These are the standard terms and conditions for Website Design and Development and apply to all contracts and all work undertaken by Sparkhouse Agency for their clients.

A 50% deposit of the total fee payable under Sparkhouse Agency's proposal is due immediately upon you instructing Sparkhouse Agency to proceed with the Website Design and Development work. The remaining 50% shall become due when the work is completed to your reasonable satisfaction but subject to the terms of the “approval of work” and “rejected work” clauses. Sparkhouse Agency reserves the right not to commence any work until the deposit has been paid in full. The 50% deposit is only refundable if Sparkhouse Agency has not fulfilled their obligations to deliver the work required under the agreement. The deposit is not refundable if the development work has been started and you terminate the contract through no fault of Sparkhouse Agency.

You must supply all materials and information required by Sparkhouse Agency to complete the work in accordance with any agreed specification. Such materials may include, but are not limited to, photographs, written copy, logos and other printed material. Where there is any delay in supplying these materials to Sparkhouse Agency which leads to a delay in the completion of work, Sparkhouse Agency has the right to extend any previously agreed deadlines by a reasonable amount. Where Sparkhouse Agency fails to supply materials, and that prevents the progress of the work, Sparkhouse Agency has the right to invoice you for any part or parts of the work already completed.

Sparkhouse Agency is pleased to offer you the opportunity to make revisions to the design. However, Sparkhouse Agency has the right to limit the number of design variations to a reasonable amount and may charge for additional designs if you make a change to the original design specification. Sparkhouse Agency’s website development phase is flexible and allows certain variations to the original specification. However any major deviation from the specification will be charged at the rate of $120+GST per hour.

Any time frames or estimates that Sparkhouse Agency gives are contingent upon your full co-operation and complete and final content in photography for the work pages. During development there is a certain amount of feedback required in order to progress to subsequent phases. It is required that a single point of contact be appointed from your side and be made available on a daily basis in order to expedite the feedback process. Any modifications requested during the development or after the Go-Live approval will incur additional charges. All additional work, over and above the estimates is charged separately. Under no circumstances will Sparkhouse Agency be liable for any delays caused by change in the project brief. Website/application content and all related materials need to be provided to Sparkhouse Agency within the first two weeks of starting the project. Any delays thereafter may delay the project and may incur additional charges if it goes beyond reasonable timeframe.

On completion of the work you will be notified and have the opportunity to review it. You must notify Sparkhouse Agency in writing of any unsatisfactory points within 7 days of such notification. Any of the work which has not been reported in writing to Sparkhouse Agency as unsatisfactory within the 7-day review period will be deemed to have been approved. Once approved, or deemed approved, work cannot subsequently be rejected and the contract will be deemed to have been completed and the 50% balance of the project price will become due.

If you reject any of Sparkhouse Agency’s work within the 7-day review period, or not approve subsequent work performed by Sparkhouse Agency to remedy any points recorded as being unsatisfactory, and Sparkhouse Agency, acting reasonably, consider that you have been unreasonable in any rejection of the work, Sparkhouse Agency can elect to treat this contract as at an end and take measures to recover payment for the completed work.

Upon completion of the 7-day review period, Sparkhouse Agency will invoice you for the 50% balance of the project.

ou must obtain all necessary permissions and authorities in respect of the use of all copy, graphic images, registered company logos, names and trade marks, or any other material that you supply to Sparkhouse Agency to include in your website or web applications. You must indemnify Sparkhouse Agency and hold them harmless from any claims or legal actions related to the content of your website.

Once you have paid Sparkhouse Agency in full for their work, Sparkhouse Agency grants you an editor role license to make updates to the website contents for the life of the website.

Sparkhouse Agency does not guarantee any specific position in search engine results for your website. Sparkhouse Agency performs basic search engine optimisation according to current best practice.

Sparkhouse Agency shall not be liable for any loss or damage which you may suffer which is in any way attributable to any delay in performance or completion of our contract, however that delay arises.

To the full extent permitted by law, all terms, conditions, warranties, undertakings, inducements or representations whether express, implied, statutory or otherwise (other than the express provisions of these terms and conditions) relating in any way to the services Sparkhouse Agency provides to you are excluded. Without limiting the above, to the extent permitted by law, any liability of Sparkhouse Agency under any term, condition, warranty or representation that by law cannot be excluded is, where permitted by law, limited at Sparkhouse Agency’s option to the replacement, re-repair or re-supply of the services or the payment of the cost of the services that Sparkhouse Agency was contracted to perform.

Sparkhouse Agency agrees that they will not at any time disclose any of your confidential information to any third party.

You agree to reimburse Sparkhouse Agency for any requested expenses which do not form part of Sparkhouse Agency’s proposal including but not limited to the purchase of templates, third party software, stock photographs, fonts, domain name registration, web hosting or comparable expenses.

If you are not receiving monthly website maintenance from Sparkhouse Agency (at an additional cost), you are responsible for maintaining your own backups with respect to your website. Sparkhouse Agency will not be liable for restoring any client data or client websites except to the extent that such data loss arises out of a negligent act or omission by Sparkhouse Agency.

Sparkhouse Agency will supply to you account credentials for domain name registration and/or web hosting that Sparkhouse Agency purchased on your behalf when you reimburse Sparkhouse Agency for any expenses that Sparkhouse Agency has incurred. If your website/application is not hosted with Sparkhouse Agency, any additional man-hours that may be required due to any server or network related issues are not covered in Sparkhouse Agency’s quotes and may be charged separately.

The agreement constituted by these terms and conditions and any proposal will be construed according to and is governed by the laws of Queensland, Australia. You and Sparkhouse Agency submit to the non-exclusive jurisdiction of the courts in and of Queensland in relation to any dispute arising under these terms and conditions or in relation to any services Sparkhouse Agency performs for you.

By using current versions of well supported content management systems such as “Webflow”, Sparkhouse Agency endeavours to ensure that the web sites Sparkhouse Agency creates are compatible with all current modern web browsers such as the most recent versions of Internet Explorer, Firefox, Google Chrome and Safari. Third party extensions, where used, may not have the same level of support for all browsers. Where appropriate Sparkhouse Agency will substitute alternative extensions or implement other solutions, on a best effort basis, where any incompatibilities are found. Sparkhouse Agency’s websites/applications are generally tested on Mac computers, if you require testing to be done on any other browser or desktop, please let me know in advance. Responsive/multi-device compatible web pages are tested on iPhone and iPads. If you require testing to be done on any other device, please discuss it in advance.

In an event of a dispute, Sparkhouse Agency reserves the right to charge the client in full for the work done as well as for the resources spent in managing the dispute. In such an event, Sparkhouse Agency reserves the right to charge the client without honoring any discounts that were previously honored in good faith. Under no circumstances will Sparkhouse Agency be liable for any damages arising from misrepresentation or misinformation. Sparkhouse Agency reserves the right to refuse service to any client, if these are not aligned with the Sparkhouse Agency Terms and Conditions. Sparkhouse Agency provides their services as is, without any guarantees on security or other issues leading to loss of data, sale or reputation. Sparkhouse Agency ensures to the best of their ability that their systems and servers are protected from hackers, viruses, intruders and other online and offline problems, however Sparkhouse Agency will not be held liable for any disruption of services if such situation arises. Relationship of Sparkhouse Agency with their suppliers, partners and sub-contractors is of an independent nature. None of the parties have any power, right or authority to interfere or bind the other or assume or create any obligation or responsibility, whether expressed or implied, on behalf of the other or in the other’s name. Client will indemnify and hold Sparkhouse Agency, content providers, service providers, employees, agents, officers, directors, contractors and sub-contractors (the “Indemnified Parties”) harmless from your breach of any of these Terms and Conditions or any other terms, conditions, policies or procedures herein, including, without limitation, any use of content other than as expressly authorized in these Terms and Conditions. Client agrees that the indemnified parties will have no liability in connection with any such breach or unauthorized use, and you agree to indemnify and hold harmless the Indemnified Parties from any and all resulting loss, damages, judgments, awards, costs, expenses, and attorneys’ fees in connection therewith. You will also indemnify and hold the Indemnified Parties harmless from and against any claims brought by third parties arising out of your use of the information obtained from Sparkhouse Agency. Sparkhouse Agency will not be liable for any breach of the agreement which is caused by a matter beyond its reasonable control including but not limited to Act of God, fire, lightning, explosion, war, disorder, flood, earth quake, industrial disputes (whether or not involving their employees), extremely severe weather, or acts of local or central government or other competent authorities.

You are responsible for complying with all relevant laws relating to e-commerce, and to the full extent permitted by law will hold harmless, protect, and defend and indemnify Sparkhouse Agency from any claim, penalty, tax, tariff loss or damage arising from your or your clients’ use of Internet electronic commerce. Please note that Sparkhouse Agency reserves the right to change the terms and conditions without notice.

Your agreement with Sparkhouse Agency commences from the time that your service is added to the servers and/or network and is specified as the commencement date on your first invoice and continues until either party terminates the agreement. Upon termination or expiry of this agreement, we may delete all of your data from any of our web hosting servers. We will provide you with a username and password which will provide access to your website cpanel or dashboard and utilities. Sparkhouse Agency will not give out or change passwords except when requested in writing by the Client, or after a breach of account. Client will keep secure any and all passwords used to upload and change data. You will be charged for your web site hosting services in accordance to the current price list.

From time to time, we must perform scheduled maintenance to our servers. We will attempt to perform all scheduled maintenance at times which will affect the least amount of customers. If scheduled maintenance requires the service to be offline for more than 30 minutes, 48 hours notice will be given to the contact email address nominated by the client as being the primary point of contact.

At all times, you are responsible for maintaining a functional backup of your website and data unless subscribed to our monthly Website Maintenance package. As the website owner, your data is your property and it is your responsibility to protect your property. We recommend keeping backups in multiple locations (ie USB drive at the office or at home, Google drive and on your computer desktop). In the event of equipment failure or data corruption, we will restore from the last known good archive. In the event of corruption of all our archives, or in the event that an old archive is used to restore the data, you should be prepared to upload your most recent data to your web hosting. This process requires that you maintain a recent copy of your data at your premises at all times. You must not upload more data than the allocated disk space for your chosen hosting plan. Any disk space violation will result in your account being disabled until the issue is resolved.

You may pay for the service as agreed. In particular, you must pay hosting charges, excess data transfer charges and any charges for additional services incurred. Sparkhouse Agency may from time to time and without notice suspend the Service if the Client fails to comply with any part of the agreement including failure to pay charges due until the breach is remedied. Upon registration of a credit card account, you give Sparkhouse Agency authorisation to debit your credit card for all charges. You consent to Sparkhouse Agency obtaining credit information for the purpose of assessing credit worthiness.

You agree for Sparkhouse Agency to automatically charge your nominated credit card upon renewal. Accounts are renewed monthly, and are recurring until cancelled. Automatically charged fees are:
- Website Hosting
- Website Maintenance (Wordpress or Webflow)
- Any added extras (eg, SSL Certificates)
Domain names will NOT be automatically renewed. Please pay attention to reminder emails for you to take action. If you decide to cancel, you must email us with a written confirmation to cancel your website hosting.

Sparkhouse Agency's role is to manage and maintain website hosting server hardware. 'website development' services such as adding, removing or modifying Client website files and related software is not the responsibility of Sparkhouse Agency, website development services will be offered at an additional rate of $120/hour. We do not warrant that the Services provided under this agreement will be uninterrupted or error free or that the Services will meet your requirements, other than as set out in this agreement.
All services and servers are provided "as is". In cases where additional 3rd party software/scripts are installed on the server at the request of a client, Sparkhouse Agency will not be held liable for the stability and reliability of that installed software component. Sparkhouse Agency operates multiple shared hosting servers providing SME web hosting services. Each of these servers supports several individual customers. Sparkhouse Agency is responsible for the security of the server operating system and certain shared software products. Customers are responsible for the security of their own application/website code and software packages they choose to load onto the servers to support their own websites.

Sparkhouse Agency's liability for any breach of the term will be limited to the re-supply of the Services. Sparkhouse Agency is not liable to you or any other person for any cost, loss or liability including loss of profit, loss of data, loss of emails, marketing expense or other consequential damage arising from our supply or failure or delay in supplying the Service. Client warrants that at the time of entering into this agreement, the Client is not relying on any representation made by Sparkhouse Agency which has not been stated in this agreement, or any other formal quotation document. Client accepts responsibility for all information and material published through the web hosting service. Client will not publish information which is illegal. Sparkhouse Agency does not host "Adult Content" sites. Client is responsible for dealing with persons who access the Client data, and must not refer complaints or inquiries in relation to such data to Sparkhouse Agency. Client will not violate copyright or other intellectual property rights. Client will not download, reverse engineer, change, pass on, or sell any software residing on the Sparkhouse Agency servers that is not the property of the Client.

Email sent through the Sparkhouse Agency Email Servers will not promote illegal activities, or pornography. Spam or any annoying, unsolicited messages are not to be sent through the Sparkhouse Agency Network. Sparkhouse Agency reserves the right to immediately remove any account containing/transferring content deemed to be illegal or deceptive. Sparkhouse Agency reserves the right to immediately disable and/or subsequently remove Client websites that are the target of DDoS, hacking or any other sort of malicious attack that significantly degrades server performance. The Client is responsible for maintaining their website and related software. Clients with excessive or unreasonable requests relating to issues outside of Sparkhouse Agency's role to manage server hardware and operating systems, may be issued a Notice of Intent to Cancel. In this case, compensation is limited to a pro rata refund when no other discounts have been applied.

30-day money back guarantee is offered to Client who, if within 30 days of commencing a service with Sparkhouse Agency are able to demonstrate that the services provided by Sparkhouse Agency were not consistent with reasonable performance expectations. Refunds will not be granted for change of mind, or lack of website traffic. Refunds will not be granted for domain name purchases. Refunds will not be granted if Client realises Sparkhouse Agency's facilities are incompatible with Client scripts, languages and databases. Refunds will not be granted if Client does not make a genuine attempt to configure their website within compatibility of server software and components. Full refunds will be made to Client within 30 days of request to refund and cancel service.

These terms and conditions constitute the entire agreement and supersedes all prior agreements. This agreement is governed by the laws of Queensland, Australia. Sparkhouse Agency is not responsible for the content of user originated traffic. Sparkhouse Agency exercise no direct supervision or control whatsoever over the content of the information passing through our network. Sparkhouse Agency do not assume any responsibility for any information not sent or authorised by Sparkhouse Agency. Sparkhouse Agency does not provide any consulting services. Client is responsible for use of Clients account. If you permit others to use Sparkhouse Agency service, you are responsible for making users of the Service aware of this policy and obtaining compliance. It is Client's responsibility to use Sparkhouse Agency service and services in a manner which does not violate any applicable laws or regulations. Client may not use the Service to interfere with or disrupt any network users, services or equipment. Client must not use the Service to solicit visitors to become subscribers of Sparkhouse Agency's competitors.