan. If you’re on your own hosting services, we will not provide support for that unless you request it, in which case it will be charged at our hourly rate.

Copyrights

You guarantee to us that any elements of text, graphics, photos, designs, trademarks, or other artwork that you provide us for inclusion in the web site are either owned by your good selfs, or that you have permission to use them.

When we receive your final payment, copyright is automatically assigned as follows:

You will own any custom made logos, graphics and other visual elements that we create for you for this project or work. However, if they’re only stock graphics, resources, templates we reserve the right to re-use some of these resources for other projects or modify to suit. If you wish to obtain any copies of custom designs, projects or master working files a transfer fee will apply to package those files up and supply to you.

You also own text content, photographs and other data you provided, unless someone else owns them. We own the code and plugin licenses or have obtained permission to use them and we either license it to you or extend the permission for your lifetime use, or the duration as specified by the code or plugin and on only the specified project or work.

We also love to show off our work and share what we have learned with other people, so we also reserve the right to display and link to your completed project as part of our portfolio and to write about the project on websites, social media, in magazine articles, books etc.

Payments

We are 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 any outlined payment schedules.

Unless a custom payment schedule is agreed on, all our quoted projects will require 50% deposit before commencement of project. Remaining 50% is to be paid upon handover and final delivery of project.

All estimates and quotes exclude costs for administrative duties, client meetings, ongoing design revisions, travel expenses and work performed in addition to estimated hours, services or agreed amounts unless specifically outlined in the estimate or invoice. For example, if you are an existing client, have contracted our services and require us to attend a workshop or meeting at your specified location to discuss a project you will be charged the travel time, consulting time and any other associated travel expenses. Another example is if we’ve given you estimate on a job or you’ve simply requested a job to be done and you’ve requested numerous rounds of revisions – we will charge you for the time to complete all those additional revisions.

If your Metamode Managed WordPress Plan is cancelled at any time, you will need to pay for alternative hosting and migration services within 30 days following cancellation or the website will be deleted from our servers.

Additionally, if payment for the Metamode Managed WordPress subscription fee is not paid within 14 days, Metamode will be forced to pause your website hosting. If after 30 days, the monthly payment remains outstanding, Metamode will cancel your plan and your website will be deleted from our servers with no backups available.

Payment schedule

Just like a parking ticket, you cannot transfer this contract to anyone else without our permission. 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.

Legal stuff

We can’t guarantee that the functions or final presentation of any designs, templates, websites etc. will always be error-free and 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 arising out of the operation of or inability to operate the website, use the design etc., even if you have advised us of the possibilities of such damages. For example, if there is an intermittent hosting issue with our reseller account and your website goes down temporarily, we will not be held liable for damages. Another example would be if you approve a design with errors and it goes to print – Metamode will not be held liable.

If any provision of this agreement shall be unlawful, void, or for any reason unenforceable, then that provision shall be deemed severable from this agreement and shall not affect the validity and enforceability of any remaining provisions.

We may, at any time, and at our sole discretion, modify these Terms and Service, including our Privacy Policy, with or without notice to the User or Client. Any such modification will be effective immediately upon public posting. Your continued use of our Services following any such modification constitutes your acceptance of these modified Terms.