Agreement
Service Agreement
The whole deal on one page, in plain words. Version 2026-09-16.
This agreement is between Golden Heart Web Design (“I”, “me”) and (“you”), the business named below, dated .
The short version
I build your website and keep it running. Setup is either paid up front or earned with a 12-month commitment. Your monthly fee starts after your site is live and you have approved it.
The site becomes yours outright — code, database and domain transfer key — once your first year is paid. Before that I am building and hosting it for you, and the code stays mine. A domain you already owned stays yours the whole time; I never hold it.
The rest of this page is that same deal, spelled out.
1. What I am building
| Business | |
|---|---|
| Domain | |
| Plan | |
| Monthly total | $ / month |
Setup covers design, development, domain connection, email configuration, SSL and launch. Anything outside the plan is quoted before I start it, never added to your bill as a surprise.
2. What you pay, and when
Setup is paid before I start. On Option B that is the $481 build price, taken when you check out. On Option C it is the whole year, taken when you check out. On Option A nothing is taken today — your signature on the 12-month term is what covers the build instead.
The monthly fee starts after launch. On Options A and B your subscription opens with a build period of about 30 days, and your first monthly invoice is issued at the end of it — after your site is live and you have approved it. If the build runs long, that date moves. It moves at my expense, not yours. Option C has no monthly invoice; the year is already paid.
After that, the monthly fee is billed in advance through Stripe. Prices can change, but only with at least 30 days' written notice.
3. How setup is paid for — choose one
A website costs real work to build. You cover that one of three ways. Tick the one you chose:
Option A — Setup included, 12-month minimum term.
I build the site at no charge, and in exchange you stay for 12 months. If you cancel inside that term, you do not owe the remaining months — you owe the setup fee that was waived at signup, $481. That is the whole penalty, and it is the only one.
Option B — $481 for the build, no minimum term.
You pay for the build once, at checkout, and there is no term at all: month to month from day one, leave whenever you like, owing nothing beyond the period already invoiced. The build price is 13 months of your plan — one month more than the term would have cost — because the term is what I would rather you chose, and the price says so.
Option C — Pay for the year up front, 2.5% off.
You pay twelve months in advance and take 2.5% off the whole amount. Setup is free and there is no term to sign: paying the year is the commitment, so there is nothing left to promise. It renews yearly unless you cancel, and cancelling stops the next renewal rather than clawing anything back — the year you paid for runs to its end.
4. If you walk away before launch
Up until the moment you approve the site for launch, no monthly fee is due and none will be. Cancel during the build and you are never billed a month.
What you paid at checkout is a different matter, because by then I have done the work. If you cancel during the build, I refund the setup fee in full if I have not started, and half of it once I have — for Option C, the same applies to the build portion and the unused months of the year are refunded in full. If I am the reason it did not work out, you get all of it back. Ask and I will tell you straight which of those applies.
5. Cancelling
On Option B, on Option C, or on Option A once the 12 months are up, you can cancel at any time, for any reason, without asking permission and without a notice period. Your service runs to the end of the period you have already paid for.
I will not make you phone anyone, sit through a retention offer, or explain yourself. Email me and it is done.
6. What you leave with
Everything is yours when you go. If you cancel, then within 30 days of your last day of service I hand over the complete source code as files you can host anywhere, your database, your content and images, and — for a domain I registered for you — the transfer authorisation code with the domain unlocked. Plus reasonable help pointing your new host or developer in the right direction.
Your content and any domain you already owned are yours throughout, not just at the end. I never hold those, for any reason.
The one condition is that the build has been paid for, and there are two ways it can be:
- In money — Option B, where you paid $481 at checkout. The build is settled from day one, so you can leave whenever you like and take everything with you.
- In time — Option A or C, where the 12 months cover it. Serve them and everything is yours on the same terms.
If you cancel inside the minimum term on Option A, the $481 build becomes payable — never the remaining months — and once it is settled the handover runs exactly as above. You are never trapped; there is just a price on leaving before the build has been paid for, and it is the same price you would have paid on day one.
I am blunt about why this exists: a website costs real work to make, and without it someone could have one built, pay a single month, and leave with it. That is the only thing being guarded against. It is not a way to keep you.
If I stop trading, everything above is yours at that moment at no charge, whatever stage you are at. You should not lose a website because something happened to me.
7. What I need from you
Content, images and logos you actually have the right to use, and answers when I ask for them. A build stalls without them, and a stalled build pushes your launch date — which pushes your first invoice, so delays cost you nothing but time.
You are responsible for what your site says being true and lawful, and for any rules specific to your industry.
8. What the monthly fee actually buys
So it is written down rather than assumed, the monthly fee covers:
- Hosting on Hostinger and, for application plans, Vercel. Both publish a 99.9% uptime commitment and that is what I pass on to you. If your site is down and it is something I can fix, I fix it — tell me and I will not wait for you to ask twice.
- Security updates applied at least monthly, and sooner than that for anything urgent. I do not sit on a critical patch until the end of the month.
- Backups, so a bad day is an inconvenience rather than a disaster.
- An SSL certificate, kept valid and renewed without you thinking about it.
- The content changes your plan includes, and my time to make them.
- Someone to email who built the thing and will answer.
Uptime is measured by the hosts, not by me, and excludes time your site is down because of something you changed or a third-party service failing. If I fall short of any of this, tell me — I would rather fix it or refund it than have you quietly leave.
9. Support and edits
Your plan includes the content edits listed on the pricing page. Anything beyond that is quoted first. Support is by email, and I answer within the target for your plan.
10. If something goes wrong
If I fail to deliver what is described here, tell me and I will fix it or refund you. I cannot promise a website will win you any particular amount of business — nobody honestly can — and what I can be held liable for is capped at what you paid me over the previous twelve months.
11. Everything else
Where this page is silent, my Terms of Service apply. If the two ever seem to disagree, this page wins — it is the one you signed.
Signatures
| You — signature | Tim Illguth, Golden Heart Web Design |
| Print name and date | Date |
Signing online is quicker — pick the free-setup option on the pricing page and you can sign there. Questions before you sign anything go to tim@goldenheartwebdesign.com.