Rice Digital Service Agreement

Introduction

We’ll always do our best to fulfill your needs and meet your expectations, but it’s important to have things written down so that we both know what’s what, who should do what and when, and what will happen if something goes wrong. In this contract you won’t find any complicated legal terms or long passages of unreadable text. We’ve no desire to trick you into signing something that you might later regret. What we do want is what’s best for both parties, now and in the future.

Summary

You are hiring Rice Digital to build your business a new website for the agreed-upon price for a duration of 12 months. After 12 months your contractual obligation is completed, at which time you will roll into our month-to-month management plan or you may take your website and go with another provider. If you choose not to cancel after 12 months, you will continue to use our services month to month for the cost of $50 per month which can be cancelled at any time.

What do both parties agree to

You: You have the authority to enter into this contract on behalf of yourself, your company or your organization. You’ll give us the assets and information we tell you we need to complete the project. You’ll do this when we ask and provide it in the formats we ask for. You’ll review our work, and provide feedback and approval in a timely manner too. Deadlines work two ways, so you’ll also be bound by dates we set together. You also agree to stick to the payment schedule set out at the end of this contract.

Us: We have the experience and ability to do everything we’ve agreed with you and we’ll do it all in a professional and timely manner. We’ll endeavour to meet every deadline that’s set and on top of that, we’ll maintain the confidentiality of everything you give us.

Project Timeline

Our typical development time is approximately four to six weeks. Any wait time beyond this may add additional time to the project being launched. Our development time is accounting for our deliverability but does not account for any additional time added to the project by the client changing scope of work, revisions, or lack of communication.

If for any reason there are delays to the project, you must communicate the reason for the delay so we can plan accordingly. We reach out every week to update you on the progress and to request content for the website. If we don’t hear anything from you after 3 attempts for updates. The website project will be placed on hold. We respect everyone’s time and we don’t want anyone to wait longer than they need to.

What Will be Included in the Website Build

Copy/Text Content: Unless agreed separately, we’re not responsible for inputting text or images into your content management system or creating every page on your website. We provide professional copywriting and editing services, so if you’d like us to create new content or input content for you, we’ll provide a separate estimate.

Graphics and Photographs:  If you have graphics and photos you want to have on your website. You should supply graphic files in an editable, vector digital format. You should supply photographs in a high-resolution digital format. If you want us to use stock photos, we will endeavour to use stock photos that are relevant to your business and we ensure that we use stock photos that are licensed for commercial use.

SEO: We provide basic SEO services which include the installation of Yoast SEO, sitemap submission, including keywords in your URL’s, using keywords in H1, H2, H3 tags and optimizing images. If you require a more extensive SEO campaign, we can provide a separate estimate depending on what keywords you are looking to target. You can also hire a separate SEO Freelancer or Company to provide SEO services for your website.

Requirements of the Client

After you have agreed and paid your website subscription you will be able to submit your company’s information to us in our onboarding form and submit all of the media that you wish to have on your website. Please submit all images and videos to us at one time, please do not send media to us in pieces over a period of time but rather please deliver everything to us at once. We will not begin working on your project until your onboarding form is submitted and all of your media has been delivered to us.

You will be responsible for providing all of the necessary content for your website in one document. You will then email us a link to a Google Doc where you have written the content. You must provide all content in one document for the entire site and email this to your project manager. If your content is not completed please do not send pieces of it at various times because it will not be accepted, it must all be delivered at one time in one document.

Changes and Revisions

We don’t want to limit your ability to change your mind. You’ll have plenty of opportunities to review our work and provide feedback. We’ll share a link to a development site with you so you have regular and up-to-date access to test the functionality and review the design. We’ll have regular, possibly daily contact by either phone or email.

The price at the beginning of this contract is based on the number of weeks that we estimate we’ll need to accomplish everything you’ve told us you want to achieve, but we’re happy to be flexible. If you want to change your mind or add anything new, that won’t be a problem as we’ll provide a separate estimate for those additional weeks.

What Will be Included in the Monthly Maintenance

Web hosting, security certificates, 3rd party backups, uptime monitoring, plugin updates, theme updates, WordPress updates, unlimited content edits, and unlimited support are available when you need it! Our monthly maintenance plan is provided to you absolutely for free for the first 12 months!

Payment Schedule

We’re sure you understand how important it is as a small business that you keep up with your automatic billing. Your credit card will be billed monthly for the amount agreed upon once per month for a continuation of 12 months through our billing system. The first month’s payment is non-refundable.

Once the 12-month period has ended, if you wish to stay with us for continued hosting, maintenance, updates, and support your service payment will at that time automatically drop to a discounted rate of $50 per month. This ongoing website management service is optional and can be cancelled at any time once your 12-month commitment is completed.

Early Termination

Any contracts that are terminated before the final 12-month Agreement is completed will be given a cancellation fee of 50% of your remaining balance and your website will be terminated. If you wish to cancel your contract and take your website to another provider the remaining balance of your contract must be paid in full, then will we package up your website files and transfer them over to you. If you cancel your billing before your 12-month commitment is completed, or dispute any monthly payment to Rice Digital, this will voluntarily cancel your contract with Rice Digital and the early termination clause will be invoked immediately.

Tech Support and Website Updates

You can request updates to your website anytime by emailing us at info@ricedigital.ca. All tech support needed to keep your website running smoothly is included for free at no extra cost. We will respond to your email in a timely manner, please allow up to 2 business days for us to address any content updates or technical difficulties.

Domain and DNS

Upon request, we will handle the registration and the purchase of the domain of your choice if you’d like us to do that for you. We will purchase the domain through Google Domains and we require you to send your full legal name, address, phone number and gmail address to register the domain under your name. You will be given full access to your domain name and we require you to accept the ownership registration of the domain.

For domain based emails, we do not provide this service but we will assist in setting you up with your preferred email hosting provider by adjusting your DNS settings and recommending some trusted providers. You are responsible for all the costs associated with your chosen email provider and we are not responsible for providing technical assistance with your chosen email provider.

Website Ownership

While your website is being paid off, you have a complete and unrestricted license to use the website in any way you wish. You will not however be given ownership of the WordPress files until your website is fully paid off. Once your website is fully paid off you will continue to have an unrestricted license to use the website in any way you wish as well as full control of any and all website files. We maintain the right and ownership to utilize any designs and images that we created for your project to be utilized in any of our other projects.

Website Logins and Access

We will provide you with a link on where to login, how to login and what your logins are. We highly suggest that you keep a copy of your login credentials somewhere safe because we are not required to keep a copy for your security.

You will be provided with your own separate full administrator access to your website so you have the ability to do whatever you want on the website such as making edits and moving your website to a different hosting company. You have the ability to remove our access to your website at any time.

Displaying Our Work

We love to show off our work, so we reserve the right to display “Designed by Rice Digital” on your website. Should you wish to remove the credit, a fee of $150 applies. Removal of our name does not mean surrendering our design credit to any other party. Without our expressed consent, you agree that “Designed by Rice Digital” will be visibly displayed on your site acknowledging design credit.

Legal Stuff

We can’t guarantee that our work will 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, even if you’ve advised us of them.

Your liability to us will also be limited to the number of fees payable under this contract and you won’t be liable to us or any third party for damages, including lost profits, lost savings or other incidental, consequential or special damages, even if we’ve advised you of them.

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

By subscribing and paying the first month – client agrees to the terms and conditions above