Maintenance Plan & Hosting Terms

These are the terms of our monthly Hero and Superhero Maintenance Plans. The Maintenance Plans are also known as "Service" Plans. Unless otherwise stated, “Inception Web Designs”, “we”, “us”, and “our” refer to Inception Web Designs LLC. When “you”, “your”, or “client” is used it refers to those having purchased services from Inception Web Designs.

Read our general Terms of Service as well.

Frequency of Services

Unless otherwise stated, all WordPress core, theme, and plugin updates will be performed once a month. Backups will be made at least once a week on the web hosting server. Off-server backups will be made after any major changes have been made. If, in the rare case, that your website does not function or look correct after an update is performed, then we will restore a previous backup free of charge, or make the necessary changes to the website's code to account for the software update.

Software Updates

At times the developer of the WordPress core, theme, or a plugin is updated in a way that it produces a conflict with your current setup. A future update may resolve this. But if it does not, updating that particular part of your website (whether it be your theme or plugins) may no longer be possible to update. The Maintenance Plan does not cover the time that may be needed to research and replace an existing theme or plugin, in order to keep your website fully up to date.

Software Licenses

All websites under a Maintenance Plan and built by Inception will be allowed to use our agency license for the visual builder add-on. This is usually the Bricks Builder or Beaver Builder. Inception reserves the right to revoke their license for the visual builder if the client cancels their Maintenance Plan.

A Maintenance Plan does not guarantee any other theme or plugin's licensing fee is covered by Inception. For websites built by us, the default form builder's license with Fluent Forms is included. An upgraded form builder license (such as WP Forms, Gravity Forms, or add-on integrations) would not be covered by a plan.

Website Restoration

The Maintenance Plan includes 1 free website restoration per every 12 months paid, whether due to data corruption, hacking, deletion, or some other non-user related issue. Restoration or repair due to the actions or inaction of the client (or a party acting in behalf of the client), or failure to pay for web hosting, is not covered by the Maintenance Plan and standard rates will apply.

Software Protection

The Maintenance Plan includes SPAM and security software provided by a third-party. Therefore, we are not responsible for its failure to protect against a threat and any subsequent financial loss due to your site being temporarily down, not fully functional, a contact form failure, or missed communications from customers.

Cancellation

Unless stated otherwise in your project contract, you may cancel your Maintenance Plan at any time without penalty. No refund will be issued for any unused portion of the payment period after cancellation, whether it be monthly or a longer period of time. We reserve the right to stop providing the Maintenance Plan service for any customer at our discretion.

If you cancel your Maintenance Plan (or fail to make payments) then the license for your SPAM blocking software and any other licensed security software will be removed, as the license was paid for with the Maintenance Plan’s monthly fee. In addition, backups will no longer be made and any past backups stored off the hosting server may no longer be retained. If the Maintenance Plan is resumed, an activation fee may be required to reinstitute the security and backup settings, as well standard rates for installing previously missed updates.

Maintenance Plan Types

Our default plans are the Hero Maintenance Plan and the Superhero Maintenance Plan. The specific services provided for each plan is listed on the WordPress Maintenance page. However, if you get a customized Maintenance Plan that adds or removes specific services, then that custom plan supercedes the services listed in the default plans.

Support Hours

Any support that comes with the Maintenance Plan or web hosting will be provided during regular business hours, Monday–Friday 9am–6pm EST, excluding national holidays.

If support is desired outside of these hours, a surcharge may apply even for support that would typically be performed for free during regular business hours.

Web Hosting

Unless stated otherwise, we provide web hosting for WordPress websites through WPEngine. Ecommerce websites are usually hosted on Shopify. Web hosting may be subject to these companies' additional terms of service.

Since a third-party provides the web hosting service and web server security, we are not liable for any interruption in service, regardless of cause. Although our Maintenance Plan provides security software, hosting issues outside of a virus, malware, or corruption are the responsibility of the web hosting company. This may include things like DDoS and Brute Force attacks, or being down due network or server issues on their part.

Unless otherwise stated, the WPEngine web hosting plan we provide clients allows a single website to use up to 2 GB of storage, 20 GB of bandwidth per month, and 10,000 visitors per month. If a client's website receives more traffic or uses more data storage than the web hosting plan allows, the hosting plan may have to be upgraded. The client will be billed appropriately based on their website's new hosting needs, plus any administrative fees to make such a change. If the client refuses to pay for a higher hosting plan then their site may be removed from being under our Agency account so that the web host can bill the customer directly, or the website may be taken down until the necessary hosting fees have been paid.

Web hosting invoices that are 60 days or more past due will result in the website being taken down until the invoice is paid. Invoices unpaid for 120 days may result in the website being permanently deleted off of our server.

Web Hosting Cancellation

The client may cancel web hosting through us at any time. There is no contract. No refund will be issued for any unused portion of the payment period after cancellation, whether it be monthly or a longer period of time.

If the client's website is hosted on WPEngine, the client can have their website transferred to a WPEngine account under their control. Half an hour of labor will be charged for this transfer.

If the client wishes to have their website moved to a different web hosting provider, they may perform the work themselves or pay us to do so. Migrating a website to a different web host is not covered under the Maintenance Plan, and hourly rates will apply.

Clients cannot request that their website be transferred to another WPEngine account or another hosting provider until they have paid any outstanding invoices that they may have.

Discounted Rates

Clients with an active and paid Maintenance Plan receive discounted rates on hourly services. Our regular, non Maintenance plan rate is $150/hour, with a minimum charge of 1 hour regardless of time taken to complete a request.

However, with the Maintenance Plan, the hourly rate is $120/hour, and is billed in half hour increments. So a task that takes 30 minutes would only be billed $60 under the Maintenance Plan. We reserve the right to change our hourly rates at any time.

Invoicing

The monthly web hosting and Maintenance Plan is automatically billed on the 1st of each new month, and prepays for that month's services. Autopay is set up by checking the Authorize future payments option in the recurring invoice page or filling out our Payment Info form.

If autopay is not enabled, then a $5 fee per service may be added to each monthly invoice. For example, if both web hosting and the maintenance plan are manually paid, that would be a $10 manual payment surcharge.

If manually paying, the invoice is due on the 1st of each month. A 15-day grace period is given to pay the invoice. On the 16th of the month, the invoice is considered late and subject to a fee of $25 or 5% of the invoice, whichever is greater. For these reasons, we highly recommend enabling autopay for your account.

Terms Can Change

We reserve the right to change the pricing and what services are included in our monthly Maintenance Plan for existing customers who are on a month-to-month arrangement with no contract. Any change in pricing or services provided will be made clear to you before they take effect, allowing you the opportunity to cancel the Maintenance Plan if desired. However, any change in Terms of Service can be viewed on this webpage.

These Terms of Service last modified: February 5, 2024