A Fixed-Cost Website Build

…is dangerous! Unless you communicate the expectation.

For our fixed-cost website clients, this article outlines what to expect (and what not to expect!) from a fixed-cost website build.

What You Can Expect

We build extremely good websites.

• You will have Design and Development experts working on your site
• It will look modern – we will be honest if we think your ideas are crap or 1990s
• We will ensure everything in your original spec is complete
  On occasion, we have run at a significant losses (our own fault) just to honour our obligations
• Instructions on how to use any inbuilt/custom functionality
• A reasonable grace period for questions, amends, gripes

What You Should Not Expect

Not everyone understands websites, and why should they? In our experience, this is the source of lofty expectations. So for clarity, we wrote this article.

Unreasonable expectations are:

• On-going support and questions, forever
  No. There has to be a cutoff. Whilst goodwill, of course, exists for polite customers, free support cannot be expected forever.
  OUR POLICY: after 14 days of delivery, amends & user-guide, support becomes goodwill (which is typically above-and-beyond, but not obliged to be).
• £0 on-going costs
  It is possible, for example Wordpress is easy to learn, you may already have the in-house skills to handle it – “for free”.
  But it is a living, moving beast – there are security updates, plugin updates, hackers, databases etc… – to expect free-forever-after is wrong.
  OUR POLICY: we have very reasonably priced experts available – the lowest I’ve seen in the UK – or use your own skills. Either way, you’ll need those skills from time to time.
• Insurance – You break something, we must fix it
  Websites are not static, inanimate objects – the moving pieces can cause problems – you could even be hacked. If that problem is after our completion, we are very well placed to help you – but it won’t be for free.
  OUR POLICY: we will support you 100% within the time of the build (build + amends + 14 days) – and always have backups on hand. After that cutoff point, a-million-and-one things could potentially happen to a website and we do not insure against it.
• Education and Training on websites & WordPress
  We will provide a user guide for any custom functionality on your website. We will not provide training or education for WordPress itself.
  OUR POLICY: a large majority of customers have basic WordPress knowledge or skills in-house. It is not our obligation to educate you on the basics of WordPress, but we will educate you on any custom-built functionality.
• I don’t want it to work like that, I want it to work like this
  Fair enough within the terms of our build and amends. Beyond that, if it wasn’t absolutely stated in your brief, it is beyond our obligations.
  OUR POLICY: there are always little nuances – perfect is subjective (and impossible) – your site will not be perfect in your eyes. Accept that. The one you’re looking at still isn’t, after years of evolution! Quirks will happen.

Our Terms In A Nutshell

In hundreds of website builds, we have only had 1 personality raise discontent. This article is our Six-Sigma attempt to prevent even one more in future.

No surprises – this is how we work, and the basis on which we have built hundreds of revenue-generating websites and delighted clients:

• We will build a website to your brief
• We will run ’round 1′ of batched amends (max 4hrs) + alter anything you just don’t like after seeing it
• We will run ’round 2′ of batched amends (max 4hrs) – deduced from thorough testing & ‘playing around’
• We will provide a user-guide for custom functionality
• There is a 14 day grace period to spot errors & deviations from the brief/amends – we will make good on those
• Job complete. Any more support is chargeable (at a very decent rate)

Goodwill

In practice, we are decent souls and way too nice. We would probably be richer were it not so.

That is our choice, not our obligation, beyond the scope of our terms.