Questions
The things people ask before committing, answered properly rather than hedged.
How long does a project usually take?
Most builds land well inside the guarantee window, which is thirty working days, or roughly six weeks. If I miss it through my own fault you take ten percent off the final price. The clock starts at the later of your deposit clearing or the day I have everything I need from you, and it pauses while I am waiting on you. It never pauses for my own delays.
What do I need to give you before you start?
Your copy, or your approval of copy I write for you. Any photography and brand assets you want used. Access to your domain and hosting, and to any account the site connects to: Stripe if it takes payments or donations, the email account automatic emails send from, Google Analytics and Search Console. Those stay in your name, and you add me as a team member rather than sending passwords or keys. Projects stall on missing material more than anything else, so the sooner that arrives the sooner you are live.
Do you offer revisions?
Three rounds at the design stage and two more after the build, which is more than most projects use. A round means one consolidated set of feedback rather than a stream of separate messages. Further rounds, or changes that alter the agreed scope rather than refine it, are quoted at one hundred pounds an hour before any work happens.
What if I do not like the first direction?
Say so on the first round. That is exactly what the design revisions are for, and changing direction early costs nothing. Rethinking a layout before it is built is far cheaper than after, so tell me plainly rather than being polite about it.
How many pages do I get?
As many as the project needs. Page count is part of the scope we agree before I quote, and the quote is fixed from that point. Pages added later are quoted separately rather than quietly absorbed or quietly billed.
Do you take a deposit?
Fifty percent on accepting the quote, before work starts, and the other fifty on completion before the site goes live on your domain. Invoices are due within fourteen days. Everything is in pounds sterling.
Who owns the site once it is finished?
You do, from final payment. The design, the markup, the styles, and the content produced for you. It is yours to host, edit and move wherever you like, and you are never locked to me afterwards. I keep the underlying tools and components I built before your project and reused inside it, and you get a permanent licence to those as part of your site.
Do you handle hosting and the domain?
I set both up and get the site live. The ongoing costs are billed to you by those companies directly rather than through me, which means the accounts stay in your name and you keep control of them.
Will it work on phones?
Yes. Every page is built and tested at real phone, tablet and desktop widths as it is made, not designed wide and squeezed down at the end.
Can I cancel?
A project, at any point. The deposit covers the work already done and is not refundable, anything finished beyond it is invoiced at the hourly rate, and you keep everything you have paid for. The Partner plan has a three month minimum, then can be cancelled any time, running to the end of the month already paid for.
How do we talk during the project?
Call, text or email, whichever suits you. I would much rather you asked a small question early than sat on it for a week.
Do I get anything to keep track of it all?
Yes. When we start I email you a private link to your own portal, with a code that opens your project and nothing else. It holds the agreement with your figures in it, the list of what I still need from you, where the build has got to, and, once the site is live, the Partner plan if you want it. It is not linked from this site and there is no account to make. Lose the link and I will send it again.
Do you offer ongoing maintenance?
One plan, Partner, at two hundred and forty nine pounds a month. You get your own admin panel to change the site whenever you like, an inbox for every enquiry and sign up, a dashboard of what the site is doing, fixes free for as long as you are on it, hosting looked after, and an hour a month of my time for anything the panel cannot do. The first three months are the minimum. It is not a condition of the build, and genuine faults are fixed free for thirty calendar days after launch either way. Clients start it from their portal.
Anything not covered here is probably in the full terms, and if it is not, just ask me.