Terms of service
How we work: what a quote covers, who owns what, how changes and payments are handled, and what happens if either side wants to stop. Written so you can read it once and know where you stand.
This is a working draft describing how a Pune ecommerce studio operates. It is not legal advice and it is not a substitute for the signed proposal on an individual project. Ask a lawyer to review it, and make sure it does not contradict the contracts you actually sign.
Scope and quotes
Every project starts with a written proposal listing what is included, itemised by module. That document is the agreement. Anything discussed on a call but not written into it is not in scope, which protects both of us from remembering the conversation differently six weeks later.
- A quote is valid for the period stated on it. Prices can change after that, because our costs and third party charges do.
- Larger custom and marketplace projects begin with a paid discovery phase, quoted separately. The specification it produces belongs to you whether or not you continue with us.
- Timelines in a proposal assume you respond to approvals and content requests within the agreed window. Delays on your side move the dates rather than compress the work.
- Recurring costs such as platform subscriptions, hosting, plugin licences and gateway fees are listed separately and paid by you directly to those providers.
Changes to scope
Projects evolve. The rule is simple: nothing gets absorbed quietly and billed later, and nothing gets refused because it was not in the original list.
Refinements during design, small adjustments to agreed features, and reasonable revision rounds within the scope described in the proposal.
New features, a change of platform, additional integrations, bulk catalogue work, or a redesign of something already approved and built.
Where a request falls into the second category, we tell you the cost and the effect on the timeline before doing the work, and you decide. We do not start chargeable work on an assumption.
Payment
Staged against milestones rather than dates, so you pay as work is delivered.
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Milestone stages
Typically an advance to begin, a stage on design approval, a stage during development and the balance at launch. Larger projects are broken into more stages. The exact schedule is in your proposal.
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Monthly services
Maintenance plans and SEO engagements are billed monthly or quarterly in advance, as stated in the agreement.
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Taxes and terms
All amounts are exclusive of GST unless stated otherwise. Invoices are payable within the period stated on them.
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If an invoice goes unpaid
We pause work and tell you, rather than continuing silently and presenting a larger bill. Final handover of code and accounts follows final payment, which is standard and stated up front so it is never a surprise.
What we need from you
Projects stall on these far more often than on development. None of it is difficult, but all of it is your side.
Product data, images, descriptions, policies and brand assets, in the format agreed and by the date agreed.
Hosting, domain, platform, gateway and any system we are integrating with, including a test environment where one exists.
One named person who can approve designs and content. Approval by committee is the most common cause of a slipped launch date.
You confirm you own or are licensed to use the images, text and logos you give us. We rely on that, and we cannot verify it for you.
Ownership
On final payment, the work is yours. This is the section worth comparing against other agencies, because not everyone offers it.
- Yours
The custom code written for your project, the designs produced for it, your content and data, and every account registered in your business name including domain, hosting, platform, gateway and analytics.
- Licensed rather than owned
Third party themes, plugins, fonts and libraries come with their own licences, held in your name where the licence allows. Those terms are set by their authors, not by us.
- Ours
General know-how, internal tooling and non-client-specific components we developed before or outside your project. Using these makes your build faster and cheaper, and they are not exclusive to any one client.
We would like to show the work in our portfolio, but we will ask first and we will not publish your name, screenshots or numbers without written permission.
Third party services
Every ecommerce store depends on software we do not control: the platform, the payment gateway, courier APIs, plugins, hosting and Google. We integrate with them and we handle their quirks, but we cannot govern them.
Which means we cannot be responsible for:
- Outages, price changes or policy changes by a platform or provider
- A gateway declining your application, or a Merchant Center account not being approved
- An API changing without notice, though we will tell you and quote the fix
- Search engine ranking positions, which nobody controls and nobody should promise
Warranty and limits
A warranty period after launch covers anything that does not work as described in the agreed scope. We fix those at no charge.
- The warranty does not cover new features, changes you or another developer make to the code, or problems caused by third party software updates.
- We are not liable for lost profits, lost data where backups were declined, or business interruption. Our total liability is limited to the fees paid for the work in question.
- You are responsible for the legality of what you sell, your pricing, your tax treatment and your policies. We build what you ask for, and we will raise a concern if something looks wrong, but the compliance is yours.
What we do commit to: doing the work described, to the standard described, and telling you honestly when something is not going to plan. If we get something wrong, we fix it.
Ending an engagement
Either side can stop. The terms differ by service type, and none of them are designed to trap you.
Maintenance runs month to month with a month of notice either way. You get the current backups and the audit document on leaving.
Committed for the term because the plan is a sequence. Early exit terms are in the agreement, stated before you sign rather than discovered later.
If you cancel mid-project, you pay for work completed to that point and receive it. Advances covering work already done are not refundable.
Rare, but it happens if a project becomes unworkable. We hand over everything completed, documented, and help your next developer pick it up.
Law and disputes
These terms are governed by Indian law, and the courts at Pune, Maharashtra have jurisdiction. Before anything reaches that stage, we would much rather sit down and sort it out, and in ten years that has almost always worked.
Webtide Technologies LLP
Shaniwar Peth, Pune, Maharashtra
Where these terms and a signed project agreement disagree, the signed agreement takes precedence.
We may update these terms. The date at the top shows when. Changes do not alter agreements already signed, and material changes affecting current clients will be told to you directly. See also our privacy policy.