Terms & Conditions

All quotes and estimates are valid for 30 days from the date of issue and are based strictly on the brief provided by the client at the time of quoting.

The quoted price includes only the explicit items listed in the written scope of work. Any additional features, structural updates, stock imagery, premium fonts, third-party plugin extensions, software licensing, layout adjustments, or secondary integrations requested after setup will be classified as a "Project Variation".

Variations will be invoiced separately at the Company's standard hourly rate of $150 + GST (unless otherwise specified in writing) or via a separate fixed project variation quote. The Company reserves the right to pause work on the primary project until variation terms are agreed upon and payment schedules are cleared.

Unless expressly agreed otherwise in writing by the Company, all website design and development projects require a non-refundable 50% mobilization deposit before structural strategy, design layouts, or development work begins.

The remaining balance is strictly due and payable upon practical completion of the project and prior to the website being launched live, transferred to client hosting, or handed over for full operational use.

Practical Completion: A project is deemed practically complete when the agreed development work has been substantially executed by the Company, matching the initial scope. Delays by the client in supplying final text copy, business graphics, active logins, or internal administrative sign-offs will not delay final milestone invoicing. If outstanding items remain due to client delays, the Company will issue the final balance invoice, which must be paid within standard payment terms.

The client acknowledges that efficient delivery requires timely supply of assets (content, images, logins, feedback). The client agrees to provide all requested data within 14 business days of a written request.

The 30-Day Interim Rule: If a project is stalled or delayed by the client for more than 30 consecutive days, the Company reserves the immediate right to issue an interim invoice covering the total value of all components completed to date, which must be cleared immediately.

The 45-Day Abandonment Clause: If a project remains stalled or completely unresponsive due to client inaction for more than 45 consecutive days, the project will be classified as "Abandoned". Upon abandonment, all deposits are forfeited, the project contract is terminated, and all completed files are archived. To revive an abandoned project, a client must submit a formal request, pay any outstanding balances, and clear a $450 + GST project re-initiation and rescheduling fee.

Where a fixed number of revisions is allocated in a quote, those revisions must be requested within a strict 7-day feedback window following the presentation of design drafts or staging links. If no feedback is delivered within 7 days, the design phase will be locked as fully approved by default.

Revisions must fit within the structural baseline of the original brief. Revisions do not cover ground-up brand transformations, complete layout redesigns after layout approval, or shifts in technology platforms mid-build. Requests violating the original project trajectory will be quoted out as separate Variations.

The Company creates professional, standardized digital frameworks using clean code and tactical marketing processes. However, the client explicitly acknowledges that the Company has no control over real-world consumer demand, macro-economic conditions, market shifts, or competitor advertising strategies.

The Company gives no guarantee, warrant, or absolute commercial promise regarding exact Google search rankings, click-through rates, incoming sales conversions, phone inquiries, customer bookings, platform page speeds, or revenue spikes.

Digital success depends heavily on variables external to the Company's control, including product pricing structures, third-party platform algorithm overhauls, offline brand equity, third-party hosting optimization, consumer choice, and overall product market fit.

Paid marketing and Search Engine Optimization (SEO) campaigns (including Google Ads, Meta Ads, and social media promotions) are provided on an ongoing, strategic best-efforts basis.

The Company is not liable for structural or commercial policy updates executed by tech giants (Google, Meta, etc.) that result in immediate algorithm swings, ad account suspensions, cost-per-click spikes, or policy changes targeting specific industry niches.

Ad spend budgets, media costs, secondary application subscriptions, third-party stock asset acquisitions, and platform billing elements are paid direct by the client via their linked payment methods and are strictly separate from the Company’s service management fees.

Prior to print execution, the Company will present a digital graphic proof file. The client holds sole and absolute responsibility for comprehensively reviewing all copy, grammar alignments, telephone extensions, physical addresses, barcode specs, layout dimensions, and quantities.

Written or digital sign-off of the proof constitutes full authorization to print. The Company accepts zero financial or operational liability for errors, layout omissions, or typos discovered after proof authorization. Reprints required due to post-approval errors will be billed entirely at the client's expense.

Colors displayed on digital, backlit RGB screens vary natively from real-world CMYK or Pantone ink outputs onto variable matte, gloss, or textured paper stocks. Minor variations in final color hues, tones, or trimming limits do not constitute a print fault or grounds for compensation.

The client must guarantee and confirm they hold absolute legal ownership, valid usage licensing, or direct written copyright permission for all company trademarks, logos, copy text, imagery assets, font types, and video elements supplied to the Company for design execution.

The client explicitly and fully indemnifies the Company, its directors, and sub-contractors against any immediate or third-party legal claims, intellectual property lawsuits, financial damages, regulatory fines, or copyright breach actions emerging from files or assets provided to us by the client.

The Company reserves the right to employ specialized, qualified sub-contractors, professional developers, copywriters, or third-party agencies to execute specific segments of project milestones.

Furthermore, websites rely heavily on third-party frameworks, content management systems (WordPress), application extensions (plugins), security scripts, payment gateways (Stripe, PayPal), and API feeds. The Company holds no liability for unexpected downtime, technical errors, security holes, price modifications, framework drops, or complete closures of these external tools.

The Company is a web developer and strategist—not a primary internet service provider (ISP) or data center operator. Where the Company resells or provisions third-party hosting, server space, SSL encryptions, domain registrations, or email routing infrastructures, these systems are managed by third-party data centers.

The Company gives no warranty of continuous, unbroken server uptime, immune email propagation, zero-packet latency, or uninterrupted server connections. The client acknowledges that server environments undergo unexpected technical faults, routine security patches, and localized fiber outages entirely beyond our human control.

Domain renewals, server subscriptions, and third-party corporate email systems (e.g., Google Workspace, Microsoft 365) are subject to ongoing fee schedules. Failure to clear these fees prior to renewal deadlines can trigger automatic account terminations, data erasure, and domain drops by external registrars, for which the Company bears zero responsibility.

Modern content management systems and plugins require constant structural maintenance, database optimization, and core version updates to patch emerging web security risks. Following website deployment, the Company holds no responsibility to update plugins, secure frameworks, optimize databases, monitor broken forms, or repair compatibility breaks unless the client has contracted the Company via an active, paid monthly Maintenance Agreement.

The client acknowledges that no digital platform is completely immune to cyber threats. The Company is not financially or legally liable for website defacement, malicious code injections, malware takeovers, database leaks, or brute-force hacking attacks targeting client sites—regardless of whether the site is hosted independently or on servers provisioned by the Company.

Full administrative access credentials to the completed digital asset will be securely provisioned to the client only upon complete clearance of all outstanding milestone invoices.

Once administrative access is delivered, the client assumes full operational risk. If the client, an internal employee, or an unvetted third-party developer logs into the backend system and causes coding script errors, formatting breaks, security holes, CSS layout damage, plugin conflicts, or total data drops, the Company is completely exempt from liability.

Any technical diagnosis, code rebuilding, backup restoration work, or troubleshooting required to patch client-caused backend errors will be treated as a new task and billed at our standard hourly variation rate.

Invoices are issued digitally via the Company's cloud accounting systems. All invoices are subject to strict payment terms specified on the face of the document.

If an invoice falls overdue, the Company reserves the absolute legal right to immediately suspend all active design phases, pause technical builds, withhold code exports, disable ongoing ad management campaigns, and suspend hosting server access (taking the website offline) until the account is paid in full.

Debt Recovery Costs: In the event that invoices remain default and are referred to an external debt collection agency or legal firm, the client agrees to pay all collection agency commissions, court fees, search fees, and legal costs calculated on a full solicitor-and-client indemnity basis.

If a project is canceled by the client after work has commenced, the initial 50% mobilization deposit is entirely non-refundable, serving as liquidation for allocated company hours and booking scheduling slots.

If the volume of strategic development, design wireframing, layout engineering, or developer hours completed up to the date of formal cancellation exceeds the initial deposit value, the Company will calculate hours tracked and issue a final exit milestone invoice, which must be cleared immediately.

Any fixed external hardware expenses, non-refundable platform plugin purchases, software licenses, printing raw costs, or developer outlays already incurred by the Company remain fully payable by the client.

To the maximum extent permitted by Australian Consumer Law, the Company, its directors, employees, and suppliers exclude all liability for commercial loss of profits, commercial revenue drops, loss of operational data, damage to brand goodwill, missed business opportunities, server downtime, digital ad delivery drops, print delivery disruptions, or indirect, special, or consequential commercial damages.

Where laws block total liability exclusions, the Company's total financial exposure for any proven breach of a consumer guarantee, structural contract default, or negligence is strictly limited, at the Company's sole option, to either resupplying the digital service to the client or refunding the exact amount paid to the Company for that specific component of service.

The client agrees to fully defend, indemnify, and hold harmless Ocean Website Design Pty Ltd, its directors, staff, and linked sub-contractors from any damages, legal actions, financial settlements, demands, outlays, or regulatory compliance costs emerging directly from:

• Illegal, misleading, or infringing content or media assets supplied by the client;
• Unverified, false, deceptive, or defamatory text copy uploaded to the site at the direction of the client;
• Breaches of third-party copyright, trade secrets, or intellectual property rights;
• Unauthorized modifications or structural breaks made to our code by the client or their associates;
• The client’s systemic failure to apply standard regulatory privacy measures, data compliance rules, or required e-commerce protocols to the active site;
• Continued commercial operations and customer transactions processed through the completed digital asset post-handover.

Conditional Transfer: Legal ownership, title rights, and intellectual property rights over custom website design elements, localized front-end content, and personalized graphic layouts created explicitly for the client transfer to the client only after all final project invoices, variation costs, and balances are cleared in full.

Until full payment is cleared, the Company retains absolute ownership and title over all created systems. Unauthorized publishing, copying, hosting, mapping, or commercial extraction of incomplete files or layouts represents an actionable intellectual property breach.

Pre-Existing Code Libraries: The Company retains exclusive ownership over all pre-existing development toolkits, structural code frameworks, proprietary core themes, custom functions, automation scripts, server setups, and internal workflows used during construction. Third-party software assets, underlying plugin files, CMS software (WordPress), and framework systems remain strictly bounded by their own external licensing terms and end-user agreements.

Unless a strict, written Non-Disclosure Agreement (NDA) has been negotiated and signed by both parties prior to project commencement, the Company retains the right to display design wireframes, digital interface screenshots, client case studies, live project hyperlinks, and printed layout results in its corporate portfolio, website, sales pitches, social media accounts, and promotional marketing channels.

The Company agrees to safeguard and treat sensitive client business data, internal strategies, financial structures, and access codes with professional care and confidentiality.

Confidential terms do not apply to data that is structurally available in the public domain, already under the possession of the Company independent of the client brief, developed entirely on an independent track by developers, or legally ordered for disclosure by an Australian court of competent jurisdiction.

These Terms and Conditions are governed by, analyzed, and enforced in accordance with the laws of the State of Western Australia. Both the Company and the Client irrevocably submit to the non-exclusive jurisdiction of the courts of Western Australia and courts of appeal from them.

If any single clause or phrase within these Terms is found to be invalid, illegal, or completely unenforceable by an Australian court, that specific section will be structurally severed or modified to the minimum extent necessary, and all remaining clauses will continue to operate with full force, validity, and legal effect.