1. GENERAL PROVISIONS
- These Terms of Service (hereinafter – the Terms) determine the procedure by which Bruno Lauris, a self-employed individual (hereinafter – the Contractor), provides services to clients (hereinafter – the Client).
- The Terms are binding on all Clients who order the Contractor’s services.
- By ordering a service, accepting an offer, paying an invoice, submitting an order on the website, or otherwise confirming cooperation in writing, electronically, or in any other provable manner, the Client confirms that they have read and agree to these Terms.
- These Terms are a distance contract between the Contractor and the Client, unless the Parties have concluded a separate written agreement.
- If a separate agreement is concluded between the Parties, its terms take precedence over these Terms to the extent they differ.
- These services are intended primarily for business clients (B2B). If the Client is a consumer (a natural person acting outside their trade or profession), statutory consumer rights apply and supersede any conflicting terms herein.
2. SERVICES
- The Contractor provides the following services:
- Website maintenance;
- Website optimization;
- SEO services;
- SEO audits;
- Consulting;
- Website development.
- Service descriptions, examples, deadlines, and prices published on the website don’t constitute a legally binding offer. They are informative.
- The actual scope of work, costs, and execution deadlines of each project may vary depending on project complexity, Client requirements, and other circumstances.
- Unless a different deadline is explicitly agreed upon in written form or meeting transcript, the standard estimated delivery timeline is:
- 2 (two) months for a standard WordPress website
- 2 (two) months for a WooCommerce e-commerce store
- 2 (two) weeks for an SEO audit for one domain
- These timelines serve as a safety buffer to ensure quality; projects may be completed sooner depending on the project scope and the Client’s responsiveness.
- The Contractor reserves the right to engage independent subcontractors or third-party specialists to assist in the execution of the services. The Contractor remains fully responsible for the quality of the work delivered by such subcontractors and ensures they are bound by the same confidentiality and data protection obligations as outlined in these Terms.
3. ORDERING SERVICES
- Services can be ordered by contacting the Contractor via email or using the contacts on the website.
- The start of the project is considered to be the moment when:
- The Client has approved the offer;
- The Contractor has confirmed the order;
- An advance payment has been received if required.
- The Contractor reserves the right to refuse services before the start of cooperation.
- If the Client is a consumer (a natural person), the Client agrees and acknowledges that by confirming the order and the Contractor starting the provision of the service before the end of the 14-day right of withdrawal period, the Client loses their right of withdrawal.
4. REMUNERATION AND PAYMENTS
- All prices are exclusive of Value Added Tax (VAT). VAT will be applied at the current statutory rate of 21% where applicable, unless explicitly stated otherwise.
- The Contractor’s standard hourly rate is 35 EUR per hour of work, unless specified otherwise in writing or meeting transcript.
- The Contractor’s standard working hours are Monday to Friday, from 9:00 to 16:00 (Latvian time), excluding official national holidays.
- Any urgent work, emergency maintenance, or project tasks that the Client explicitly requests to be done outside of these standard working hours, on weekends, or on public holidays can be subject to an “Out-of-Hours” rush fee. This work will be billed at 1.5x the standard hourly rate.
- For ongoing monthly maintenance services, any unused hours included in a monthly retainer do not roll over to the following month unless expressly agreed otherwise in writing.
- Working time is accounted for based on actual hours worked.
- Prices published on the website are indicative starting prices. Where a fixed-price project budget has been agreed in writing, the Contractor shall not exceed the agreed budget unless the Client approves additional scope or expenses in writing.
- Additional revisions, changes to previously approved work, or requests outside the agreed project scope shall be billed at the Contractor’s standard hourly rate.
- The project budget consists of:
- The Contractor’s working time;
- Third-party licenses;
- Plugin and theme licenses;
- API and software costs;
- Other costs related to project execution.
- The Client pays only for the services provided and expenses incurred.
- If an estimated budget is set for a project, it’s not guaranteed that the project will be completed within this budget.
- If the project budget is depleted before all work is completed, the Contractor shall inform the Client thereof.
- In such a case, the Client may:
- Approve an additional budget;
- Continue cooperation at the hourly rate;
- Terminate the project and receive the work in its current state.
- If the Client chooses to terminate the project, the Client is not obligated to pay the unused portion of the budget.
- If the Client terminates cooperation before the project is completed, the Client pays for the work actually performed and costs incurred up to the moment of termination.
- The Contractor is entitled to issue invoices in advance, periodically, or after the completion of work stages.
- The invoice payment term is the term specified in the invoice. Unless otherwise specified in the invoice, the invoice is payable within 14 (fourteen) calendar days from its date of issue.
- If the Client delays payment after the deadline specified in the invoice, the Contractor is entitled to apply late-payment interest of 0.1% of the unpaid amount for each day of delay.
- The total amount of late payment interest may not exceed 100% of the unpaid amount.
- The costs of domains, hosting, payment systems, plugins, themes, APIs, artificial intelligence services, software subscriptions, and other third-party services are not included in the service price, unless the Parties have agreed otherwise in writing.
5. CLIENT’S OBLIGATIONS
- The Client shall provide all information, content, access credentials, and other materials necessary for the provision of the service.
- The Client is responsible for the accuracy and legality of the provided information.
- Client delays, failure to provide information, or lack of cooperation may extend project deadlines.
- The Contractor is not responsible for deadline delays caused by the Client’s inaction or delayed communication.
- The Contractor does not reserve working time or resources for the Client indefinitely. If the Client fails to provide necessary information, materials, access credentials, feedback, or approvals for more than 14 calendar days, the Contractor can postpone project execution based on their workload. In this case, the initially planned deadlines become void and are determined anew after the resumption of cooperation.
- If the Client fails to cooperate to the extent necessary for project execution for more than 60 calendar days, the Contractor may consider the project suspended and issue an invoice for the work actually completed and costs incurred up to that moment.
- To ensure the safety and stability of the Client’s active web presence, the Client agrees to provide a separate private, staging, or development environment for all testing and development purposes. The Contractor strictly avoids logging into live/production user sites for testing, troubleshooting, or development purposes.
6. DELIVERY OF WORK
- The work is considered delivered when the Contractor sends it to the Client, publishes it on the Client’s server, or otherwise provides the Client with access to the result
- If the Client does not submit significant objections within 14 calendar days after the delivery of the work, the work is considered accepted. Significant objections are defects that materially prevent the agreed functionality from operating as intended (e.g., website inaccessible, checkout failing, forms not sending). Minor aesthetic issues, content typos, or discrepancies on outdated web browsers do not constitute significant objections.
- The Contractor shall eliminate defects caused by their fault.
- Defects reported within 30 calendar days of delivery that arise directly from the Contractor’s work and materially prevent agreed functionality from operating as intended shall be corrected without additional charge. Requests submitted after this period shall be treated as maintenance or support work and billed at the applicable hourly rate.
- New tasks, functional additions, or changes to the initial scope of requirements are not considered bug fixes and are billed separately.
- The Contractor does not guarantee uninterrupted or completely error-free operation of software, websites, or other digital solutions, as their operation may be affected by third-party software, hosting environments, internet infrastructure, browser updates, external service operations, and other circumstances beyond the Contractor’s control.
7. INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY RIGHTS
- Until full payment has been received in cleared funds, all intellectual property rights to the work remain entirely with the Contractor.
- Upon full payment for the service, the Client acquires unrestricted rights to use, maintain, and modify the final project result for their own needs.
- Unless otherwise agreed in writing, domains, hosting accounts, DNS records, payment gateways, analytics accounts, advertising accounts, and other third-party service accounts shall be registered in the Client’s name and remain under the Client’s control.
- Unless the Parties have agreed otherwise in writing, the Contractor retains all copyrights and intellectual property rights to pre-developed tools, code libraries, systems, methodologies, templates, reusable code parts, and other general technical solutions.
- The Client has the right to maintain, modify, or develop the final project result, provided it does not infringe upon the intellectual property rights retained by the Contractor or other third parties.
- The Contractor is entitled to use the technical knowledge generated during the project and reusable solutions in other projects.
- Third-party software and licenses are subject to the terms of the respective right holders.
- The Contractor is not responsible for changes to pricing, licensing models, features, APIs, availability, support policies, or discontinuation of third-party products or services.
8. SEO AND RESULTS DISCLAIMER
- The Contractor does not guarantee:
- Specific positions in search engines;
- A specific number of visitors;
- Sales volumes;
- Advertising results;
- Profit growth.
- Changes to search engine algorithms are beyond the Contractor’s control.
9. LIMITATION OF LIABILITY
- The Contractor is not liable for damages caused by:
- Hosting service disruptions;
- Third-party software bugs;
- Actions of plugin or theme developers;
- Disruptions in the operation of external service providers;
- Cyberattacks;
- Client’s actions or inactions.
- When providing ongoing website maintenance, the Contractor exercises best practices to ensure stability; however, the Contractor is not liable for website breakages, data loss, or downtime caused directly by third-party plugin updates, theme updates, or WordPress core updates. Time spent repairing issues caused by such third-party updates, or emergency fixes requested outside of standard working hours, will be billed at the applicable hourly rate.
- The Contractor is not liable for indirect damages, lost profits, or lost business opportunities.
- Unless the Contractor explicitly provides backup services as part of an agreed maintenance arrangement, the Client remains responsible for maintaining backups of websites, databases, files, emails, and other business data.
- The Contractor’s total liability for any claim shall not exceed the amount paid by the Client for the respective service during the last 12 months.
- The Contractor strictly prohibits testing, debugging, or performing experimental development directly on a live or production environment. If it is necessary to test something on a live user site, or if the Client explicitly demands immediate intervention on a production site, the Client agrees to a full no-liability disclaimer. In such cases, the work is performed entirely at the Client’s own risk, and the Contractor is explicitly released from any liability for resulting website breakages, database corruption, downtime, lost profits, or lost business opportunities.
10. DATA PROTECTION
- The Contractor processes personal data only to the extent necessary to provide a service or product.
- Personal data processing is carried out in accordance with applicable laws and the Privacy Policy.
- The Client is responsible for their websites’ and systems’ compliance with data protection requirements.
11. CONFIDENTIALITY
- The Parties undertake not to disclose confidential information to third parties without the other Party’s consent, except in cases specified by laws and regulations.
- The confidentiality obligation remains in effect even after the termination of cooperation.
12. PORTFOLIO RIGHTS
- Unless another written agreement has been reached, the Contractor is entitled to use the project name, visual materials, and a general description of the project in their portfolio, social networks, and marketing materials, provided it does not contain confidential information.
- The Client may request in writing that the project remain confidential and excluded from the Contractor’s portfolio prior to project commencement.
13. TERMINATION OF COOPERATION
- Either Party is entitled to terminate cooperation at any time by notifying the other Party in writing.
- In the event of termination of cooperation:
- The Contractor hands over the completed work in its current state;
- The Client pays for the actually completed work;
- The Client reimburses the incurred costs.
- The Contractor has the right to terminate cooperation if the Client delays payments or materially breaches these Terms.
- If the Client is a consumer, these Terms do not restrict the consumer rights established by the laws and regulations of the Republic of Latvia.
14. FORCE MAJEURE
- The Contractor is not liable for failure to perform obligations or delays in performance if they are caused by force majeure circumstances.
- Force majeure circumstances include events that the Parties could not foresee or prevent, including natural disasters, fires, power outages, communication network disruptions, cyberattacks, decisions of state authorities, strikes, military conflicts, or other circumstances beyond the Parties’ control.
- During force majeure circumstances, the deadlines for fulfilling obligations are extended by the duration of the respective circumstances.
15. APPLICABLE LAW
- The laws and regulations of the Republic of Latvia govern these Terms.
- Any disputes shall first be resolved through negotiations.
- If an agreement is not reached, the dispute shall be examined in a court of the Republic of Latvia in accordance with the applicable laws and regulations.
16. AMENDMENTS TO THE TERMS
- The Contractor has the right to update these Terms periodically.
- The current version of the Terms is always available on the Contractor’s website.
