The small print
The plain English version. No tricks, and nothing written to catch you out. If anything here is unclear, just ask.
Deliberate Design is run by two people, Kai and Charlie, working together as one studio. Your agreement is with Deliberate Design, whichever of us you are speaking to, and every one of these terms applies the same either way.
Every job is quoted at a fixed price up front, so you know exactly what it costs before anything starts. Prices are in pounds.
The build cost is split in two. We send you a simple example first, at no cost. Once you are happy with it and ask us to go ahead, we take the first half to begin the full build. The other half is due when your site goes live, or when you opt for delivery of the site files and they are sent to you.
Hosting, setup and management are separate from the build and are paid in full, not split. The one off Fully Managed setup fee is paid in full up front, and monthly hosting and care plans are billed monthly, in advance. The setup fee pays for the setup work at the start, buying your domain, setting up hosting, your Google Business Profile, email and analytics, and it includes your first month on the plan, so monthly billing starts from your second month. Once that work has begun the fee is non refundable, as it covers time and third party costs already spent on your behalf.
The balance is due as set out above. Where a payment is outstanding, we hold your completed work for one calendar month from the point it is made available to you. During that month the site stays offline, or the files are held, until payment is settled.
If no payment is made and no arrangement is agreed within that month, you forfeit any rights to the work done so far, and any services set up on your behalf may be closed. Your domain name is dealt with separately and is covered below. If you later want the site remade and your details sent over, that can be arranged at the original price, paid in full up front.
Reversed payments and chargebacks. If a payment is reversed, recalled or charged back after the work it paid for has been carried out, that amount counts as unpaid from that moment and everything above applies to it. Where a payment is disputed without the problem being raised with us first, we will give the payment provider our written agreement and the record of what was delivered.
Your domain belongs to you, not to us. On the Fully Managed plan we buy it for you and register it in your name, so you are the legal owner of it from the first day. We are only the people looking after it.
The domain included in a monthly plan is a .co.uk. If you would rather have a .com, or any other extension, or you want to reserve one alongside your .co.uk so nobody else registers it, we will do that at cost on request. You pay what the registrar charges and we add nothing to it. Any extra domain is registered in your name on the same terms as the one included.
While you are on a plan we keep it inside our own provider account so we can handle renewals, security and the technical settings without you having to think about them. That is for convenience, and it does not change who owns it.
If you leave, it comes with you. Once your final payment has cleared we will give you the transfer code within five working days, and you can move it to any provider you like. If the registrar charges a fee to move a domain out, that fee is passed on to you at cost and nothing is added to it. Your new provider may also charge you to bring it in, which is between you and them.
We will not release or transfer a domain while money is owed. If an invoice is unpaid, or a payment has been reversed or charged back, we can hold the transfer and take the site offline until it is settled. Holding it does not make it ours, and it is released as soon as you have settled up. If a debt is still outstanding when the domain comes up for renewal, we are not obliged to keep paying to renew it on your behalf, and it may be allowed to lapse.
You pay nothing until you have seen a design you are happy with. That is the whole promise, and it is simpler than most people expect, so here it is written out.
In plain terms: the risk of the first design is ours, and once you have told us to go ahead, the commitment is real on both sides.
One thing worth being straight about, because vagueness here helps nobody. Once you have approved a design and paid, the money is committed and there is no refund. Each site is built to your brief from scratch, so the work cannot be resold to anyone else. What you get instead is the two rounds of changes, and us actually answering you. Nothing here removes any right you have under law that cannot be excluded, and if you are an individual buying for personal use, see the cooling off section below.
Every build includes two rounds of changes to get it right. Anything beyond that is charged at a fair rate, or is covered free if you are on a monthly care plan. Changes means text, images and small tweaks. A full redesign or brand new pages are quoted separately.
We aim to get most sites live within one to two weeks. That depends on you getting your words and photos to us and giving feedback promptly, so it is a target rather than a fixed deadline. If an order goes quiet with no response for 30 days, we may pause it until you are ready to pick it back up.
The work is done by the two of us. Some projects are built by one of us, some by both. Whoever does the building, nothing about your agreement changes: the price stays the same, your point of contact stays the same unless we tell you otherwise in writing, and your site, your files and your domain are yours exactly as set out in these terms. Your content, your logins and anything we know about your business stay inside Deliberate Design and go no further.
Our work sets up the search basics so your site is ready to be found, but we do not specialise in SEO or rankings and we make no promise about your position on Google, your visitor numbers or your sales. Those depend on Google and the market, not on us. The service is there to get you up and running as a solid starting point. Beyond that, we recommend you carry out further SEO work, or have it done, once your site is live.
You own your website. If you take the yours to host option, we hand you the complete files to host wherever you like. On a hosting plan we host it for you, but it is still yours and you can take it with you whenever you want. Your domain name is yours too, and how that works is set out under Your domain name above.
We keep the right to display any site we have built in our portfolio and our own marketing, and to link others to it. We may use this right or choose not to, at our discretion.
Hosting and care plans are billed monthly, in advance. You can cancel whenever you like by giving one month's notice, so your plan runs for one more monthly payment after you tell us, and there is no refund for a month already started. On the fully managed plan we look after your domain renewal and email setup as described on the site.
On either monthly plan we set up your contact form and your mailing list free of charge. Those are one off jobs with normal prices of their own, and they are free because you are taking the ongoing plan.
If you cancel within the first six months, that setup cost becomes payable. It is due before your site files are released or your domain is transferred to you. This is not a penalty for leaving, it is simply that the work was given free on the basis of the plan, and it is a real few hours either way. After six months nothing is owed and you can leave with the usual one month's notice, with everything released as normal.
Most of our work is for businesses. Where you are buying as a business, the statutory 14 day cooling off period for consumers does not apply.
Where you are an individual buying for personal use, you may have a legal right to change your mind within 14 days. Because each site is custom built to your brief, and because setup work such as buying your domain begins right away at your request, that work is treated as started with your agreement. By asking us to begin, you accept that this right no longer covers work already carried out or costs already spent for you.
If a cooling off right does apply and you cancel within the 14 days, you remain responsible for costs already incurred on your behalf. Where a domain has been registered for you, a domain fee at cost is payable to cover that registration and the transfer, and your site files will be released and the domain moved into your name once that fee is settled.
Once payment is received, work starts right away. From that point an order cannot be cancelled simply because you have changed your mind, as the work is already under way. This does not affect the guarantee above, or any statutory cooling off right a consumer may have, both of which are set out earlier.
Websites are hosted on servers run by a third party hosting supplier. We choose a reputable host and set everything up with care, but that infrastructure is not owned or directly controlled by us. From time to time a technical problem can happen, such as downtime, a server fault, a service interruption or a problem at the host. If it does, we will do everything we reasonably can to put it right and get you back up and running as promptly as possible.
To the fullest extent permitted by law, we are not liable for any website outage, server issue, crash, loss of data or other problem that arises from the third party host or from events outside our reasonable control. Nothing in these terms removes or limits any rights you have under law that cannot be excluded.
For sites we host, we run periodic backups of hosted files as part of looking after the servers, so a recent backup may exist on the standard hosting plan, though this is not guaranteed. On the fully managed plan we go further and take reasonable steps to back up your site files and data to a separate server once each week, so a recent copy is kept away from the main server in case of a failure. All backups are provided on a best efforts basis and we cannot guarantee that any particular backup will exist, be complete, or be fully recoverable.
For any site we host we also keep the original build files. If you choose to leave our hosting, we will give you both the live version and the original version of your site, so you can take it elsewhere.
If you have taken delivery of your site files to host yourself, we do not keep a copy once they have been sent to you. Storing those files and keeping them safe is then your responsibility, and if they are lost after delivery that is not something we can recover for you. Once the work has been delivered the job is complete, unless you are on one of our hosting or management plans.
You provide the words, images and logo for your site, or tell us to use what you send over. By doing so you confirm you have the right to use them. We are not responsible for content you supply.
Card payments on any shop we build run through a trusted provider such as Stripe, SumUp or PayPal, and that provider's terms apply to those transactions. Domains are registered with a domain provider on your behalf.
We build every site with care and to the brief you give us. To the fullest extent permitted by law, we are not liable for any loss arising from your site, its hosting or any service we provide, including indirect losses, issues caused by content you supply, or changes someone else makes after handover. On the yours to host option, the site is provided as it is at handover.
Where, despite this, we are found liable for anything, your sole entitlement is a refund of the fee you paid, less any costs already paid to third parties on your behalf. Nothing in these terms removes or limits any rights you have under law that cannot be excluded, such as those a consumer holds by law.
These terms, and any work we carry out, are governed by the law of Scotland, and any dispute falls under the Scottish courts.
Everything goes through email at hello@deliberate-design.co.uk. That is the only official contact for Deliberate Design.