A handshake, in writing.
These Terms of Service (the “Terms”) govern every engagement between Ignite Web Studios (“we,” “us,” or “the Studio”), operating out of Delta, British Columbia, and you — the business or individual who has hired us to design, build, or look after a website (“you” or “Client”).
By accepting a proposal, paying a deposit, or asking us to start work, you’re agreeing to what’s written here. If something in a signed Statement of Work contradicts these Terms, the Statement of Work wins for that project only.
We’ve tried to keep it short, fair, and readable. If any of it feels off — email us. We’d rather talk it out than hide behind paperwork.
Scope of services.
Our work generally covers: strategy, visual design, front-end development, copy direction, basic on-page SEO, launch, and a short post-launch care window. The exact deliverables, page count, and milestones for your project live in the Statement of Work we sign together.
Work that isn’t listed in the Statement of Work — ecommerce integrations, multilingual builds, custom CMS fields, ongoing content, brand design from scratch — is considered out of scope. We’re happy to add it, but it’ll need its own estimate and timeline.
- Scope changes are quoted as change orders before the work begins.
- Small tweaks we can absorb, we will. We’re not going to nickel-and-dime you over a button colour.
- If a change would push the launch date, we’ll tell you before we touch a file.
Proposals are valid for thirty days.
Every estimate we send is good for 30 days from the date it’s issued. After that, rates, availability, and timelines may shift — not because we’re difficult, but because our calendar moves.
Proposals are working documents, not contracts. An estimate becomes binding only when a Statement of Work is signed and the deposit is paid.
How the invoices work.
Most projects are billed in three parts:
- 50% deposit on signing — this reserves your slot on our calendar.
- 25% milestone at the design sign-off.
- 25% final on launch, before the site goes live on your domain.
Invoices are issued in Canadian dollars (CAD) unless agreed otherwise, and are due within 14 days of receipt. Payments more than 14 days late may incur a 1.5% monthly service charge and we reserve the right to pause work until the account is current.
We accept e-Transfer and direct bank deposit. All quoted figures are exclusive of applicable taxes (GST/PST) unless stated otherwise.
Timeline & revisions.
We agree to a launch window in the Statement of Work and we take it seriously. Most small-business sites run 4–8 weeks from kickoff. We’ll flag any risk to the date as soon as we see it — we don’t believe in surprise delays.
Each project includes two rounds of revisions at the design phase and one round at the build phase. Additional rounds are billed at our standard hourly rate, which will be listed in your proposal.
To keep things moving, we ask that feedback on shared work be returned within five business days. If a project stalls on the client side for more than 30 days, we may pause it and re-quote the remaining work when it resumes.
What we need from you.
Great websites are collaborative. To hit the timeline, we’ll need:
- Final copy, images, and any brand assets by the dates in the project plan.
- One clear point of contact who can speak for the business and make decisions.
- Timely, consolidated feedback — ideally in a single round per phase.
- Confirmation that any content you give us is yours to use, or properly licensed.
- Access to hosting, domain registrars, and any third-party accounts we need to connect.
If you don’t have copy or photography yet, say so early. We have partners we can recommend, and we’ll build that into the plan instead of letting it become a blocker.
Who owns what.
You own the final site. Once the final invoice is paid, all rights to the design, copy we’ve written for you, and custom code built specifically for your project transfer to you. The site is yours to keep, modify, migrate, or hand off to another studio — no strings.
We retain the right to show the work. Unless you ask us not to, we may include screenshots, short video captures, and a link to your site in our portfolio, case studies, and social posts. Sensitive industries or confidential launches — tell us upfront and we’ll keep it private.
Source files, working drafts, and internal process documents (Figma files, sitemaps, staging builds, experimental branches) remain our property. You’re welcome to ask for specific assets and we’ll usually say yes.
Tools we plug into.
Most websites rely on services we don’t run — hosting, domain registrars, email providers, analytics, fonts, payment processors, form handlers. We’ll recommend the ones we trust and help you set them up, but we’re not responsible for their uptime, pricing changes, outages, or policy updates.
Any fees for third-party services (hosting, premium plugins, stock assets, licensed fonts) are passed through to you at cost unless bundled into a care plan.
What stays between us.
Anything you share with us that isn’t publicly known — financials, customer lists, unreleased plans, internal documents — we treat as confidential. We won’t share it, sell it, or use it outside the project without your permission. This obligation outlasts the project itself.
The same goes the other way. Our proposals, process documents, pricing, and internal tooling are confidential to us — please don’t forward them to other studios for comparison shopping. We’re happy to answer questions directly.
What we promise.
We warrant that the work we deliver is original, built with care, and free of known defects at the time of launch. For 30 days after launch, we’ll fix any bugs in our code at no charge. Bugs caused by third-party services, changes you or another party make to the site, or issues in content you provided are not covered.
Beyond that, the site is provided “as is.” We don’t guarantee that it will rank #1 on Google, convert at a specific rate, or remain compatible with every future browser release — the web moves, and we move with it under a care plan.
Ongoing care is optional.
Once your site is launched and the 30-day warranty window has passed, Ignite Web Studios is not obligated to maintain, update, monitor, or support the site unless a monthly retainer agreement has been signed by both parties. That includes (but isn’t limited to) content updates, plugin and dependency upgrades, security patches, uptime monitoring, backups, performance tuning, and troubleshooting issues caused by third-party services or changes made by anyone other than us.
If you’d like ongoing care, we offer monthly retainer plans tailored to the size and complexity of your site. Retainers are billed monthly in advance, outline exactly what’s included, and can be paused or cancelled with 30 days’ written notice. Without a signed retainer in place, any post-launch work is handled as a new engagement at our then-current hourly rate, subject to availability on our calendar.
The limits of our liability.
We’ll always do right by you, but we need a ceiling. To the maximum extent permitted by law, Ignite Web Studios’ total liability for any claim arising out of a project is capped at the total fees paid for that project in the twelve months preceding the claim.
We’re not liable for indirect, incidental, consequential, or punitive damages — lost profits, lost data, lost customers, reputational harm — even if we were warned they were possible. Insurance, backups, and business continuity planning are on your side of the fence.
If things don’t work out.
Either of us can end the engagement at any time with written notice. If you end it, the deposit is non-refundable and any work completed up to that point will be invoiced at our standard rate. If we end it, we’ll refund any fees paid for work not yet started and hand over everything we’ve built so far.
We reserve the right to end a project early in cases of non-payment, abusive communication, requests to do something illegal or misleading, or a fundamental breakdown in trust. We’ve never had to use this clause. We hope we never do.
Law & jurisdiction.
These Terms are governed by the laws of the Province of British Columbia and the federal laws of Canada that apply here. Any dispute will be handled in the courts of British Columbia, in Delta or the nearest appropriate venue.
Before anything formal, we agree to try to settle things in good faith over a phone call and, if needed, a mediator. We’re a small studio. We’d rather fix it than fight it.
Changes to these Terms.
We may update these Terms from time to time — usually for clarity, sometimes because the law or our process has changed. The current version lives at this URL and the “Last updated” date at the top will always reflect the most recent change.
Material changes that affect active projects will be communicated directly. For signed Statements of Work already in progress, the version of these Terms that was in effect on the day you signed is the version that governs your project.