Terms of Service

October 12, 2026 |

Effective October 12, 2026 for new orders. For clients whose account existed before that date, these terms take effect 30 days after we email you notice of them; until then our previous terms apply. These terms are an agreement between you and Dependent Media
(“we”, “us”) for the website hosting, website care, design, marketing and related services you order
from us. By ordering or using our services you agree to them. They are written to be read; if anything
is unclear, ask us before you order.

1. Our services

We host, maintain, design and market websites for small businesses. What each service includes is
described on its product page and your order: for example your Site Care plan, a website project quote,
or Google Ads management. If a quote or signed proposal says something different from these terms,
the quote or proposal wins for that project.

2. Your account

You must give us accurate contact and billing details and keep them current. You are responsible for
your client-area login and for anyone you give access to (staff, developers, or automation tools).
Tell us right away if you think your account has been accessed without permission.

3. Billing and payment

Plans are billed in advance, monthly or annually as you choose. We send each invoice a few days
before it is due and, if you have a card on file, charge it on the due date.
Prices for an active plan stay the same for the current billing term. We give at least 30 days’
notice by email before any price change takes effect for your next term.
If an invoice is unpaid 14 days after it is due, we may suspend the service until it is paid.
A suspended website shows a maintenance page; your files and email are kept. If an account stays
unpaid for more than 90 days, we may close it and delete its data after emailing you first.
One-time work (setups, website projects, hourly work) is invoiced as quoted. Larger projects may
require a deposit before work starts.
Prices do not include any sales tax that applies; we add it where required.

4. Cancelling, refunds and minimum terms

You can cancel any plan at any time from your client area or by emailing us. Cancellation takes effect
at the end of the period you have already paid for; we do not refund partial months.
Annual plans cancelled in the first 30 days are refunded less any months used at the monthly price.
One-time work is not refundable once we have started it. Domain registrations and renewals are not
refundable once submitted to the registry.
Minimum terms. Some offers include a minimum term in exchange for something we give up front:
Free migration requires keeping your plan for at least 6 months.
A free website requires the commitment term in the
Free Website Offer terms, including its early-cancellation charge.
These are stated on the order before you buy.

5. What your plan includes — and what is billed separately

The simple rule we use for every request:

If a request keeps your site running and safe — uptime, security, software updates, backups,
technical help — it is included. If it changes what your site says or does — content,
design, features — it uses your plan’s update time or is quoted separately.

Your plan’s update time is listed on your plan (for example 15 minutes, 1 hour or 3 hours a month).
Unused time does not roll over.
Work beyond your plan’s time is $120 per hour with a 30-minute minimum, and we always tell you
the cost before we start.
Redesigns, new features, integrations, migrations and marketing projects are quoted separately.

6. Support and response times

Support is by ticket (client area or email to [email protected]) and by phone during business
hours, Monday–Friday, Pacific time, excluding US holidays. Turnaround for update requests is the one
listed on your plan. A site that is down or hacked is always handled as an emergency.

7. Uptime, backups and your own copies

We work hard to keep your site online and we monitor it around the clock, but we cannot promise
uninterrupted service; outages caused by maintenance, third parties, attacks or events outside our
control can happen. We make regular backups as described on your plan and restore from them when
something we maintain breaks. Backups are a safety net, not a guarantee: keep your own copy of anything
you cannot afford to lose, and ask us any time for a copy of your site.

8. Acceptable use

You may not use our services for anything illegal, for spam or unsolicited bulk email, for phishing or
malware, to infringe someone else’s rights, or in a way that harms our servers or other customers
(for example running software that overloads shared resources). We may suspend a site immediately to
stop harm, and will tell you why. Repeated or serious violations end the service without refund.

9. Ownership

Yours: your domain name, your content (text, photos, logos, data), and, once it is paid for in
full, the website we build for you.
Ours or licensed: our own code, design templates and tools, and third-party themes, plugins and
fonts we license. You may keep using these as part of your website; licences we hold for you may need
to be bought separately if you move your site elsewhere.
When you leave: if your account is paid up, we will give you a complete copy of your website and
help point your domain to your new host.

10. Third-party services

Some services rely on companies we don’t control: domain registries, Google (including Google Ads,
whose ad budget you pay directly to Google), email providers, payment processors and plugin vendors.
Their own terms apply, and we are not responsible for their outages, policy changes or charges.

11. Domain names

Domain registrations are provided through our registrar partner and are also governed by the
Domain Registration Agreement, which you accept when you register,
renew or transfer a domain with us. You are the registrant of your domain. Renewals are your
responsibility; we send reminders before expiry.

12. Developer access and automation

If you have Developer Access (SSH, the WordPress REST API or an automation user), you are responsible for
what you, your developer or your tools do with it. Code changes belong on your staging copy. We support
the server and WordPress itself; help with your own code or tools is billable at our hourly rate.

13. Privacy

We use your information only to provide and bill for our services, as described in our
Privacy Policy. We do not sell it. Where your website collects information from your
own visitors (for example a contact form), you are responsible for how your business uses it and for any
privacy notice your site needs; we can help set that up.

14. Limits of our responsibility

We provide our services with reasonable skill and care. Beyond that, and to the extent the law allows,
we are not liable for indirect or consequential losses such as lost profits, lost business or lost data,
and our total liability for any claim is limited to the amount you paid us for the affected service in
the 3 months before the claim. Nothing in these terms limits liability that cannot be limited by law.

15. Ending service

Either of us may end a service by giving notice as described in section 4. We may end service
immediately for serious breach of these terms, non-payment after the periods in section 3, or if
required by law. Sections 3 (amounts owed), 4, 9, 14 and 17 continue after service ends.

16. Changes to these terms

We may update these terms. We will email you at least 30 days before a material change takes effect;
continuing to use the services after that means you accept the change. If you don’t agree, you can
cancel before it takes effect.

17. Governing law and disputes

These terms are governed by the laws of the State of California. If a problem comes up, contact us first
and we will try to solve it directly. Any dispute that we cannot resolve will be handled in the courts of
Sacramento County, California, unless a small-claims court is available.

18. Contact

Dependent Media · Sacramento, California
[email protected] · client area: https://dependentmedia.com/hosting/

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