Web design contract template: who owns what at launch.
A website runs on a theme, two plugin subscriptions and a hosting account somebody had to buy, and the contract you send quietly promises to hand all of it over on launch day. Nobody can transfer a license they only rented.
A web design contract is the document you sign before anyone opens a design file, and it has to settle four things a website makes complicated: what you're building, what it costs, what the client owes every year to keep the thing online, and which of the pieces you hand over at the end are actually yours to hand over. The full version is printed further down this page with the figures already in place for a $29,800 ten-week build, free to copy or take as a Word file or a PDF. Sections 6 and 9 are the ones almost every other template skips, because between them they name every license the site depends on and say who holds it.
What the general-purpose versions assume is that a website is a finished object you deliver, when it's really an assembly of things rented from four or five vendors, running in accounts somebody has to own and pay for every year. That's the part a contract written for any kind of project has no clause for, and the document that goes out before this one has the same gap, which is why we also published a web design proposal with its rate card already priced.
What should a web design contract include?
Everything a services contract carries, plus four things that only matter because what's being sold is a website. The sixteen sections below are one workable arrangement rather than a standard, and the published versions are decent evidence that no standard exists: Webflow's is headed as ten must-have sections and then lists eleven, OneSuite runs to nine and gives client responsibilities a heading of its own, and Plutio's filled-in template gets down to eight by folding confidentiality into the ownership discussion. They agree on the easy half, which is who the parties are, what you're building, when it lands, what it costs, who owns it at the end, and two signatures.
The four that are specific to a website are where the contract earns its fee, and only one of them shows up reliably in the templates you can download for free. The rate card puts a real number beside every addition a web build can be expected to generate. The licenses section names the theme, the plugins, the fonts and the hosting the site runs on, totals what they cost per year, and says whose accounts they live in. The acceptance section defines finished, which on a website means something more specific than on any other kind of project. Then one clause names a single person, by email address, whose written yes is the only thing that commits money.
Describing the build is the part most agencies do badly, and the repair is the one the website development scope of work template makes: separate the number of unique layouts from the number of pages. "A nineteen page website" and "eight page templates across nineteen pages" describe the same site at very different prices, and a client who signs the first is entitled to assume you didn't mean the second.
Can you see a web design contract with the numbers already in it?
Here it is in full, written out for a real-shaped project rather than left as empty brackets. Section 2 is the part you always replace, since it describes somebody else's veterinary group instead of your build. What carries over nearly word for word is the machinery around it: the exclusions, the rate card, the licenses section, the acceptance rule, the named approver and the change-pricing paragraph, with your own numbers swapped in. Those rates are set for a build somewhere between twenty and forty thousand dollars.
Project: [project name]
Reference: [CVG-01]
Date: [date]
1. PARTIES
1.1 Client: Calderwood Veterinary Group, [address]. Client contact: [name, title, email].
1.2 Designer: [your agency name], [address, email].
1.3 This document covers the website described in section 2, the fee, the third-party costs in section 6, the rates for anything added later and the way additions get approved. It replaces any scope described in earlier proposals, emails or calls.
2. WHAT WE'RE BUILDING
2.1 Eight unique page templates: home, clinic location, service, staff profile, article, article index, contact, and a general content page.
2.2 Nineteen finished pages built on those eight templates, named one by one in Appendix A. Four of them are clinic pages using the single location template.
2.3 Two content collections the Calderwood team edits without us, being clinic locations and staff profiles, each with the index and detail templates from 2.1.
2.4 Four forms, being an appointment request, a general contact, a prescription refill request and a job application, each sending to an email address Calderwood names before the build starts.
2.5 Every template built and checked at 375px, 768px and 1440px, in current Chrome, Safari, Firefox and Edge.
2.6 Migration of the 140 existing page addresses in Appendix B, each one either rebuilt or pointed at its nearest replacement.
2.7 Content entry for the nineteen pages in 2.2, from text and images Calderwood supplies.
2.8 One recorded handover session, plus a written guide to editing the two collections in 2.3.
3. WHAT'S NOT INCLUDED
3.1 Writing the words isn't included. Calderwood supplies final text for all nineteen pages.
3.2 Photography, video and illustration aren't included. Stock images are licensed by Calderwood directly.
3.3 Online booking, payments and any connection to a practice management system aren't included. Adding any of them is priced from section 5.
3.4 Translating any page into another language isn't included, and is priced from section 5.
3.5 Search advertising, ongoing search work and social content aren't included.
3.6 Hosting, the theme license, the plugin subscriptions and the font license are Calderwood's own costs, set out in section 6.
3.7 Maintenance after the window in 8.3 isn't included, and is priced at 5.9.
4. WHAT WE'RE ASSUMING
4.1 Final text and images for all nineteen pages arrive by the date in section 7.
4.2 Calderwood returns written feedback on each delivered template within five business days.
4.3 Calderwood owns the domain and the existing site, or can give us access to both.
4.4 If any of the above slips, the dates move by the length of the delay, and we'll tell you by how much before anything shifts.
5. RATE CARD
These rates apply to anything added after signature, and they hold for ninety days from the date above.
5.1 Additional unique page template: $1,850 each.
5.2 Additional page built on a template from 2.1: $240 each.
5.3 Additional screen width checked and adjusted on a template already built: $320 per template.
5.4 Additional form, up to eight fields, with email routing: $460 each.
5.5 Additional content collection with its own index and detail template: $2,100 each.
5.6 Content entry we do on your behalf: $85 per page.
5.7 Any third-party license or subscription added after signature: charged to Calderwood at the vendor's own price, plus $140 for us to install, configure and document it.
5.8 Additional page address migrated or redirected beyond the 140 in 2.6: $18 each.
5.9 Maintenance after the window in 8.3: $340 per month, covering plugin and platform updates, backups and up to one hour of small edits.
5.10 Anything with no line above: $130 per hour, quoted and accepted in writing before it starts.
6. THE THIRD-PARTY COSTS, AND WHOSE THEY ARE
6.1 This site runs on a licensed theme, two plugin subscriptions, a web font license and a hosting plan. Every one of them is bought in Calderwood's name, on Calderwood's payment method, in accounts Calderwood owns.
6.2 At today's vendor prices: theme license $79 per year, appointment-request plugin $149 per year, forms and collections plugin $99 per year, managed hosting $45 per month. That's $867 a year, plus the web font license at $120 once.
6.3 We'll open each account with Calderwood as the owner and ourselves as an invited user, and we'll pass on any renewal price change a vendor tells us about.
6.4 If Calderwood would rather we bought any of these, we'll charge the vendor's own price with no margin on it and hand the license over when it's next transferable. Some licenses can't be transferred at all, and we'll say which before buying one.
6.5 These costs continue after this contract ends, and nothing in section 9 moves them to us.
7. DATES
Start: [date]. Launch: [date], being ten weeks from signature.
Eight templates delivered for review: end of week five. Content entry and the two collections: weeks six and seven. Migration and redirects: week eight. Launch: week ten.
8. WHEN THE SITE IS ACCEPTED, AND WHEN WE'RE FINISHED
8.1 Each template in 2.1 is accepted when Calderwood confirms it in writing, or five business days after delivery if no written feedback has arrived by then.
8.2 The site is accepted on launch, or five business days after launch if no written objection has arrived by then.
8.3 For fourteen days after launch we'll fix, at no charge, anything that doesn't work the way section 2 says it should.
8.4 After those fourteen days this project is finished. Anything further is priced from section 5, including maintenance at 5.9.
9. WHAT CALDERWOOD OWNS AT THE END
9.1 On payment in full, the design files and the custom code written for this site transfer to Calderwood, for unlimited use on this site and on any site that replaces it.
9.2 Until payment in full, both stay ours and aren't licensed for any use.
9.3 The theme, the plugins and the web font are licensed by their vendors to Calderwood under section 6. Neither of us owns them, and we can't grant rights the vendors haven't granted.
9.4 The hosting plan, the domain and every vendor account are Calderwood's from the day they're opened, so there's nothing to transfer at the end.
9.5 Our own component libraries, internal tools and working files stay ours. We keep the right to show the finished site in our portfolio.
10. WHO APPROVES EXTRA WORK
[Name, title, email] approves additions and costs on behalf of Calderwood. We only build, and only invoice, work that this named person has accepted in writing. Where an addition carries a recurring cost under 5.7, that acceptance covers the recurring cost too, and we'll state the yearly figure in the same message.
11. HOW EXTRA WORK IS PRICED AND APPROVED
Either of us can propose a change to section 2 at any time. Where the request matches a line in section 5, we'll confirm that rate, the effect on the launch date and any yearly cost within one business day. Where it doesn't, we'll price it under 5.10 and reply within two business days with the cost, the hours behind it and the new date. Work on an addition starts once the person named in section 10 accepts it in writing, and nothing outside section 2 is built or invoiced without that written acceptance.
12. FEE AND PAYMENT
Total fee: $29,800 USD, fixed for the scope in section 2, and separate from the third-party costs in section 6.
Eight unique page templates at $1,850 each: $14,800.
Eleven further pages built on those templates at $240 each: $2,640.
Two content collections at $2,100 each: $4,200.
Four forms at $460 each: $1,840.
Content entry for nineteen pages at $85 each: $1,615.
Migration of 140 page addresses, launch, and the fourteen-day window in 8.3: $4,705.
Payment: $8,940 (30%) on signature, $11,920 (40%) on acceptance of the eight templates, $8,940 (30%) on launch.
Invoices are payable within fourteen days. Overdue invoices carry interest of 1.5% per month. Work pauses on any invoice more than fourteen days overdue, and the dates move by the length of the pause.
13. CONFIDENTIALITY
Client records, staff details, pricing and anything else Calderwood shares with us stays confidential, and we won't publish or show the site before the launch date Calderwood gives us in writing.
14. ENDING EARLY
Either of us can end this contract with fourteen days' written notice. The deposit in section 12 isn't refundable and covers the time already reserved. Calderwood also pays for every item completed to that date at the rates in section 12, plus any addition accepted under section 11, and we hand over every design file and every line of custom code written so far. The accounts in section 6 are Calderwood's throughout and are unaffected.
15. WHICH LAW APPLIES
This contract is governed by the law of [state or country]. If we disagree, we'll each put the problem in writing and talk within ten business days before either of us takes it further.
16. THE WHOLE AGREEMENT
This document, once signed by both of us, is the agreement for the work described in section 2. Changes to it are made by the process in section 11, and not by a call, an email or a message thread.
SIGNED
For Calderwood Veterinary Group: ____________________ Date: __________
For [your agency]: ____________________ Date: __________
Sections 6 and 9 are the two you won't find in a general-purpose contract template, and they sit apart on purpose. Section 6 settles the money while the build runs, and section 9 settles the ownership once it stops.
Who owns the site after launch, and what can't you hand over?
Four separate things leave your hands at the end of a web build, and they leave on four different terms. The design files and the custom code are genuinely yours, so you can transfer them, and section 9.1 does that on payment in full. The theme, the plugins and the web font are licensed by their vendors, which means nobody signing this contract owns them and neither party can grant rights the vendor didn't grant. The hosting plan, the domain and the vendor logins belong to whoever opened the account. Your own component library and the internal tooling you build every site with stay yours, and a client who has just paid $29,800 will occasionally assume otherwise.
Which is why an ownership clause shaped like the familiar one creates a problem the moment it's tested. "All work product, deliverables and materials produced under this agreement shall become the property of the Client upon final payment" reads like protection for the client and is, in three of the four cases above, a promise nobody can keep. The appointment-request plugin at $149 a year is a subscription in somebody's name rather than work product, the font is licensed for a stated number of monthly page views on a stated domain, and the hosting is a plan sitting on a card. Sweeping all of it into "materials" transfers none of it.
The fix is one decision made early, which is whose name the accounts open in. Section 6.1 puts every one of them in the client's name on the client's card from the start, so there's nothing to migrate, no login to email around at the end, and no question about who pays the renewal in month fourteen. When a client would rather you did the buying, 6.4 passes the cost through with no margin and says out loud that some licenses can't be transferred at all. That admission is worth more than it looks, because it stops a handover meeting turning into a negotiation about something neither of you controls.
Who pays the $867 a year the site needs to stay online?
The client does, in this contract, and the number is written into the document so that it isn't a surprise in month four. Section 6.2 lists the theme at $79 a year, the appointment-request plugin at $149, the forms and collections plugin at $99 and managed hosting at $45 a month, which comes to $867 a year, with the web font license adding $120 once. Most templates don't name these costs anywhere. Webflow's list covers ownership and warranties without touching recurring vendor costs, OneSuite's nine clauses stop at usage rights, and Plutio's contract answers the plugin question in a page FAQ underneath the document rather than inside it.
A website is the only thing an agency sells that keeps costing money after it's delivered, and leaving that out of the contract produces two predictable arguments. One is the renewal the client never agreed to and now resents. The other is quieter and more expensive, and it's the plugin you bought on your own card mid-build because that was faster, still renewing yearly against a project that closed eight months ago. Naming the figure turns the first into a line the client already signed, and opening the accounts in the client's name makes the second impossible.
The same logic covers anything added later, which is why 5.7 has two halves: the vendor's own price with no margin on it, and a flat $140 for installing, configuring and writing down what it does. Section 10 then makes the named approver accept the yearly figure at the same time as the one-off, so nobody discovers a recurring commitment after agreeing to a fixed number. Pricing an exclusion is only half the job, as in scope vs out of scope argues at more length, and a recurring exclusion needs its recurring number attached.
When does a web design project actually end?
Fourteen days after launch, under 8.3 and 8.4, and a web contract has to say so explicitly because a website has three plausible endings: the day the templates get approved, the day the site goes live, and the day the last thing anybody noticed gets fixed. Leave that third one undated and it becomes whichever day the client stops emailing, which on a site with forms and 140 redirected addresses can be months. Contract templates cover termination, meaning how either side walks away early, and they rarely define completion, meaning the moment the work you were paid for is done.
Two weeks is the number worth defending. It's long enough for the problems that only appear under live traffic to appear, including the redirect that went to the wrong page and the appointment form that works everywhere except one email client, and it's short enough that the window can't quietly turn into a support contract you never priced. What makes it work is the sentence immediately after it, since 8.4 says the project is finished and points anything further at the rate card, including maintenance at $340 a month. A window with a stated length but no stated end is still a window that never closes.
Acceptance does the same job earlier, at the template stage. Each of the eight counts as accepted when Calderwood confirms it or five business days after delivery, whichever lands first, which stops the second payment of $11,920 from waiting on a reply that never arrives and fixes the moment after which a reworked template is a $1,850 addition rather than feedback.
Three of the four things you hand over on launch day aren't yours
In week six of the Calderwood build the practice asks for two things: a fifth clinic and a "book online" button on every service page. The clinic is straightforward, since it's a page on the location template from 2.1 at $240 under 5.2 plus $85 to load the content under 5.6, which comes to $325. Booking is where the contract earns its fee. It needs a new unique template for the booking page at $1,850 under 5.1, one more form at $460 under 5.4, and a scheduling plugin that costs $228 a year, charged at the vendor's price with $140 on top under 5.7. The whole request prices itself at $2,775 and takes the project to $32,575, in a reply written in about four minutes.
The part that outlives the project is the $228. Calderwood's yearly bill for keeping the site running goes from $867 to $1,095 the moment that plugin is accepted, and the only reason that's a sentence in an email rather than an argument next spring is that section 10 made the approver accept the yearly figure alongside the one-off. Then the scheduling plugin sits in the site as a thing the agency installed, configured and cannot give away, licensed by a vendor to an account with a card behind it. Putting that account in the client's name in week one is what makes it a non-event.
Holding to any of this once a build is moving is the part people drop, and it's the reason we build Docket, which sends each priced addition to the one named address and keeps the reply, the timestamp and the exact wording of what was agreed. On repeat work the document that sits under a contract like this is the statement of work, and how the two connect, the wording for the request itself is in the change request form template, and the one-person version of the contract above is the freelance contract template.
Frequently asked questions
What should a web design contract include?
Everything a services contract needs, plus four things that exist only because it's a website. No two published templates agree on a number, so treat any numbering, including the sixteen sections used here, as an arrangement rather than a rule. What decides whether the project makes money is narrower than the list anyway: a rate card with real per-item numbers, a section naming every third-party license and whose account it sits in, a clause fixing when the site counts as finished rather than only how either side walks away early, and one named person whose written yes can commit money.
Who owns the website after the project ends?
Four different things, and they don't move together. The design files and the custom code are yours to transfer, and in the contract above they pass to the client on payment in full. The theme, the plugins and the fonts are licensed by their vendors to whoever bought them, so nobody on either side of the contract owns them or can hand them over. The hosting, the domain and the vendor accounts belong to whoever opened them, which is why section 6 opens all of them in the client's name from the start.
Should a web design contract include hosting and plugin costs?
It should name them and total them, even when the client pays them directly. The site in the contract above needs $867 a year to stay online, and a client who discovers that number in month four reasonably feels it was hidden from them. Writing it into the document turns a renewal notice into something they already agreed to, and it protects you from being asked to absorb a subscription you never charged for.
Do you need a lawyer to write a web design contract?
Agencies write their own constantly, and for a project of this size that's usually how the work gets started at all. What you're writing down is a record of what both sides agreed to: the build, the fee, the dates, the rates for anything added later, the licenses and the name of the person who can say yes. We aren't a law firm and this template isn't legal advice, so anything carrying real money or real risk deserves a lawyer in your own jurisdiction reading it before you send it.
How long after launch should a web design contract cover fixes?
The contract above gives fourteen days after launch for anything that doesn't work the way the build section says it should, then says plainly that the project is finished. Two weeks is long enough for the real problems to surface on live traffic and short enough that it doesn't quietly become a support contract. The part that matters more than the length is the sentence after it, because a window with no end named is a window that never closes.
Does a web design contract replace a scope of work?
For a single build of this size it can, and the version on this page rolls the work and the commercial terms into one signed document. Splitting them earns its keep once the same client keeps coming back, at which point the contract becomes the standing agreement and each new project gets a short scope document underneath it that inherits the rate card and the approval rule.