Terms & Conditions

1. Custom Website Design & Development Projects

  1. For smaller website design and development projects, a 50% deposit of the total sum due is payable before the project commences. When the website design project is approved by you, a further 45% is due. The final 5% is payable when the website is complete and ready to be published (final payment).
  2. For larger website design and development projects, payments will be determined by the agreed deliverable milestones.
  3. Initial deposit payments are non-refundable after Elan Creative has spent time working on the project.
  4. Elan Creative will charge a 2% fee for all payments made using PayPal, 1.4% for EU payments and 2.9% for non-EU payments made using a credit card. This fee is charged due to the costs incurred by Elan Creative for receiving such payments by our service provider.
  5. Payments using direct bank payments (BACS) or iDeal incur no processing fees.

2. Miscellaneous Website Design & Development Services

  1. Clients send requests as and when required during the course of the month. We record time spent on projects using a time tracker and this is used to generate a timesheet for each client at the end of the month. Services provided in this manner are invoiced periodically e.g. at the end of each month.
  2. Our invoice payment term is within 14 days of the invoice date.
  3. Reminders will be sent if your invoice is not settled by the due date.
  4. Late fees: we will apply late fees to invoices which are not paid 31 days after the due date on your invoice – these are applied due to the additional administration required to deal with late invoice payments.
  5. Debt collection: in case of unpaid invoices, the debt may be passed to a 3rd party debt collection service (depending on your circumstances) and you will be also be liable to pay 3rd party debt collection fees in addition to the outstanding invoice amount and late fees.

3.  ‘Affordable Website Design’ Service

  1. Our ‘Affordable Website Design’ Service is not a custom website design service. Due to the fixed, low fee service, we use one of our own pre-designed website design themes to create the website.
  2. The website will include up to 4 pages: homepage, services page, about and contact pages.
  3. In addition to the website design fee, a monthly fee is applicable for website hosting (which includes up to one business email account hosting).
  4. Stock photography will be used when no photos are supplied.
  5. Plain text logo will be used when no logo design is provided.
  6. The service does not include anything other than plain website page creation i.e. it does not include any additional functionality for example, but not limited to: shopping cart, booking system,
  7. The service does not include any additional services for example, but not limited to, SEO, copywriting, custom photography, custom graphics etc.
  8. Website design and creation will proceed after all final content is provided e.g. descriptive text about your business and services.
  9. One set of feedback and changes is included within the scope of the service.
  10. Further edits and changes will be the responsibility of the client. Full access to FAQs is provided to assist you with this.
  11. Full support is provided while the monthly hosting service is active.
  12. The website will be created using WordPress and you will be given full Editor access to the website.
  13. Elan Creative owns the intellectual property rights to the website.
  14. The first year domain registration is included for .com, .nl and .co.uk websites IF the domain is registered with Elan Creative. No credit is given for unused domain registration services.
  15. Domain registration will be renewed at €18 / year after the first year, to be paid one month in advance of the renewal date.

4. Website Maintenance Services ~ Standard

4.1. What is Included

  1. Uptime monitoring service.
  2. Apply all WordPress and plugin updates every 2 to 4 weeks. 
  3. Monitoring and implementing critical updates as and when they occur.
  4. Re-implement existing plugin code customisations in their current format, only if code customisations have been carried out by Elan Creative e.g. implement WooCommerce theme file updates into customised theme files.
  5. Basic testing to ensure page layout and styling has not been effected by updates.

4.2. What is NOT Included

  1. Re-writing customised code after a major WordPress or plugin version update i.e. when WordPress or plugin code is significantly re-written e.g. different code structure, new classes etc. resulting in code customisations also having to be re-written. Re-implementing/re-writing customisations after any major code update is not included.
  2. Fixing the website as a result of it being compromised, for whatever reason.
  3. Commercial plugin licenses.
  4. Any action which needs to be taken as a result of an uptime monitoring alert fail e.g. website down.
  5. Regular funtionality testing is the responsibility of the client e.g. test contact page form, test shopping cart functionality etc.

5. Website Maintenance Services ~ Advanced

This service is offered to clients owning highly customised websites. The fee for this service is higher to include updates carried out on a separate staging website and for more in-depth testing of custom functionality.

5.1. What is Included

  1. Uptime monitoring service.
  2. Apply all WordPress and plugin updates every 3 months on newly created Staging site.
  3. Monitoring and implementing critical updates as and when they occur.
  4. Re-implement existing plugin code customisations in their current format.
    Most customisations have been implemented so that the plugins can be updated without effect. However some customisations have to be implemented in core files. These customisations are re-implemented with each upgrade and then tested.
  5. Implement WooCommerce theme file updates into customised theme files.
  6. Initial testing.
  7. Release to client for testing.
  8. Implement approved updates on live site.

5.2. What is NOT Included

  1. Re-writing customised code after a major WordPress or plugin version update i.e. when WordPress or plugin code is significantly re-written e.g. different code structure, new classes etc. resulting in code customisations also having to be re-written. This could of course happen with WordPress in the future as it has already happened with other open source software such as Magento (from version 1 to version 2). Re-implementing/re-writing customisations after any major code update is not included.
  2. Fixing the website as a result of it being compromised, for whatever reason.
  3. Commercial plugin licenses.
  4. Any action which needs to be taken as a result of an uptime monitoring alert fail e.g. website down.

7. Website Intellectual Property and Copyright

  1. Elan Creative own all design and code of the website and the website design and code remains the intellectual property of Elan Creative.
  2. The website may not be duplicated or resold in any way, without written consent by Elan Creative.
  3. The website client is the copyright owner of their website copy (text) and content (photos and other graphics supplied by the client).

7. SEO

  1. No ranking guarantee is given as rank results are the sole control of search engines, which Elan Creative has no control over.
  2. Elan Creative is not responsible for any ranking changes due to change in search engine algorithms or negative SEO methods implemented by 3rd parties or the client.
  3. SEO results are not permanent and must be maintened. We will provide information on request relating to how to rank results can be maintained after any SEO service is complete or discontinued.

8. Hosting

  1. We offer 3 months free hosting for all of our Custom Website Design & Development clients, if required. No credit is given for unused free services.
  2. We provide a free transfer service on a case-by-case basis only and this will be offered to you only after we review your current hosting. Hosting transfers from Freeola, GoDaddy and some other hosting companies can be provided for a small fee. This is due to the additional amount of time it takes to work with those hosting interfaces.
  3. We provide full administrator access to your hosting account.
  4. At the end of the 3 months, hosting is charged at our annual rate for website hosting.
  5. If you cancel your hosting at any stage then we will process a refund for FULL unused months e.g. if you have 3 months and 5 days remaining, we will refund the value of 3 months.
  6. Our hosting service includes daily backups for up to one week ago. We cannot ensure the accuracy of backups and therefore strongly recommend that you deploy your own backup plan, and regularly download your backups to an offline device such as an external hard drive.

9. Domain Registration

  1. A notice period of 45 days before the domain renewal date is required if do you not wish to renew your domain registration.
  2. The domain registration renewal fee must be paid one month in advance of the renewal date.
  3. For current pricing please check our Domain Registration page: https://www.elancreative.studio/domain-registration

10. Governing Law

Any disputes arising out of or related to these Terms of Service and/or any use by you of Elan Creative services shall be governed by the laws of The Netherlands, without regard to the conflicts of law’s provisions therein. 

Last updated: 29th June 2023