Terms of Service

No legalese here, just plain old English. We want you to understand how our service works. If you have any questions about our service or how it functions, please contact us at info@smncontentservice.com. You can also check out our FAQ.

Estimates and Pricing:
1. By accepting any estimate, you agree to the work outlined in the estimate and any associated correspondence for the price quoted in the estimate. You agree to pay for the work done when you accept an estimate. Consider it our version of a contract. For one-off and small projects, we don't always require a contract. Larger projects and ongoing work require a contract.
2. Should the project outlined in the estimate change in scope from the outline or associated correspondence between you and us, the price is subject to change upon both parties’ agreement. Should we determine a price adjustment be required, we will first discuss any project changes needed with you and make the price adjustment, which you must okay before work can continue. Should either of us not agree on a price change, the project will be canceled and we will bill for the work we have completed.
3. Estimates typically represent project caps and not the final dollar amount (unless otherwise agreed upon). We won't exceed that amount unless authorized by you. However, we do try to come in under budget. We only bill for the work done, so if we can do it to your satisfaction for less, you'll be billed less.
4. All estimates will include a due date if one is requested. If you do not request a due date, we will get your project deliverables to you in a timely fashion.
Canceling a project after it's started. You may cancel a project at any time and we will bill you for the time we have into the project. Any canceled projects being billed at a project rate will be billed a percentage equal to work completed.
Rates.
1. We charge fixed rate prices - by the project, word, page, or whatever is agreed upon. We also work hourly, typically with a new client.
2. We bill in 15 minute increments.
3. All contracts and pricing are negotiated with each client.
4. We also love long-term and ongoing business. We offer discounted pricing on large, long-term, and ongoing contracts.
5. We charge for communications - time is money.
6. We charge for rush work, typically 25% of the project.
7. Our office hours are 9-5 pm M-Friday. If you want us to work outside of that time period, we add an additional 25% to our rates during after hours work.
8. We bill every 30 days, period. It doesn't matter if the project is completed or not, if we have time into the project, we bill for it. We bill on the last day of the month, every month.
9. All invoices are due upon receipt of deliverables unless otherwise agreed upon in advance. Payment is considered late after 30 days and will incur a late fee of 5% compounded every 30 days after the due date.
10. You can pay online through PayPal, with a credit card or just mail us a check.
11. All first-time projects require a 50% upfront deposit. Project deposits after the first project are negotiable.
12. We don't expect you to respond to emails immediately, but we do expect timely communications. If we don't hear from you within 10 business days, we'll send you another email or call.
  1. Any and all expenses incurred because of a lack of communication on the part of the client is entirely at the client's expense.
Communications Billing and Notes:
1. All communications are billed at $100/hour when no price is specified in a contract or estimate.
2. We bill 15 minutes for every two email communications (one from you, and our time reading and responding). So choose your words carefully. Be precise, complete, and exacting to save us all time and money. Or just call. Calling is a dying art that is often the more efficient and cost-effective solution.
3. We bill for calls after the initial free consultation. We bill for the minutes we actually talk. We bill for any call related to a project that we have been contracted to do or after you have accepted the estimate for the project.
4. Text messages. Yes, these take time to read, process, and formulate replies to. But just a couple of texts would actually take more time to log than it's worth to bill. We'll use discretion here. If the text message exchange takes us over 5 minutes of time to read, process, and reply to, then we'll bill you for it. But more often than not, we'll probably just let it slide or text while we're on the clock working on your project.
Website disclaimer: The website smncontentservice.com and its components are offered for informational purposes only; this site shall not be responsible or liable for the accuracy, usefulness or availability of any information transmitted or made available via the site, and shall not be responsible or liable for any error or omissions in that information.
Revisions: Revisions are negotiated as part of a flat fee. For hourly, we're happy to revise as much as you want. Please be sure to be as clear and specific as possible about what you want in your project up front to save a lot of headaches afterward. We'll do our best to ask the right questions to get as much info as possible, but we can only do so much. We're not psychic's, we need you to be detailed and clear.
Confidentiality: Your personal information is always kept confidential. We use your information for project informational or marketing purposes. We will never sell your information for any reason, ever.
The first consultation is free. This initial consultation is for the purposes of establishing a working relationship and may include a review of your website, a meeting (phone, video, or face to face), and transfer of any needed documents for review of estimates.
1. However, we don’t give advice, we offer you opportunities. If you want our advice, we sell that. We are more than happy to consult with you on the best usage of the content that we produce, your website, your business, or anything you feel like discussing, but you’re on the clock. Our consulting rate is $100/hour. This includes all time spent consulting with you on the phone, video conferencing, chat, social media, email, or any other form of communication.
Contracts:
1. We require contracts for all long-term, large-scale, and ongoing work.
2. First-time projects and test projects are typically done without a contract. The content of emails, estimates, and letters of agreement work for most legal contractual purposes. We will do contracts for larger projects when deemed necessary. Contracts increase the time we have to spend on a project, which in turn increases the project costs.
We might add on or modify these terms of service at any time. You'll be notified of any changes to our terms of service.