The legal bits, in plain English.

1. Quotations and acceptance

This section applies where you are paying for a website as a one-off project. Where the website is provided instead as part of a hosting and maintenance plan, there is no project quotation and no deposit, and section 7 governs instead.

For a paid project, everything starts with a written quotation setting out the scope, the deliverables, the timeline and a fixed price. The project is confirmed when you accept that quotation in writing and pay the deposit. Anything not listed in the quotation is additional work, and we will always quote it and get your agreement before starting it.

2. Payment

Paid website projects are invoiced one of two ways, and you choose before work begins. The standard arrangement is a 50% deposit to reserve your build slot, with the remaining 50% due on handover, before the site goes live. For projects hosted and maintained by us, the build can instead be split into four equal payments of 25%, spread across the build. Invoices are payable within 14 days. We do not begin chargeable work beyond the agreed scope without your approval. The two arrangements differ in more than timing, and section 7 sets out how, so please read it before choosing.

A hosting and maintenance plan is different in kind: it is a subscription billed monthly in advance and renewing each month until you cancel. There is no project invoice and no deposit. Subscribing is what starts the arrangement — there is no separate agreement to sign.

3. Timeframes and what we need from you

Our stated turnaround times, including the seven-day average, assume we receive your text, images, feedback, copy and approvals promptly — the content for your website has to come from you, because you know your business better than we ever will. If content is delayed, the launch date moves by the same amount. We will give you a clear schedule at the start and tell you as soon as we know if a date is at risk.

4. Revisions

Revisions are part of the work, not a billable extra. Within the design we agreed, you can ask for changes freely while we build — refining the layout, the wording, the colours, the way a page flows — and we would rather get it right than count rounds. What is not included is work that adds to the agreed scope: a new page, a new section, a booking system or a feature we did not quote for. That is welcome too, but we will quote it as a separate piece before we start it, so you always know what any addition costs before it appears on an invoice. Maintenance plans include a set number of hours each month, listed on the plan you choose.

5. Cancellation

You may cancel a project at any time in writing. Work completed up to that point is invoiced and payable. Deposits are not refundable once design work has begun, because the build slot was reserved for you and cannot be resold at short notice.

Hosting and maintenance plans are paid monthly in advance and can be cancelled at any time — there is no minimum term, no exit fee and no notice period to work out. The plan simply runs to the end of the month you have already paid for, and stops there. If you cancel with 20 days left of a paid month, you keep those 20 days of hosting, email and support; nothing is cut short and nothing is refunded. Once your website has been paid for in full, cancelling the plan is the whole of it: there is no further payment to make to release you. Cancelling a plan does not, on its own, entitle you to take the website elsewhere: where the build fee was deferred, section 7 explains what becomes payable and how the handover works. We will always tell you the figure and give you 30 days before anything changes.

6. Hosting, uptime and backups

We host sites on managed infrastructure and monitor them continuously, but we cannot guarantee 100% availability — networks, data centres and third-party services sit outside our control. Backups run on the schedule listed in your plan. If you choose to host elsewhere, responsibility for backups and security passes to that provider.

7. Ownership and the deferred build fee

This section explains who owns the website when it was provided as part of a hosting and maintenance plan rather than paid for as a one-off project. It is the one part of these terms with the most riding on it, so it is set out in full.

The build fee is deferred, not waived. Where we build a website at no upfront charge under a hosting and maintenance plan, the build still has a value. That value is deferred for as long as your plan remains active. It is not written off.

You hold a licence while the plan runs. Until the deferred build fee is settled, we retain ownership of the design and the code we wrote, and we grant you a non-exclusive licence to use the website for as long as your hosting and maintenance plan is active and paid up. You may use the website freely during that time; you may not sell it, license it onward, or move it to another provider without settling the fee.

What the deferred fee is. The deferred build fee is the standard package price for the website we built, as published on this site when your website was built. It is not a bespoke figure and it is not calculated after the fact.

How you agree to it. There is nothing to sign. You subscribe to a hosting and maintenance plan, and these terms and the published package prices form the whole of our arrangement with you. We send you a short written summary before we begin, setting out what we are building, your monthly plan, and the deferred fee that applies if you ever take the website elsewhere. Starting your subscription, and continuing to pay for it, is your acceptance of that arrangement.

Current package prices are listed in our packages. If we ever change them, the figure that applies to you is the one shown when your website was built, not a later one.

Taking the website elsewhere. You are free to move your website to another host or developer at any time, and you do not need our permission. To take the website itself with you, the deferred build fee becomes payable. On payment we hand over the design files, the code, the database and any accounts registered in your name, in full and without condition. We will not withhold anything once the fee is settled, and we will not charge a separate exit or release fee.

What you can do without paying anything. Some things are always yours to move, whether or not the deferred fee is paid. You can point your domain at another host by changing your DNS records. You can migrate your business email to another provider. You can take your written content, your images and your customer data. None of that depends on the build fee, and we will help you do it if you ask.

What the deferred fee covers. It covers one thing: the design and the code we produced for you, so that the website can run somewhere other than our hosting. A client who decides not to pay it is free to cancel and make their own arrangements — a new website built elsewhere, or a site built with different tools. What they cannot do is take the website we designed and built, and run it on someone else’s server, without settling the fee for it.

If the fee is not settled. If you cancel your plan and do not settle the deferred build fee, we will give you 30 days’ written notice. If the fee is still unpaid at the end of that period, the licence ends, the website is taken offline, and the deferred fee remains payable. We will tell you what is outstanding in writing before we take any step, and we will never take a website offline without notice.

What is always yours. Your written content, your images, your logo, your customer data and your email accounts are yours throughout, in every arrangement, whatever the state of the build fee. We never treat them as ours and we never hold them back. The deferred fee relates only to the design and code we produced.

Your domain name. The domain is handled separately, because who holds it depends on how it was registered.

If you already owned it

The domain stays yours. It was registered in your name, it remains registered in your name, and we never become the registrant. If you leave, you keep it and simply update your DNS.

If we registered it for you

We register the domain in your name and you are the legal registrant from the outset. We hold the registrar account as your agent for convenience while you are with us. On request, at any time and for any reason, we transfer the domain to a registrar account you control, free of charge. We will not hold a domain to ransom, and leaving our hosting is not a condition of getting it.

Renewal costs

Domain registration and renewal are included in your hosting and maintenance plan while it is active. If you cancel, the domain remains yours but you become responsible for its renewal, and we will tell you when it is next due so nothing lapses by accident.

The one thing the deferred fee does affect is the website itself — the design and the code. It never applies to your domain, your email, your content or your data.

Third-party components — licensed fonts, stock photography and plugins — remain subject to their own licence terms, which we set out at handover.

Where a project was invoiced upfront. If you paid for your website in the ordinary way, with a deposit and a balance before launch, none of the deferred-fee terms above apply. On full payment the design, the code we wrote for you and the finished website are yours outright, and you may host them wherever you choose.

There are two separate arrangements described above, and they are not the same thing. The deferred fee applies when a website is built at no upfront charge under a hosting plan: you pay monthly, and the build value sits behind the plan. Staged payments are a payment plan for a website you are paying for: the price is fixed and public, split into four equal payments of 25%, and there is no build fee left over at the end. If you are not sure which one applies to you, ask before we start — it is written on your quotation either way.

If you chose the four staged payments. A website paid for across four stages is a paid project, not a deferred one — there is no hidden build fee at the end. While the payments are running, the website stays on our hosting, because that is how both sides stay protected: we keep the site we are still being paid for, and you are not asked to fund the whole build before you have seen anything. As each stage is invoiced and paid, ownership transfers to you in step with the payments. When the final stage is paid, the design, the code and the finished website are yours outright, and you may host them wherever you choose — there is nothing further to settle.

Staged payments are only available for websites we host. If you need the website hosted elsewhere from day one, the standard arrangement applies: 50% to start and 50% on handover.

If a staged payment is missed. We will write to you first, and we will always give you 14 days to put it right before anything changes. If the payment is still outstanding after that, the website may be taken offline until it is settled, and the amount already paid stays paid — we do not unpick work. We will never take a website offline without telling you in writing first, and we will never treat a short delay as grounds to end the arrangement.

8. Your responsibilities

You confirm that all text, images, logos and other material you give us are owned by you or properly licensed, and that they do not infringe anyone else’s rights or break any law. We may decline to publish material that is unlawful, misleading or harmful.

9. Limits of our liability

We will fix anything we have got wrong, at our cost, and we stand behind our work. Beyond that, our liability for any claim is limited to the fees you have paid us for the project in question. We are not liable for lost profits or for indirect losses, and we are not responsible for outages or failures caused by third-party services outside our control.

10. Who you are contracting with

Blossom Designs is an independent, owner-run business rather than a registered company. There is no separate legal entity and no company number: the contract is between you and the individual trading as Blossom Designs. That is worth stating plainly, because it affects two things you may care about.

First, it means you are dealing directly with the person doing the work, with no company structure in between. Second, it means there is no company to pursue if something goes badly wrong — which is why we keep our terms short, put everything in writing, and would rather resolve a problem early than let it become a dispute.

11. Governing law and disputes

These terms are governed by the laws of the Republic of South Africa, where Blossom Designs is based and carries on business. If any part of them is found to be unenforceable, the rest continues to apply.

If something goes wrong, please raise it with us first. We will always try to resolve a disagreement directly and in writing before anyone reaches for anything formal, and most problems are settled that way. Nothing in these terms removes any right you have under the consumer or contract law that applies where you live.

Last updated: November 9, 2026.