A good contract is necessary to every freelance web designer. Without a contract, there’s no legal requirement for the other party to pay you upon completion of work (at the very least difficult to prove). Here are important parts to include in your own web design contract.
Authorization:
Authorization is written permission from the client to commence work on their behalf. It should include provisions for where the work will be completed (authorization to upload to their server for example) and authorization to publicize your clients completed website to web search engines, directories and indexes.
Standard Elements:
In this clause, you should list what comes with your standard web package. This should cover all the little nitty gritty details that your client can expect you to include with your quote and what costs extra. Here’s some examples from my own contract.
- E-mail and Phone consultation of up to 2 hours. This includes answering questions, consultion on the website and teaching the client anything they need to know to run their website. It’s good to put some cap on this time because although you may have clients needing 1-3 hours of consultation, you’ll need to charge extra when you find that client requiring 10 hours of your time.
- Content: In this clause, define who will supply the content, useually the client. It may also be prudent to put a cap on the amount of text per page if it requires extra time to format and let the client know that going over the cap (maybe 1000 words) will cost extra.
- Custom Graphics: Are any logos, headers, banners etc included in the web design? Some things may seem obvious but it’s important to list these things here when your clients asks where their logo is and they haven’t contracted for it. Also include info about any stock photography to be used and who will supply it.
- Installation: Does the contract include installation of scripts and pages to the clients hosting? Is configuration included? Do they just want the source files to upload themselves? Sort out the details now to avoid headaches later.
- Minor Updates: Do you include any small changes as the client begins to use the website and get feedback in the coming months? I usually do not include any free changes but may bill at a reduced rate if it’s something small.
- Search Engine Marketing: Usually this is an additional service but you can quote your prices for this and any complicated SEO at this point to try and upsell your client.
Hourly rate:
All additional work above what you list in your stand inclusions should be billed at your hourly rate. Use this section to define your rate and make it clear to the client how much extra they can expect to pay for additional requests.
Completion Date:
Set a deadline here and make sure it is one you can meet. The client can always delay, so include a provision the releases you from the deadline in the even your client is slow to provide text and images.
Payment of Fees:
Detail what fees are due and when they will be payable. I usually use the following conditions.
- 50% due upon completing the contract BEFORE commencing any work on my part. This weeds out people who are not serious about having a website built or are going to attempt to lowball or scam me.
- 50% due upon completion of the project according to the clients original specifications. Any additional work above what is in the contract will be billed afterwards.
- If the website contract is $500 or less, 100% is to be paid up front. There’s no reason to split a website of that size into multiple payments.
There are many other things that may go into your contract. If you work fulltime for yourself, it may be worthwhile to consult a lawyer and/or purchase a premade comprehensive web design contract to make sure it will stand up in court if necessary.
Click here to download a sample contract
Anything I missed? Leave me a comment.
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Hi,
Very good blog post indeed, I agree a contract is needed beteewn the two!
Thanks!
Ryan
‘authorization to upload to their server for example’
- come on. Why would they give you their FTP details if they didn’t give you permission to use it in the first place.
‘E-mail and Phone consultation of up to 2 hours. This includes answering questions, consultion on the website and teaching the client anything they need to know to run their website. It’s good to put some cap on this time because although you may have clients needing 1-3 hours of consultation, you’ll need to charge extra when you find that client requiring 10 hours of your time.’
- very valid point. I’m currently in flux as to how to realistically deal with this myself. Although providing advise and tuition is part and parcel of being a good freelancer. Putting a time limit on it seems anal to me.
’stock photography to be used and who will supply it.’
- sourcing stock photography is very time consuming for anyone else reading this (I invested two days alone on the project I’m now working on).
‘any complicated SEO’
- can you elaborate on this at all? SEO isn’t complicated in my book.
Your ‘Payment of fees’ section above is comprehensive – thanks – good point about the 100% in advance on a $500 threshold. I know how projects can drag on and clients come up with new ideas for design components and functionality, so it’s good to set in stone what work is going to be done and for what price. The modular the better, and billing for further work later is a great tip.
Cheers mate, some good things to think about there for me next time I update my contract template.
Thanks for the reply Lewis.
As far as authorization to upload to their server goes, it’s important to include just to have you comprehensively covered. It’s possible they only gave you FTP access to download files from their server and were planning on uploading themselves at a later date. This section is just intended to make the contract crystal clear.
SEO – I agree that basic SEO meta-tags, keywords, etc should be included as part of any web work you do, however, some clients my desire additional SEO work such as translation into other languages and link building that they want included in their design package. There are so many factors involved in good SEO and you can’t possibly include them all for free with every website.
I appreciate the comment, hope this cleared those things up.
Good post. I’ll add few points to my current one which I adapted from a generic PrePress made up for me years ago.
Looking at its details and ways of stipulating who’s who, doing what, within which time frame, etc., I would definitely separate access to FTP information and Authorisation to upload. What sounds silly and common sense in our world is often critical from a legal point of view.
To illustrate this, here is below an extract from this contract. One section title and beginning of it:
ENTIRE AGREEMENT
This agreement represents the entire agreement [...]
The general idea is to seal the deal completely. As a freelancer, you may not be able to afford long legal procedures. With a solid contract, you have all the chances to resolve the dispute without going any further.
I also think that a clear contract consolidate your credibility as a business partner/consultant. It is often disregarded by new designer who focus mainly on their portfolio.
For this reason alone, it’s a great post!
Good article.. could be made great if a sample contract was able to be downloaded. I like how you used actual examples of your contract but can we see an example of yours?
Thanks,
Yes, a sample contract would be nice. Thanks for sharing
@ Ray Clanan & Jeeremie:
You’re absolutely right. I will post a sample contract soon. Free of course.
what to do if a client (from market place) breaches the contract at the final payment after getting the full deliverable ? Please suggest.
@SEO web designer Abir – I have a bulk package with my web host. They offer me ten domains for my annual subscription. I have a test domain which I host all my client sites on before they are handed over.
This gives them a chance to use the site and make sure they’re happy with it before I transfer it over to their domain/web server. Obviously without being able to grab the files before the final payment changes hands.
Good tip!
@Anders Haig – Cheers Anders. Well clarified.
@SEO web designer Abir – Lewis is right, when dealing with clients digitally, it’s important to get payment before you give them the work. Paypal does not cover the sale of digital goods at all so you will lose a Paypal dispute EVERY SINGLE TIME.
This need not apply if you’re working for a local business (very low non-payment rates) or a large corporation (would Nike skip on a bill?) but is a good general practice to use.
Here is a link to download a sample contract relating to the article on hand. Feel free to edit and use as you wish.
http://www.reencoded.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/03/samplecontract.doc
Cheers Anders, very kind of you to put something like that live. Will have a look over it next time I draft a contract :]
L
No problem. Anytime!
After reading through the article, I just feel that I need more information on the topic. Can you suggest some more resources please?