WEBSITE PROPERTY
This maintenance agreement applies to a single website domain with a single WordPress administrative back-end. This agreement is not applicable to WordPress multi-site installations.
SUPPORT RESPONSE TIME
Leaf Design Inc is not setup to support 24 hour per day, 7 days a week on call services. We operate from 9:00am to 5:00pm EST on weekdays, excluding weekends and Ontario’s and Canada’s statutory holidays. Leaf Design Inc will make every effort to reply to all maintenance inquiries within 2 business days, except where the Client has been previously notified of our unavailability. Leaf Design Inc cannot guarantee that any specific action or delivery of a full resolution of the problem within a specified time frame.
EMERGENCIES
On rare occasions, Client emergencies do occur. These are events in which the Client’s website is completely non-operational, hacked, or significantly impaired (ex: users are unable to checkout on an eCommerce website). While no performance guarantee is offered, Leaf Design Inc will treat these incidents with a higher priority and place them at the front of our work queue.
SECURITY HARDENING
All reasonable efforts will be made to make the Client’s WordPress website safe from intrusion by unintended visitors. However Leaf Design Inc makes no guarantee that the website is 100% secure. The Client agrees that some security best practices may be in contradiction to some of their website’s functionality and the implementation of such measures may not be possible or practical, without impact to their website’s operation.
VIRUS AND MALWARE SCANNING
If included in your maintenance plan, virus and malware scanning will be setup to check the website on a daily basis for suspicious new files, and modifications to existing code using an integrity scanning tool. If detected, such activity is an indication of a possible website breach. However a manual review by the Leaf Design Inc team will be determine what, if any, action needs to be taken.
WORDPRESS CORE UPDATES
The core files for the WordPress platform will be updated by Leaf Design Inc according to the chosen plan’s schedule. “Minor” updates and security versions may be setup by Leaf Design Inc to update automatically. More complex “major” WordPress core updates will be updated in a manual fashion. All updates will be performed on a staging version of the website to ensure compatibility before being applied to the live website.
WORDPRESS PLUGIN UPDATES
All active plugin files for the WordPress platform will be updated by Leaf Design Inc according to the chosen plan’s schedule. All updates will be performed on a staging version of the website to ensure compatibility before being applied to the live website.
Some premium WordPress plugins require a monthly or annual fee to maintain access to updates and support. These costs are not covered by this maintenance plan, and must be paid by the Client to ensure continued access to such plugin updates. Failure of the Client to maintain a service contract with the third-party developers of such plugins will result in Leaf Design Inc being unable to update such code, and may impact the security of the Client’s website.
WOOCOMMERCE PLUGIN UPDATES
All active WooCommerce plugin files for the WordPress platform will be updated by Leaf Design Inc according to the chosen plan’s schedule. In conjunction, any customized template files will be updated accordingly to support existing website functionality. All updates will be performed on a staging version of the website to ensure compatibility before being applied to the live website.
While the maintenance plan aims to cover all plugin upgrades, due to the potential for significant functionality changes, major version releases of the WooCommerce core plugin may require an additional fee. A major version release is considered to occur when the WooCommerce primary version number is increased (ex: 4.x.x to 5.x.x). Such upgrades may result in new functionality to be setup and configured, and potentially may result in the removal of existing functionality, requiring adjustments to the website design, layout, and user workflow. Any such significant changes and their associated fees will be discussed in advance, and require approval by the Client.
UPTIME MONITORING
An automated process will check approximately every 5 minutes that the website being monitored is returning a “200” code, indicating that the server is actively responding to incoming requests. These tests confirm that the server is functioning and the website is displaying some content. However, such tests cannot guarantee that all aspects of the websites content and functionality are operating in a normal fashion.
Email notifications as well as SMS notifications will be sent directly to Leaf Design Inc and will be reacted upon as soon as possible. Optionally, the Client may choose to also be subscribed to such email notifications. The Client should be aware that such services may from time to time report false positives.
BACKUPS
An automated process will take a “snapshot” of the website at the interval as specified in the Client’s selected maintenance plan. The snapshot will be uploaded to a third-party cloud service for safekeeping and easy retrieval. The most recent 15 days (including weekends and holidays) of backups will be kept accessible.
Should a website restoration (in whole or in part) be required by the client, Leaf Design Inc will use the most recent safe backup snapshot that allows for restoration. All efforts will be made by Leaf Design Inc to minimize loss of data that have occurred since the date and time of the most recent (and usable) backup snapshot, including manual replacement of files and data where appropriate. However, this may result in the lost of some recent data including, but not limited to: updated page content, design and development changes, SEO enhancements, contact form submissions, and eCommerce order information.
PRE-PURCHASED CONSULTING HOURS
Up to 20 hours of time can be pre-purchased at the discounted rate specified for each plan. The discount will apply to our current hourly rates (as of the date of this document our current hourly rate is $150/hr). These hours can be used for web design, web development, disaster recovery, or website consulting services with Leaf Design. The hours cannot be applied towards the following services: search engine optimization services, search engine marketing services, graphic design services, copywriting, or web hosting services.
Pre-purchased hours renew every month and do not rollover into the following month. Should your monthly consulting requests exceed your available pre-purchased hours, additional hours will be billed at our current hourly rate. Leaf Design Inc will inform the Client once number of pre-purchased hours has been reached in a given month.
To provide some flexibility, you may adjust the number of pre-purchased hours up to two times within a 12 month span. The Client will be notified at least 30 days in advance of any hourly rate increases, and may, without penalty, adjust their desired number of pre-purchased consulting hours.
CANCELLATION
There is no minimum term for this Contract and may be terminated by either party with a full 30 day written notice. No past payments will be refunded.
SETUP FEE
At the commencement of any maintenance plan, a one-time setup fee of $250 will be billed to the client. This fee allows us to perform the necessary initial configuration changes to enhance the security of the website. It also covers the setup of the various plugins and tools required to schedule backups, enable uptime monitoring, and virus scans.
PAYMENT OF FEES
Payment to Leaf Design Inc is due on the first of the month and must be made using a credit card. Payments will be setup to be automatically charge the card on file each month until we have received written notice indicating the Client’s desire to cancel this Contact. If necessary, the first month’s payment will be pro-rated.
In the event of non-payment due to the credit card declined or expired, the client will be notified within 1 business day. No maintenance tasks will be performed during the time the invoice remains unpaid. If the invoice remains unpaid after 30 business days, this agreement shall be terminated.
JURISDICTION
Regardless of the place of signing of this agreement, the client agrees that for purposes of venue, this contract was entered into in Burlington, Ontario, Canada and any dispute will be litigated or arbitrated in Burlington, Ontario, Canada.
