Terms & Conditions

1) Services

We provide website development, web applications, automation, AI assistant builds, systems integrations, email setup and related consultancy services (“Services”) as described on our website and in any quotation, proposal, specification, or scope document agreed by you. Any changes beyond that scope require written agreement (for example, by email) and may incur additional charges.

2) Business Tech System Review and Consultations

You can enquire directly about website or systems work. A Business Tech System Review is not required for a normal website enquiry. For uncertain or complex systems requirements, we may recommend a review after the initial conversation. The review costs £49.50. This section explains how reviews and consultations work.

• • Scope. The review lasts 45 minutes and is held remotely (video or phone) to assess your current website, tools and workflows, clarify goals and constraints, and outline practical options. It is advisory and does not oblige either party to proceed with a project.
• • Payment. The review fee is payable in advance (for example via Stripe checkout or another method we specify) to secure your slot. We confirm a booking once payment is received.
• • Deliverables. You receive a short written action plan and seven days to ask follow-up questions about the recommendations. This is an initial assessment, not a full technical specification.
• • Credit against projects. If you proceed with the website or systems project arising from the review, the £49.50 fee is credited in full against its first project invoice. The credit has no expiry date and relates to that project.
• • Rescheduling. You may request to reschedule by contacting us at least 24 hours before the scheduled start time. We will make reasonable efforts to offer a new slot, but cannot guarantee specific dates or times.
• • Cancellations & non-attendance. If you cancel with less than 24 hours’ notice, or do not attend, we may treat the session as used and no further session or refund will normally be offered, except where required by law.
• • Refunds. Once the review has taken place, the fee is non-refundable except where we are legally required to provide a refund. If we cancel and cannot offer a reasonable alternative time, we will refund the fee.
• • Confidentiality. Reviews and consultations are covered by the Confidentiality & NDA section below.

3) Self-serve website deep report

The self-serve website deep report is an automated digital report. It is designed to expand on the free website snapshot by checking more signals, grouping repeated issues, and giving you a clearer order of work.

The deep report is not a manual consultancy service, live review call, implementation plan, or guarantee of commercial results. It does not include website changes, technical fixes, copywriting, SEO work, design work, or follow-up consultancy unless separately agreed.

After successful payment, the report is prepared automatically from automated checks against the submitted website and snapshot. When it is ready, we send a secure access link to the email address used at checkout. For security, the report is not unlocked just because a checkout-success page loads.

If the report cannot be generated or delivered because of a fault with our system, we may retry the report, provide another way to access it, or refund the payment. If the submitted website blocks automated checks, is unavailable, redirects unexpectedly, or cannot provide enough usable signal, the report may be limited by the data available.

Because this is a digital automated report, refunds are normally not available once the report has been successfully generated and delivered, unless required by law or unless we decide the report failed to provide the purchased service.

Secure report links may expire or be revoked. Access may also be removed if the payment is refunded, cancelled, disputed, charged back, or otherwise no longer valid.

If you want help interpreting the report, prioritising the work, or turning it into a delivery plan, you can book a separate Business Tech System Review.

4) Quote, Payment & Fees

• • Quotations. Unless otherwise stated, quotations and fixed-price proposals are valid for 30 days from the date issued.
• • Review fee. Where a Business Tech System Review applies, the £49.50 fee is payable in advance to secure your slot. The full credit against the first invoice of a related project is described above.
• • Website project payment schedule. The written quote fixes scope and price before payment. Build + managed and Build + handover use 50% before work begins and 50% after approval, before launch or handover. At their starting prices those stages are £1,375 + £1,375 and £1,750 + £1,750 respectively. Larger projects use the expressly agreed quote and schedule.
• • Small or advisory work. Very small pieces of work, audits, or advisory-only engagements may be billed as a one-off fee, payable in advance or on completion, as stated in the relevant quotation.
• • VAT. South Coast Apps is not VAT registered. No VAT is added to the prices shown.
• • Payment dates. One-off build-stage and additional-work invoices are due within seven calendar days of invoice date. Initial build payment must also be received before work starts. Managed-service payments are due in advance from launch, then on the corresponding monthly billing date. Monthly billing does not begin during the build.
• • Additional work. Standard additional work is £125/hour (£31.25 per 15 minutes). Urgent or out-of-hours work is £175/hour (£43.75 per 15 minutes), only by prior agreement and subject to availability. Use remaining eligible monthly content time first. Charge the remainder in 15-minute increments, with a 15-minute minimum per agreed task or consolidated batch, after an approved estimate.

5) Client Responsibilities

You agree to provide timely access, information, content, approvals and feedback reasonably required for us to deliver the Services. Delays may extend timelines and/or incur additional fees where they result in re-work, missed slots, or significant context switching.

6) Intellectual Property & Licence

• • Materials you provide. You confirm that any content, assets, trademarks, branding, copy or code you supply (or ask us to use) do not infringe third-party rights. You are responsible for securing permissions/licences.
• • Bespoke deliverables. Subject to the other provisions in this section, on payment in full of all fees due for a project, you own the bespoke deliverables created specifically for your project.
• • Our reusable intellectual property. We retain ownership of pre-existing materials, reusable frameworks, libraries, components, tooling, general methods, know-how and other studio intellectual property that was not created exclusively for your project.
• • Licence to incorporated reusable materials. Where our pre-existing or reusable intellectual property is incorporated into a delivered project, we grant you a perpetual, non-exclusive, royalty-free licence to use, host, operate, maintain and modify it as part of your project, including through another supplier acting for you.
• • Your assets and accounts. You continue to own or control your domain, customer-supplied content, data, accounts and credentials, subject to the terms of any relevant third-party provider.
• • Third-party materials. Third-party software, libraries, services and assets remain subject to their own licences and terms and are not transferred to you under this section.
• • Portfolio use. Unless you ask us not to in writing, we may reference your project (e.g. logo, screenshots, short description) in our portfolio/case studies.
• • Footer credit. We may include a discreet footer credit (e.g. “Website by South Coast Apps”). If you want it removed/replaced, we will normally do so and may charge a small fee to cover the work.

7) Warranties & Limitations

• • Reasonable skill and care. We will perform the Services with reasonable skill and care, in line with generally accepted industry practice for small web studios.
• • No absolute guarantees. We cannot guarantee any website, app or system will be error-free, uninterrupted, or completely immune to third-party attacks/outages (e.g. hosting providers or upstream platforms).
• • Your responsibility for decisions. You are responsible for how you use the Services and any decisions made based on our advice. Our work is not legal, financial or regulatory advice; seek specialist advice where needed.
• • Limit of liability. To the extent permitted by law, our total aggregate liability arising in connection with the Services (contract, tort, negligence or otherwise) is limited to the total fees actually paid by you to us for the specific project/engagement giving rise to the claim.
• • Excluded losses. We are not liable for indirect, consequential or special loss, or loss of profit, revenue, data, goodwill, or business opportunity, except where such exclusion is not permitted by law.

8) Hosting, Maintenance & Support

Both starting website options include a business website with up to five main pages, designed for mobile and desktop, with an enquiry form, clear contact options and technical SEO foundations. The quote confirms the actual pages, features and responsibilities. Additional pages, shops, bespoke applications and involved integrations are separately quoted. You provide business information and draft text plus assets you have permission to use; we organise and lightly edit the agreed pages. Full copywriting, new branding, photography and paid image licences are separate. You approve final content before launch.

Two consolidated rounds of design and content revisions are included within scope. An additional round is charged at £125/hour after an approved estimate. Corrections of our errors or work needed to meet agreed requirements do not consume a round. Both options include one remote training session of up to 60 minutes and a short written guide, covering the website, enquiries and any editing tools expressly included in the quote. Further training is separately quoted.

Build + handover has no ongoing South Coast Apps managed service. It includes seven calendar days of questions about using the website after both handover and agreed training are complete. This how-to window does not limit corrections needed to meet the agreed deliverables.

The £99/month Build + managed service starts at launch. It includes hosting, SSL, backups, security and core-software updates, monitoring and ordinary technical support. Up to 30 minutes of minor customer-requested content updates are included per billing month. The allowance resets monthly; unused time does not roll over. Routine hosting and maintenance do not use it. New pages, features, integrations and substantial design changes are quoted separately.

Standard support hours are Monday to Friday, 9am–5pm UK time (Europe/London), excluding bank holidays in England and Wales. We aim for an initial response to routine requests within two working days; resolution is not guaranteed in that period. Urgent or out-of-hours work requires prior agreement and is subject to availability.

Domain registration and renewals, business-email subscriptions and paid third-party services or licences are separately itemised unless the quote includes them. We identify required external costs before commitment and seek approval for optional purchases. Managed hosting remains included in the £99 monthly service.

• • Rolling service. Build + managed is rolling from launch, cancellable with 30 days' written notice by email.
• • Final managed period. Charge only to the agreed end date. If it falls within a billing period, prorate the £99 managed charge by calendar days in that period and refund prepaid days after the end date.
• • Non-payment. Overdue days run from the invoice payment due date. We send reminders and make reasonable contact attempts through another supplied method. Unless an alternative arrangement has been agreed, hosting may be suspended once payment is 30 calendar days overdue, only after at least seven calendar days' written warning. Hosting may be terminated once 60 calendar days overdue, only after a separate final written notice giving at least seven calendar days' warning and the termination date. Suspension is not deletion. Please contact us if an invoice seems wrong or payment is difficult.
• • Export and handover. Build + managed includes one standard website export of source files, assets, exportable website data and relevant configuration, plus basic handover information. Setup elsewhere, platform adaptation, more training and migration assistance are separately quoted. SCA platform secrets and unrelated data are excluded. Completed build files are released once the agreed build price has been paid. Customer-owned domains, accounts, supplied content and personal data are handled separately; unpaid build fees do not remove applicable data return or deletion obligations.
• • Website files after service ends. From the actual hosting end date, retain a secure offline handover copy of website files for 30 calendar days and confirm the final export-request date in writing. Then delete that handover copy. Residual backups remain protected until expiry under the documented backup schedule. This window does not extend live hosting or automatically retain customer personal data; that follows separately agreed return/deletion instructions. Legally required records are separate.

9) Confidentiality & NDA (including consultations)

This section acts as a standard non-disclosure agreement (“NDA”) between you and us and applies automatically to any Business Tech System Review, consultation, proposal stage discussions, and any project or ongoing support.

Practical note: this means anything you share with us in a consultation - including “messy” internal details - stays confidential and won’t be shared externally. We may still reuse general learnings and non-identifying patterns (e.g. “common small business setup mistakes”) provided we do not disclose your Confidential Information.

10) Termination

Either party may terminate a project or ongoing plan for material breach if the breach is not remedied within 14 days of written notice describing the issue. On termination, you must pay all fees for work completed and any previously approved non-recoverable third-party costs incurred on your behalf up to the effective date of termination. For website non-payment, the specific notice schedule in section 8 applies.

For a voluntary website-project cancellation before launch or handover, email us and we will stop work. We provide an itemised closing statement for completed work against the agreed scope and previously approved, non-recoverable third-party costs. Completed work is calculated from the project stages and prices in the quote, including documented progress on an unfinished stage. It cannot exceed the agreed build price including approved scope changes. Payments received are deducted; any overpayment is refunded. No unperformed work or future hosting is charged. This does not limit rights where we have failed to meet the agreement.

11) Governing Law & Dispute Resolution

These Terms and any non-contractual obligations arising out of or in connection with them are governed by the laws of England & Wales. The courts of England & Wales have exclusive jurisdiction, although we may first explore sensible, informal resolution with you.

12) Changes to Terms

We may revise these Terms from time to time (for example, to reflect changes in law, best practice, pricing, or our Services). When we do, we will update the “Last updated” date above and may also highlight the change on our website or by email where appropriate. Continued use of our Services after updated Terms take effect constitutes acceptance of those changes.