Website maintenance terms

These terms cover website maintenance. They sit alongside our hosting terms, which cover the server your website runs on, and they are separate from the contract for any design or build work.

Bang! Graphics is a trading name of Andrew Luckman, a sole trader in the United Kingdom.

Our address for correspondence is 29 Broomfield Avenue, Leigh-on-Sea, Essex, SS9 4BL.

1. Maintenance is for hosting clients

Maintenance is available on websites we host.

This is not a commercial preference. Maintenance depends on being able to put your website back exactly as it was within minutes, and that depends on the Timeline Backups and the control panel access that come with our hosting. On a server we do not control we could not promise it.

2. What a maintenance run is

A maintenance run brings WordPress core, the theme and every plugin up to date, and then checks the site over afterwards.

How often you want one is your choice. Most sites suit quarterly. Nothing renews on its own and nothing is charged unless a run is agreed.

This may include basic functionality - cache cleared, pages load as they should, forms send.

3. The three levels, and what separates them

• Live - £40 a run. The updates are applied to your live website.
• Staged - £90 a run. A private staging copy of your site is made first, the updates go on the staging copy, and the live site is only touched once the staging copy is working.
• Complex - £120 a run. As staged, plus a full pass through every site function afterwards. This suits members areas, e-learning, events and booking systems.

On the Live level your website can be offline for a short time if an update misbehaves, until it is reverted back, and that is the risk you are choosing to carry in exchange for the lower price. On the Staged and Complex levels it is our risk instead: the live site stays up while we find out.

4. What is included in a run

• Updating WordPress core, the theme and the plugins.
• Checking the site afterwards, to the depth the level you have chosen provides for.
• Telling you what was updated.
• If something has broken, putting the site back as it was before the run.

5. What is not included

Finding and fixing whatever caused a problem is not part of a maintenance run.

A run covers the updates, noticing that something has gone wrong, and putting the site back if need be. Where the cause needs investigating and putting right - a plugin that no longer works with the theme, code that needs rewriting, a conflict between two plugins - that is separate work, quoted before it starts.

Also not included: changes to your content, new pages, new features, design changes, and anything the website did not do before the run.

6. When an update breaks something

We put the site back as it was, and we tell you what we found.

Where the underlying problem needs work, we will tell you what is involved and what it will cost before doing any of it. That work is charged at our hourly rate, and a price we quote for it holds for 30 days.

On the Staged and Complex levels the problem is found on the staging copy, so your live website is not affected while we discuss a fix with you. The fix itself is still separate work.

A fix lasts until the next update, whether that update is one you have scheduled or one applied automatically. Where a later update undoes it, that is a new problem and is quoted again.

7. Where the fault is ours

Where a problem was caused by our own error - something updated that should not have been, or a check not carried out that the level you paid for includes - we put it right at no charge.

8. Plugin and theme licences

Some plugins and themes need a paid licence before they can be updated. That cost is yours, whether the licence is held in your name or bought and billed on by us.

Where you hold a licence, it is your responsibility to keep it current. Where we hold one on your behalf, we will tell you before it is due and bill it on at cost plus our administration fee.

A plugin whose licence has lapsed cannot be updated. We will tell you when that happens and what it means, but a plugin left out of date for that reason, and anything that follows from it, is not something we can be responsible for.

9. What we need from you

Tell us when you want a run, and let us know about anything already going wrong before we start.

Where you or somebody else has changed the site, its theme or its plugins since the last run, tell us what changed. We cannot allow for what we do not know about.

10. Paying for it

Maintenance is charged per run, at a frequency of the client's choosing, and invoiced before the run is done. A paid for invoice is a signal to complete the updates on the agreed date.

An unpaid invoice simply means the run has not been booked. Nothing further follows from it.

11. Liability

We are not liable for loss of profit, loss of business, loss of data, or any indirect or consequential loss.

Our total liability to you in connection with maintenance is capped at whichever is higher: the maintenance fees you have paid us in the 12 months before the event giving rise to the claim, or £500.

Nothing in these terms limits liability for death or personal injury caused by negligence, for fraud, or for anything else that cannot lawfully be limited.

12. Ending it

There is nothing to cancel. Maintenance is arranged run by run, so stopping simply means not booking another. Should we have an arrangement, non payment of an issued invoice will halt any previously agreed schedule.

13. Governing law

These terms are governed by the law of England and Wales, and the courts of England and Wales have exclusive jurisdiction. If you are a consumer, you keep the protection of the mandatory laws of the country you live in.

Questions

Anything unclear? Ask through the contact form. If a term here is unclear enough to need asking about, it is probably badly written, so tell us and we will fix the page too.

The terms for the hosting itself are on the hosting terms page, and the terms for using this website and for project work are on the terms page.