Every promise, with its conditions right next to it. Nothing is hidden elsewhere. These terms are part of our contract with you (Terms of Business, clause 13), and you can read them before you order anything.
How these promises work
- Each promise below sets out what we promise, the conditions, what isn't covered and what you get if we miss it.
- What you get if we miss a promise is the remedy for that promise, and the only compensation for it. It doesn't take away your right to end the contract for a serious breach (clause 26), or any right that the law says can't be taken away.
- Promise 1 applies to anyone who asks for a free preview. Promises 2 to 7 apply to business clients who have signed an Order Form, and promise 7 also applies to anyone who contacts us.
1. See it before you pay
What we promise: a free homepage preview, within 2 working days of your request. No card. No obligation. You only pay if you decide to order.
Conditions:
- The 2 working days start once we have enough information to identify your business.
- One preview, plus one round of tweaks, per business.
- For businesses and the self-employed. The person asking must own the business or be allowed to act for it.
- The full rules are in our Free preview terms.
Not covered: a full website, extra pages or more rounds of changes. Those are part of an order.
If we miss it: the preview stays free whatever happens. We never take card details for it, never switch you to a paid plan automatically and never add a preview fee later. If we're late, we tell you why and when it will arrive, and you're still under no obligation. If you're ever charged anything for a preview, we refund it in full within 14 days.
2. A fixed price in writing
What we promise: the price on your Order Form is the price you pay. We quote anything extra, and you approve it first.
Conditions: your Order Form lists the build price, the Care Plan price, the payment milestones and any add-ons.
Not covered: these can change what you pay, but only in the ways set out in the Terms:
- extra work you approve in writing (clause 3);
- third-party costs you agree to in the Order Form or a quote, such as a premium domain or a booking tool;
- late-payment interest and fixed recovery charges (clause 9);
- VAT or similar taxes the law requires us to charge, including VAT if we become VAT-registered (clause 30);
- a Care Plan price change: at most once a year, by 5% at most, with 30 days' notice, and you can cancel before it applies (clause 10).
If we miss it: if we invoice you for anything you didn't agree to in writing, we cancel that charge. If you've already paid it, we refund it within 14 days.
3. On time, or your first month of care is free
What we promise: your site is live within 5 working days (Launch), 10 working days (Local Pro) or 20 working days (Local Plus) of us receiving your content and your first payment.
Conditions:
- The clock starts on the working day after we have both your first payment and the complete content and access listed in Schedule 1. We confirm the start date and your target launch date by email.
- Working days are Monday to Friday, except public holidays in England and studio closure days. We announce closure days on our website and by email at least 14 days in advance, and there are no more than 15 a year (Terms, definitions).
- Any time spent waiting for you moves the date back, day for day. That includes waiting for feedback, approvals, content, access or a payment, including the final payment before go-live.
- If your Order Form includes add-ons, such as extra pages or languages, a shop or a move from an old site, or you approve a change of scope, the Order Form or the quote gives the new date. This promise then applies to that date. If you ordered the Rush add-on, it applies to the rush date in your Order Form.
Not covered: delays caused by events outside our control (clause 28), or by other companies you're responsible for, such as your old web host or domain provider being slow to release your domain.
If we miss it: your first month of Care Plan fees is free. We take it off your first Care Plan invoice. If you pay yearly, we take off one month of the monthly price of your plan (£39, £79 or £179). On a no-build-fee plan, we take off one month of the matching Care Plan fee: £39 for Launch Monthly, £79 for Local Pro Monthly, or £179 for Local Plus Monthly. There's one free month per project, even if the launch is late more than once.
4. Fast from day one
What we promise: your homepage scores 90 or more on Google PageSpeed Insights (mobile, performance) at launch, or we keep working at no cost until it does.
Conditions:
- We test your homepage with PageSpeed Insights, using the mobile performance score. Scores change a little from test to test, so we run it 3 times in a row and use the middle score.
- You can test it yourself at any time. To claim, tell us within 30 days of your launch date.
Not covered:
- Third-party tools you asked us to add, such as booking widgets, chat, video, maps, review widgets, or tracking and advertising scripts. If one of these pulls the score below 90, the promise is met if the homepage scores 90 or more without it. We'll show you the difference.
- Content or changes added after launch by you or anyone else, such as very large photos.
- Pages other than the homepage.
- Features or content you ask for before launch after we've told you in writing that they will bring the score below 90.
- Changes that Google makes to how PageSpeed Insights scores pages after your launch date.
If we miss it: we keep working on your homepage, at no cost to you, until it scores 90 or more under these conditions.
5. Yours
What we promise: the domain is in your name from day one, and the site is yours once it's paid.
Conditions:
- We register a new domain with your business as the legal holder. If you already own a domain, it stays in your name. We're listed as technical contact while we look after it (clause 25).
- The design, words and code we make for you become yours when the build is paid in full. On a no-build-fee plan, that's after payment 12, or when you buy out the rest of the build. If we end a no-build-fee plan early, or you end it because we broke the contract, the site becomes yours without a buy-out (clause 10). The copyright transfer is in the Order Form you sign, and it happens automatically on that payment. We also send you a short signed document confirming the transfer within 5 working days (clause 19).
Not covered:
- Our reusable building blocks (templates and code we use across projects) stay ours. You get a free, permanent licence to use them with your site, anywhere.
- Fonts, stock images, icons and plug-ins stay under their owners' licences. We list them in your licence register.
- AI-generated parts: we pass on whatever rights exist, but we can't promise they're exclusive to you or protected by copyright.
- Premium domains, and domains registered by someone else.
If we miss it: if a domain we registered for you is ever not in your name, we move it into your name free within 2 working days of you asking. If you've paid in full and need a document to prove you own your site, we sign it free.
6. A fair exit
What we promise: after the first 3 months, cancel with 30 days' notice. Your domain transfer code arrives within 5 working days, free, with your full site files once the build is paid (always, on a one-off build).
Conditions:
- Cancel by email to [email protected]. There's no exit fee.
- We send your files within 5 working days of your cancellation email, so you can move before your plan ends. If you owe us undisputed sums, we send them within 5 working days of you paying.
- “Full site files” means a complete copy of your site as static files, ready to host anywhere, plus your licence register.
- Your site stays online until the end of the period you've paid for.
- No-build-fee plans run for 12 monthly payments. To leave earlier, you can buy out the rest of the build and keep the site, or leave without it after at least 3 payments (clause 10).
Not covered:
- Help moving your site to a new host or developer. That's charged at our hourly rate, and we quote it first.
- Site files for a site you don't own yet, for example if the build hasn't been paid in full, you cancel the build before launch, or you leave a no-build-fee plan without buying it out. You still get your domain and your content, and you can have the files by paying the rest of the build price (clause 27).
- Data held by other companies' tools, such as your booking system. That stays with them.
If we miss it: if your files or transfer code arrive late, we keep your site online free of charge until 5 working days after you've received everything.
7. A reply within 1 working day, usually the same day
What we promise: we reply to your emails and messages within 1 working day, and usually on the same day.
Conditions:
- A reply is a real answer from a person, not an automatic message. It either answers your question or tells you when you'll have the answer.
- Our working hours are Mon–Fri, 09:00–17:30 UK time. Messages sent outside those hours count from the next working day. Studio closure days (announced at least 14 days ahead, no more than 15 a year) aren't working days.
- This covers messages to [email protected] and to the contact channels shown on our website.
- It includes complaints, accessibility requests and content or review reports. For those, our first reply may be an acknowledgement, with the full answer following within the times set out in the policy concerned.
Not covered: spam, sales messages and messages without contact details. On a Care Plan, how quickly we make a change is set by your plan's response targets in Schedule 2.
If we miss it: tell us. We log every miss. If you're a Care Plan client, a missed reply counts as a missed response target: 3 misses in any 3 months and you can leave your plan straight away, with no notice and no exit fee (clause 12).
How to claim
- Email [email protected] with “Promise claim” in the subject line.
- Tell us which promise, what happened and the dates.
- Claim within 30 days of the date the promise was missed. For promise 4, claim within 30 days of your launch date. Promises 5 and 6 have no time limit: you can claim at any time.
- We reply within 1 working day and give you our decision within 10 working days.
- If we agree, we apply the remedy on your next invoice or refund you within 14 days. If we don't agree, we explain why, and you can use our complaints process (clause 32).
We keep a record of every promise claim and how we dealt with it.
What we never promise
We never promise rankings, calls, bookings or revenue. Search engines, maps and AI assistants are run by other companies, and nobody can honestly control what they do. Google itself says no one can guarantee a #1 ranking on Google (Google Search Central). We promise what we control instead: the list above. See clause 14.
Changes to these promises
The version of these terms published on the date you sign your Order Form is the one that applies to your project. If we change them later, the change applies to new orders, and we never reduce a promise for a project or Care Plan that's already under way without your written agreement (clause 33.7).