Terms of Engagement

1 About these terms

These Terms of Engagement apply to design, web development, integration and related services ("Services") supplied by DESIGN 33 (ABN 11 525 321 012) ("the Studio", "we", "us") to the person or business engaging us ("the Client", "you"), published at design33.com.au/pages/terms-of-engagement.html. These terms apply to your use of this website, to any enquiry you submit, and to any engagement confirmed by a signed statement of work. Where an engagement is defined by a signed statement of work ("SOW"), the SOW prevails over these terms to the extent of any inconsistency. Where an acceptance control is shown it records your acknowledgement, but these terms are not conditional on your pressing it: they take effect on your use of the website, your submission of an enquiry, or your acceptance of a SOW.

2 Scopes, quotes and the SOW

Every engagement is defined by a written SOW listing deliverables, milestones, integration points and price. Anything not written into the SOW — including content entry, stock licensing, hosting fees, paid plugins or domain renewals — is out of scope and will be quoted separately. Pre-SOW estimates are indicative only; prices stated in an executed SOW are binding once accepted.

3 Change requests

Requests that add or alter scope after a SOW is signed are handled as written change requests. Each change is quoted and agreed by both parties, and recorded as a SOW amendment before it is built. A change touching already-tested functionality may affect the delivery schedule; we will warn you in writing before that happens.

4 Deposits, milestones and payment

Every engagement commences with a 50% deposit, payable via secure payment link before work begins. For Launch engagements, the remaining 50% is due prior to live domain deployment. For Essential, Signature, and Studio engagements, the commercial schedule is structured across three clear milestones: a 50% kickoff deposit, 25% upon presentation and sign-off of the interactive preview, and the final 25% prior to live domain launch. The website is not published to the Client's live domain until all payments under the SOW have been received. We may pause work on an overdue account after written notice, and ownership transfers under clause 7 are suspended while amounts remain unpaid. Card data never passes through our systems; online payments are processed by Zeller or Stripe under their own terms.

5 Timelines and Priority Fast-Track Delivery

Milestone dates assume the Client supplies content, access credentials, brand assets and decisions when scheduled. Waiting on content or access suspends the timetable; protracted stalls — commonly more than 10 business days — may require a re-planning fee to restart the runway. Standard turnaround ranges from 10–14 days for Launch up to 4–5 weeks for comprehensive Studio ecosystems. Clients requiring accelerated launch may elect Priority Fast-Track Delivery: a simple extra 50% of the project package cost (+50% fee: +$500 for Launch, +$1,000 for Essential, +$1,750 for Signature, and +$2,500 for Studio) delivers the project 50% faster through dedicated studio capacity and daily progress staging, subject to prompt Client feedback.

6 Revisions and reviews

A revision round is one consolidated set of Client feedback covering the agreed project scope, applied to the deliverable stated in the SOW. Each SOW includes a stated number of revision rounds — Launch engagements include one iteration round (extra revision $150 each), Essential engagements include two structured revision rounds (extra revision $150 each), and Signature and Studio engagements include three comprehensive revision rounds (extra revision $500 each). Dispersed micro-feedback may be treated as an additional round. Requests for new pages, new functionality, or materially changed requirements are scope changes handled under clause 3, not revision rounds. Final sign-off is required in writing before handover or launch.

7 Intellectual property and ownership

On full settlement of the SOW, ownership of the final deliverables — including bespoke source code, design files and content created for the project — transfers to the Client with zero proprietary lock-in. Until full payment we retain ownership and grant the Client a limited licence to use the deliverables for internal preview and testing only. Tooling, libraries and patterns owned by us or our suppliers, or used broadly across our work, remain ours, along with any separate licences we have flagged in the SOW.

8 Client content and third-party rights

The Client warrants that content supplied to us — logos, copy, images, product data — is lawfully usable and that the Client holds or has licensed the rights required for it. We take reasonable care sourcing stock, fonts and libraries within the engagement's licence budget and will flag anything requiring a separate paid licence during scoping.

9 Integrations and connected services

Where an engagement connects your website to external systems — booking engines, CRMs such as HubSpot or Simpro, ServiceM8, Stripe checkouts, SMS and email gateways — the SOW names those endpoints and the data each one receives. Those services are supplied by their own operators under their own terms; we are responsible for configuring our work to connect to them correctly and for testing against the interfaces they expose at build time. Pricing or API changes made by a third party after handover are outside the fixed scope.

10 Launch, handover and support

No website is launched until the final payment under clause 4 has been received. Each engagement includes documented handover: credential transfers, a content-management walk-through where applicable, and deployment to your chosen hosting. Your domain, hosting and third-party subscriptions remain in your name and are paid by you directly; we configure and launch the website but do not resell hosting. A defects warranty covers bugs in our own code for 30 days from handover at no charge. Ongoing care plans, content updates and retainer support are separate services we quote on request — the defects warranty does not imply a free ongoing support agreement.

11 Australian Consumer Law guarantees

Nothing in these terms excludes, restricts or modifies any consumer guarantee, right or remedy you may have under the Australian Consumer Law (Schedule 2 of the Competition and Consumer Act 2010 (Cth)) where doing so would be unlawful.

12 Warranties and limitation of liability

Beyond the defects warranty and your Australian Consumer Law rights, the Services are supplied without additional warranties, and we are not liable for indirect or consequential loss — including lost profit, lost data on systems we did not build, or outages of the third-party services referenced in clause 9. To the extent we are liable for anything, total liability is capped at the fees actually paid under the relevant SOW. You remain responsible for reviewing deliverables against your own operational, legal and regulator-facing requirements before relying on them commercially.

13 Confidentiality

Both parties keep non-public commercial information received from the other confidential, and use it only to perform the engagement, except where disclosure is required by law. We may reference your project as portfolio material where the SOW permits, and we will not disclose your confidential figures in doing so.

14 Cancellation

Either party may end an engagement for material breach that is not remedied within 10 business days of written notice. If you cancel mid-stream, work completed to date is invoiced pro-rata; deposits are credited against that amount; and ownership transfers under clause 7 occur only on settlement of that final invoice. We may decline work that is unlawful or unpayable, with notice and a refund of unused deposits.

15 Privacy

How we collect and use contact and project information is set out in our Privacy Policy, which forms part of these terms.

16 Governing law and jurisdiction

These terms and any SOW are governed by the laws in force in New South Wales, Australia, and both parties submit to the non-exclusive jurisdiction of the courts of New South Wales, Australia, and any courts hearing appeals from them.

17 Changes and acceptance

We may update these terms prospectively. New quotes and SOWs will reference the version published here at that time, and acceptance of these terms — recorded through "I Accept" — is stored locally in your browser with the date and version you agreed to.