Terms & Conditions

These Terms and Conditions (the "Terms") govern your use of dcswebworks.com (the "Website") and any design, development, maintenance or consulting services we provide (the "Services").

By browsing the Website, submitting an enquiry, accepting a quote, or paying a deposit or invoice, you agree to these Terms. If you do not agree, please do not use the Website or engage our Services.

If you are agreeing on behalf of a company or organisation, you confirm you have the authority to bind that organisation to these Terms.

DCS Incorporated, doing business as DCSWebWorks ("we," "us," or "our"), is a web design studio based in Etobicoke, Ontario, Canada. "You" and "Client" mean the person or organisation engaging our Services or using the Website.

Depending on what you engage us for, our Services may include:

• Custom website design and front-end development
• E-commerce build-outs and integrations
• Website maintenance, updates, backups and uptime monitoring
• Search engine optimisation groundwork and analytics setup
• Branding input, copy assistance and digital strategy consulting

The exact deliverables, timeline and price for your project are set out in the written quote, proposal or statement of work we send you (the "Proposal"). Where a Proposal conflicts with these Terms, the Proposal governs for that project.

Quotes are based on the information you give us at the time and are valid for 30 days unless stated otherwise. A project begins once you accept the Proposal in writing and the deposit is received.

Anything not listed in the Proposal is out of scope. If you ask for additional pages, features, integrations or design directions after work has started, we will confirm the extra cost and any timeline impact in writing before proceeding. Out-of-scope work is billed at our then-current hourly rate or as an agreed fixed fee.

• Deposit: unless the Proposal says otherwise, a non-refundable deposit of 50% of the project fee is payable before work begins. It secures your place in our schedule and covers initial discovery and design work.
• Balance: the remaining balance is due on completion, before the site is launched or final files are handed over.
• Recurring plans: maintenance and support plans are billed monthly or annually in advance and renew automatically until cancelled under the "Cancellation & Refunds" section.
• Payment terms: invoices are payable within 14 days of the invoice date unless agreed otherwise.
• Late payment: overdue amounts may accrue interest at 1.5% per month (18% per year) from the due date. We may pause work or suspend a live site while an invoice is more than 30 days overdue, after giving you written notice.
• Taxes and third-party costs: prices exclude applicable taxes (including HST) and any third-party costs such as domains, hosting, premium plugins, fonts, stock imagery or payment processing fees, which are your responsibility unless stated in the Proposal.

All amounts are in Canadian dollars (CAD) unless stated otherwise.

To keep your project on track, you agree to:

• Provide text, images, logos, product data and account access promptly and in a usable format.
• Give a single point of contact who can review work and make decisions.
• Respond to requests for feedback, approval or information within a reasonable time.
• Confirm that you own, or are licensed to use, everything you send us, and that it does not infringe anyone else's rights or break any law.

You indemnify us against any claim, loss or expense arising from material you supply, including copyright, trademark, privacy or defamation claims.

Timelines in a Proposal are good-faith estimates that assume timely feedback and materials from you. We are not responsible for delays caused by late content, slow approvals, third-party providers, or events outside our reasonable control (including outages, illness, or acts of government).

If a project stalls on your side for more than 60 days, we may treat it as paused, move it out of our schedule, invoice for work completed to date, and charge a reasonable restart fee when you are ready to continue.

Each project includes the number of revision rounds set out in the Proposal (typically two rounds at the design stage and one after build). A "round" means one consolidated set of feedback from you.

Additional rounds, or changes requested after you have approved a stage, are billed as out-of-scope work. Written approval of a stage — including approval by email — means we can move to the next stage.

We ask you to check spelling, pricing, contact details and legal text carefully before approving. Corrections after launch to content you approved are billable.

Every new site includes 30 days of post-launch support covering bugs and defects in the work we delivered, at no extra charge. This does not cover new features, content rewrites, or issues caused by changes made by you or a third party.

Ongoing maintenance plans are described on our Services & Pricing page. Response-time targets are targets, not guarantees, and are measured during our business hours (Monday to Friday, 9:00 AM to 6:00 PM Eastern, excluding Ontario statutory holidays).

• Your content. You keep all rights in the text, images, logos, trademarks and data you supply. You grant us a licence to use them for the purpose of delivering the Services and, unless you ask us not to, to show the finished work in our portfolio and marketing.
• Your finished site. Once all invoices are paid in full, we assign to you the rights in the final design and custom code produced specifically for your project.
• Our toolkit. We keep ownership of our pre-existing and reusable materials — including frameworks, component libraries, code snippets, templates, processes and know-how — and of any concepts or drafts you did not select. You receive a perpetual, non-exclusive licence to use these as part of your delivered site.
• Website content. Everything on dcswebworks.com, including the DCSWebWorks name, logo, copy, layout and code, belongs to us or our licensors and may not be copied or reused without our written permission.

Projects often rely on third-party products such as hosting platforms, content management systems, plugins, fonts, analytics tools and payment processors. Your use of those products is governed by their own terms and pricing, and we are not responsible for their availability, changes, price increases, security or discontinuation.

Where a licence or subscription is bought in your name, you own it. Where we buy it on your behalf, we will pass the cost through to you.

Unless the Proposal says otherwise, domain registration and hosting accounts are registered in your name and remain your property and your ongoing cost. We can manage them for you as part of a maintenance plan.

We do not operate our own data centres and cannot guarantee uninterrupted uptime. Uptime is provided by your hosting provider and is subject to their service levels.

Each of us agrees to keep the other's non-public business information confidential and to use it only for the purpose of the project. This does not apply to information that is already public, is received lawfully from someone else, or must be disclosed by law.

How we handle personal information is set out in our Privacy Policy.

We warrant that we will perform the Services with reasonable skill and care, in a professional manner, and that the work we deliver will be our original work or properly licensed.

Beyond that, the Website and the Services are provided "as is" and "as available". To the fullest extent permitted by law, we disclaim all other warranties, express or implied, including implied warranties of merchantability, fitness for a particular purpose and non-infringement.

We do not warrant that a website will be error-free, that it will achieve any particular search ranking, traffic level, conversion rate or revenue figure, or that it will display identically in every browser, device or assistive technology. Any statistics, examples or estimates shown on the Website are illustrative and are not a promise of results.

To the fullest extent permitted by law, neither party is liable to the other for indirect, incidental, special, consequential or punitive damages, or for lost profits, lost revenue, lost data, lost goodwill or business interruption, even if advised that such damages were possible.

Our total aggregate liability arising out of or relating to the Services or the Website — whether in contract, tort (including negligence), or otherwise — is limited to the total amount you paid us for the Services in the six (6) months immediately before the event giving rise to the claim.

Nothing in these Terms excludes or limits liability that cannot lawfully be excluded or limited, including liability for fraud or for death or personal injury caused by negligence. Some jurisdictions do not allow certain exclusions, so parts of this section may not apply to you.

• Cancelling a project. Either party may cancel a project by written notice. If you cancel, the deposit is non-refundable and you will be invoiced for any work completed beyond it. If we cancel without cause, we will refund amounts you have paid for work not yet performed.
• Cancelling a plan. Monthly maintenance plans can be cancelled with 30 days' written notice, effective at the end of the current billing period. Annual plans are non-refundable for the remainder of the term unless we agree otherwise in writing.
• Termination for cause. Either party may terminate immediately if the other commits a material breach and fails to fix it within 14 days of written notice.
• On termination. All amounts owing become due, licences to unpaid work do not transfer, and each party returns or destroys the other's confidential material on request.

You agree not to:

• Use the Website for any unlawful, fraudulent or harmful purpose.
• Attempt to gain unauthorised access to the Website, its servers or connected systems.
• Introduce malware, scrape at a rate that burdens the site, or interfere with its operation.
• Copy, resell or republish substantial parts of the Website without our written permission.
• Submit false, abusive or misleading information through our forms or live chat.

We may suspend or block access to the Website for anyone who breaches this section. Links to third-party sites are provided for convenience only and we do not endorse or take responsibility for their content.

• Governing law. These Terms are governed by the laws of the Province of Ontario and the federal laws of Canada that apply there. The courts of Ontario have exclusive jurisdiction, and both parties submit to their venue.
• Independent contractor. We act as an independent contractor. Nothing here creates a partnership, joint venture, employment or agency relationship.
• Assignment. You may not assign these Terms without our written consent. We may assign them as part of a merger, acquisition or sale of our business.
• Severability. If any provision is found unenforceable, the rest stays in force and the provision is applied to the maximum extent permitted.
• No waiver. Failing to enforce a provision is not a waiver of the right to enforce it later.
• Entire agreement. These Terms together with the applicable Proposal and our Privacy Policy form the entire agreement between us on their subject matter.
• Changes. We may update these Terms from time to time. The "Updated" date above shows the current version, and material changes will be posted on this page. Continuing to use the Website or Services after a change means you accept the updated Terms. Changes do not affect a project already underway unless we both agree in writing.
• Language. The parties have requested that these Terms and all related documents be drawn up in English. Les parties ont demandé que cette convention et tous les documents qui s'y rattachent soient rédigés en anglais.

Questions about these Terms? Get in touch and we will be happy to walk you through them.

• Email: dcswebworks@gmail.com
• Phone: (647) 365-2613
• Location: Etobicoke, Ontario, Canada
• Hours: Monday to Friday, 9:00 AM – 6:00 PM Eastern

You can also use our contact form or read our Privacy Policy.