1. Effective Date and Authority

1.1This agreement becomes effective when both parties have signed it, or when both parties have approved its terms by email.

1.2You confirm that you have the power and authority to enter into this agreement on behalf of your company or organization.

2. Scope, Estimate, and Change Orders

2.1Our price is based on the design and development time we expect the project to take, at our hourly rate. The estimate amount appears at the end of this agreement.

2.2The estimate does not include copywriting, editing, or purchased resources unless the estimate says otherwise.

2.3The estimate may change to troubleshoot scripting conflicts or to cover additional content requests. If the estimate increases, we will notify you by email and ask for your approval before development continues.

2.4Any work not specified in the estimate requires a written change order by email.

2.5The prices in this agreement are honored for thirty (30) days after both parties sign or approve it.

3. Project Phases and Timeline

A typical website project follows these phases:

1. Discovery and Design: understanding your needs and defining the design and development specifics of the project.
2. Development: building the core functionality and pages.
3. Content Integration: adding your content and refining the details.
4. Testing and Launch: final reviews and going live.

We will set realistic timelines for each phase together, based on your project. Delays in receiving your content, feedback, or payments move our dates by the same amount.

4. Client Responsibilities

4.1You agree to provide everything we need to complete the project, including web-ready text and images, within thirty (60) days of the effective date. If the content is not provided in that period, the project may be cancelled and the deposit and any payments made may be forfeited.

4.2You agree to review our work, provide feedback, and give sign-off approval by email within five (5) business days of receiving our request.

4.3You agree to honor the dates we set together and to follow the payment schedule in this agreement.

5. Access and Authorization

5.1You engage E. Curtis Designs as an independent contractor to develop or improve a website to be installed on your web hosting space.

5.2You authorize us to access your hosting account. You also authorize your web hosting provider to give us FTP access and write permission for your web directory, and for any other directories or programs we need to access for this project.

5.3Unless a separate written agreement says otherwise, you are responsible for your hosting, domain registration, account security, and backups.

6. Revisions

We believe a team effort works best, so tell us if you want changes made. Revisions beyond the original scope are billed at our standard hourly rate with your prior approval.

7. Payment of Fees

7.1For new websites and full redevelopments, we invoice by email in four milestone payments based on the estimate amount:

• 20% once a WordPress theme or HTML template has been selected.
• 30% once the home page and all common page elements are in place (header, sidebars, footer, navigation, and so on).
• 30% once the preliminary content is added for all primary pages.
• 20% once the site is complete and signed off as complete by you.

7.2Payment terms are 15 days from the invoice date for the first three payments and 30 days from the invoice date for the final payment.

7.3When a payment is past due, the website will be taken offline until the balance is paid in full. We are not liable for any loss that results from the website being offline for non-payment.

7.4When a website has been uploaded to your server, or changes have been made to an existing website and uploaded, the usage rights to the developed website or changes are not transferred to you until full payment has been received.

7.5All payments are made in US funds. If collection becomes necessary, you agree to pay all fees incurred in that process.

7.6Hourly work, including revisions and support after the post-launch period, is invoiced by email at our standard hourly rate and is due 30 days from the invoice date.

8. Third-Party Services and Costs

8.1Your website may require third-party services and resources, such as:

• Web hosting and domain registration
• Premium WordPress plugins and themes
• Stock photography and fonts
• Payment processing systems
• Analytics, advertising, email, and text messaging platforms

8.2Unless the estimate specifically includes them, the ongoing costs of these services are your responsibility. We are happy to recommend trusted providers and help you get set up.

8.3Third-party services operate under their own terms. We are not responsible for their outages, pricing changes, policy changes, or account suspensions.

9. Marketing, Tracking, Text Messaging, and Privacy Disclosures

9.1Your marketing is your responsibility. You, or the marketing agency you hire, are solely responsible for all advertising, marketing, analytics, email, and text (SMS) messaging connected to your website. This includes tracking pixels, tags, and scripts such as the Meta (Facebook) Pixel and Google Ads conversion tracking, along with the campaigns that use them.

9.2We do not run your campaigns. Unless a separate written agreement says otherwise, we do not create, manage, or monitor your advertising or marketing. We are not responsible for ad content, audience targeting, budgets, ad spend, compliance with platform rules, ad rejections, account suspensions, or campaign results.

9.3Code you supply. If you ask us to place code supplied by you, your marketing agency, or a third-party platform on your website, we will place it as provided. We do not review that code for legality, accuracy, or performance. You remain responsible for what the code does, the data it collects, and whether it works as intended.

9.4No guarantee of results. We do not guarantee any particular search engine ranking, website traffic, leads, sales, ad performance, or tracking accuracy.

9.5Legal compliance. You are responsible for complying with all laws and platform rules that apply to how you collect, use, and share visitor and customer information, and to how you advertise and send messages. Depending on your business, these may include the California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA/CPRA), the California Invasion of Privacy Act, the CAN-SPAM Act, the Telephone Consumer Protection Act (TCPA), and the terms and policies of Meta, Google, and any other platform you use. You are also responsible for obtaining any consent these laws and rules require.

9.6Privacy disclosure wording. If any marketing tool, advertising platform, email service, SMS service, app, or tracking tool you use requires privacy policy language, consent language, opt-in or opt-out wording, cookie notices, or other disclosures on your website or forms, you must give us the exact wording to add. That wording should come from the company that provides the tool or service, such as the ad platform, the SMS provider, or your marketing agency, or from your attorney. We add the wording as you supply it. We do not decide which disclosures are required, and we are not responsible for the accuracy or sufficiency of the wording you provide. If you want a cookie consent tool, you choose it and tell us how to configure it. You must tell us whenever you add a new tool or when the requirements change. Adding or updating disclosure wording after launch is billed at our standard hourly rate.

9.7Text messaging. If your website collects phone numbers for text messaging, you are responsible for getting and keeping proper consent from each recipient, for registering with your SMS provider and the carriers as required, for honoring opt-out requests, and for supplying the consent and opt-out language your SMS provider requires. We build the form fields and place the wording as you supply it.

9.8Sensitive information. You are responsible for deciding whether your website collects regulated or sensitive information, such as health, financial, or children's information, and for not using tracking tools on pages where the law or platform rules prohibit them. E. Curtis Designs is not a HIPAA business associate. You agree not to ask us to handle protected health information without a separate written agreement.

9.9Privacy policies and legal pages. If we draft or edit a privacy policy or other legal page for you, we base it on the information you give us. It is general website content and not legal advice, and E. Curtis Designs is not a law firm. You are responsible for reviewing it for accuracy, keeping it current as your business and tools change, and having an attorney review it if you need legal assurance.

9.10Indemnification. Section 14 applies to claims that arise from the matters in this section.

10. Content, Copyright, and Ownership

10.1You represent and unconditionally guarantee that all text, graphics, photos, designs, trademarks, and other artwork you furnish to us for your webpages are owned by you, or that you have permission from the rightful owner to use each of them.

10.2Upon full payment, you own the copyright to the finished, assembled website as produced by E. Curtis Designs. This is an assignment of the right to use the design, graphics, and text of the finished website as a website. Photos, graphics, and other materials owned by third parties remain the property of their owners, and their licenses apply. Source code, work-up files, and computer programs are not transferred to you and remain the property of their respective owners.

10.3E. Curtis Designs and its subcontractors may display graphics and other web design elements from your website as examples of their work in their portfolios.

11. Post-Launch Support

We want your website to run smoothly. For 30 days after launch, we will fix any display issues or technical problems directly related to our development work at no charge. This does not cover problems caused by third-party updates, hosting changes, or edits made by you or anyone else. After the 30 days, ongoing maintenance, updates, and support are available at our standard hourly rate.

12. Communication

Good communication matters. During your project, we will provide regular updates on progress by email and respond to your emails within 1 to 2 business days. Urgent issues are always prioritized.

13. Warranty Disclaimer and Limitation of Liability

13.1We do not warrant that the functions of your webpages or website, or their operation, will be uninterrupted or error-free. The entire risk as to the quality and performance of the webpages and website rests with you upon site acceptance and payment.

13.2In no event will E. Curtis Designs be liable to you or any third party for any damages, including lost profits, lost savings, or other incidental, consequential, or special damages, arising out of the operation of, or inability to operate, your webpages or website, or arising out of any third-party service or marketing activity connected to them.

13.3To the extent the law allows, our total liability to you under this agreement will not exceed the amount you have paid us under this agreement.

14. Indemnification

You agree to defend, indemnify, and hold harmless E. Curtis Designs and its subcontractors from any claim, suit, loss, penalty, or expense, including reasonable attorney fees, arising from:

• text, graphics, photos, designs, trademarks, or other materials you furnish for use on your website;
• your advertising, marketing, tracking, data collection, or email and text messaging, including the use of any pixel, tag, script, or code supplied by you or on your behalf;
• privacy disclosures, consents, or opt-in and opt-out wording, or the lack of them, including wording supplied by you or by a third party; and
• your use of any third-party service connected to your website.

15. Cancellation and Termination

15.1If you halt work, we will provide the website "as is" upon payment for the work already completed.

15.2Payments for work already completed are non-refundable.

16. Confidentiality and Access Credentials

16.1We keep your access credentials (hosting, domain, CMS, FTP, and similar logins) confidential, along with any other non-public business information you identify as confidential. We use them only for work on your project.

16.2Content you provide for publication on your website, and the website itself once published, is not confidential.

16.3If another developer or contractor needs to work on your project, whether we bring them in or you chose them and asked us to assist, we will share only the access their role requires. You authorize us to share that access for that purpose. For contractors we engage, we require them to keep your credentials confidential.

16.4If you choose a developer or contractor, you are responsible for their conduct and for the access they are given. We are not responsible for how they use that access or for changes they make.

17. General Terms

17.1This agreement is the sole agreement between E. Curtis Designs and you regarding this website. Any additional work not specified in the estimate must be authorized by a written change order.

17.2If you have not secured web hosting by the time the webpages are completed, we may deliver the webpages to you by email as a zipped archive file.

17.3Advertising the pages to web search engines occurs only after the final payment is made.

17.4If any provision of this agreement is found unlawful, void, or unenforceable, that provision is severed from this agreement and does not affect the validity or enforceability of the remaining provisions.

17.5Regardless of where this agreement is signed, you agree that it was entered into in Sacramento County, California, and that any dispute will be litigated or arbitrated in Sacramento County, California.

17.6California law governs this agreement.

Development Estimate

The estimate amount of this services agreement is $

The undersigned agrees to the terms of this agreement on behalf of their organization or business.