Terms — Jay Costen

These terms govern any work you engage me to do. They’re written in plain English. The legal stuff is real, but I’ve tried to make it readable. If anything’s unclear, email me and I’ll explain — hi@jaycosten.co.uk.

Who we are to each other

Me: Jay Costen, a sole trader based in Beverley, East Yorkshire (HU17). Trading name Jay Costen. I am the supplier.

You: the person or business engaging me. The client.

These terms apply from the moment you pay a deposit, or from the moment we agree in writing to start work — whichever comes first.

What I’ll deliver

The exact scope of every project is set in a written brief, agreed between us before work starts. Typical engagements look like:

Website review (£150) — a written assessment of an existing website, delivered as a document within five working days of payment. It sets out what is limiting the site’s performance and the changes I would recommend, in priority order. It is advice only: no development, design or content work is carried out, and the recommendations are yours to act on however you choose, including with another supplier. If you commission a build from me within ninety days of delivery, the £150 is deducted from the price of that build. The deduction applies once, to one build, and is not redeemable against hosting or transferable to anyone else.
Quick win (£300) — a single-page fix or small change. Delivered within five working days of brief sign-off.
Starter build (£750) — up to two pages, mobile-shaped, lead form. Delivered within five working days of brief sign-off. £375 deposit, balance on launch.
Standard build (£1,200) — up to four pages, mobile-shaped, lead form, basic SEO. Delivered within five working days of brief sign-off. £600 deposit, balance on launch.
Premium build (£1,950) — up to six pages, mobile-shaped, lead form, basic SEO. Delivered within five working days of brief sign-off. £975 deposit, balance on launch.
Additional pages (£175 per page) — any page beyond the sixth. The page count is agreed in writing at brief sign-off and added to the build price before the deposit is taken, so the deposit is always half of the agreed total.
Complex builds (quoted separately) — work outside the ladder above, including e-commerce, booking or payment systems, and builds carrying regulatory or legal requirements. These are quoted individually in writing, and are not covered by the fixed prices or the five-working-day delivery window.
Hosting (£45/mo) — hosting on Vercel UK edge, SSL, backups, uptime monitoring, one small content tweak per month. Rolling monthly.
Hosting Pro (£129/mo) — everything in Hosting plus four content tweaks per month, a monthly ranking report, and one new page per quarter.
Hosting Pro founding rate (£75/mo) — the first ten sites to subscribe to Hosting Pro pay £75 per month instead of £129. That £75 is held for as long as the subscription runs continuously on that site, and will not be increased to £129 while it does. If the subscription is cancelled, the founding rate ends with it and rejoining is at the rate then advertised. The offer applies to Hosting Pro only, is limited to ten sites in total, and is withdrawn from the site once ten are taken.

Deposits and payment

Site builds require a deposit of 50% of the tier price before work starts. The balance is due on launch.
Quick wins and website reviews are paid in full up front.
Hosting is billed monthly in advance via Stripe.
All prices include VAT if applicable. I am currently not VAT-registered (below the UK VAT threshold), so no VAT is added.
Late invoices: if a balance invoice is unpaid 14 days after launch, I reserve the right to take the site offline until it’s settled.

Your cooling-off rights

Under the Consumer Contracts (Information, Cancellation and Additional Charges) Regulations 2013, if you’re a consumer (not a business), you have 14 days from the day of purchaseto change your mind and ask for a full refund of the deposit, provided I haven’t started work.

If you ask me to start work inside the 14-day window, you waive your right to a full refund — I’ll refund the deposit minus the time already spent at my standard rate.

Website reviewswork slightly differently, because they’re paid in full and normally delivered well inside those 14 days. By buying one you’re asking me to begin straight away, and you accept that once the finished review has been sent to you the work is complete and the 14-day cancellation right no longer applies. Cancel before I’ve sent it and you’ll be refunded in full if I haven’t started, or minus the time already spent if I have. If the review arrives and it’s genuinely not what this page described, tell me and I’ll refund it.

If you’re a business engaging me, the 14-day right doesn’t apply, but I will still refund any unused portion of a deposit if we decide together not to proceed.

Revisions and scope

The Full Site tier includes two rounds of revisions during the build.
If you change the brief mid-build, the launch date moves accordingly. I’ll always tell you what slips and by how much before doing the work.
Post-launch changes are charged hourly at £40/hr, or covered by the Hosting / Hosting Pro plans within the tweak limits.

Ownership and intellectual property

The source code and design files are yours from the moment the balance invoice is paid.
You give me permission to feature the finished site in my portfolio and case studies, unless you specifically ask me not to in writing.
I retain ownership of any reusable components, libraries, or templates that pre-existed the project. You own the result, I own the toolkit.
Third-party assets (fonts, stock photos, plugins) come with their own licences. I’ll tell you what I’ve used and what licences apply.

Hosting cancellation

Hosting and Hosting Pro are rolling monthly. You can cancel any time, no notice period. The site stays live until the end of the paid month, then I’ll hand you the source files and you can host it wherever you like.

What I’m not liable for

Honest limits. I do my best to ship working code, but:

I can’t guarantee specific business outcomes (sales, rankings, traffic) — they depend on a lot more than the website.
I’m not liable for third-party platform outages (Vercel, Stripe, your domain registrar).
I’m not liable for losses caused by content you supply (text, images, claims) — that’s your responsibility.
My total liability under this engagement is capped at the amount you’ve paid me in the preceding 12 months.

This doesn’t exclude or limit any liability that can’t legally be excluded — for example, liability for death, personal injury, fraud, or anything else where UK law forbids exclusion.

Governing law

These terms are governed by the laws of England and Wales. Any dispute is subject to the exclusive jurisdiction of the courts of England and Wales.

How to complain

See the Complaints page — first response within five working days.