Terms of Service

1. Company information

Published in accordance with section 43(1) of the Electronic Communications and Transactions Act 25 of 2002.

2. What we provide

Origin Arc Labs builds its own software products and, through Origin Arc Studio, designs and builds websites for clients. Studio work is offered in three packages, described on our website: Starter, Business, and Commerce & Custom, along with optional monthly care plans.

The package descriptions on the website are a summary. The written quote we send you is what defines the work we have actually agreed to do.

3. Quotes and scope

• Prices shown on the website are starting prices. They indicate where a package begins, not what your project will cost.
• We give you a written quote setting out the pages or sections included, what you supply, the number of revision rounds, the price, and the payment schedule.
• A quote is valid for 30 days unless it says otherwise.
• An agreement comes into existence when you accept the quote in writing and pay the deposit.
• Anything not listed in the quote is outside the agreed scope. We are happy to do it, but it will be quoted separately and may affect the timeline.

4. Prices and payment

All prices are in South African Rand. Origin Arc Labs is not registered for VAT, so no VAT is added and the quoted price is the total amount payable.

• 50% of the quoted price is payable as a deposit before work begins.
• The remaining 50% is payable before the website is launched to your domain.
• Additional pages, features, or revision rounds beyond the quoted scope are invoiced separately as agreed.
• Domain registration, hosting, stock imagery, paid fonts, and payment gateway fees are billed to you at cost, or paid by you directly to the provider. They are not included in the quoted price unless the quote says so.
• Invoices are payable within 7 days of the invoice date.
• Work may be paused on an overdue account until it is settled.

5. What you supply

Unless the quote says we are writing content for you, you provide the text, images, logo, and business information for the website. You confirm that you own this material or have permission to use it, and that it is accurate and lawful.

We cannot start or finish work without it. If material we have asked for is outstanding for more than 30 days, we may treat the project as paused and reschedule it around other work. The deposit remains payable for work already done.

6. Revisions

Each package includes a stated number of revision rounds. A round means one consolidated set of changes from you, not an ongoing series of individual requests. Revisions cover adjustments to the agreed design and content. A change of direction after a design has been approved is new work and is quoted separately.

7. Timelines

We give an estimated timeline in the quote. Estimates depend on receiving your content and feedback promptly, and are not guaranteed dates unless the quote expressly says so. We will tell you as soon as we know if something is going to run late.

8. Ownership

• Once you have paid in full, you own the website we built for you: the design, the page code, and the content, and you are free to move it, change it, or have someone else work on it.
• Until final payment is made, all rights in the work remain ours.
• You keep ownership of everything you supplied to us.
• We keep ownership of our own general tools, techniques, and reusable components. Nothing in this clause gives you rights in our own products, including IntakeArc.
• Third-party components, such as open-source libraries or licensed fonts and images, remain subject to their own licences.

9. Third-party services

A website usually depends on services we do not control, such as domain registrars, hosting providers, email providers, analytics, and payment gateways. We will help you set these up and will recommend sensible choices, but their availability, pricing, and terms are theirs, not ours, and we are not responsible for their acts or omissions.

10. Care plans

• Care plans are optional and are billed monthly in advance.
• They cover hosting management, backups, monitoring, security updates, and the agreed allowance of content changes. Unused change time does not roll over.
• Either of us may cancel a care plan with 30 days written notice.
• Cancelling a care plan does not affect your ownership of the website. We will hand over the files and access on request.

11. Cancellation and cooling off

Your right to cool off

Where you are a consumer and the agreement was concluded electronically, section 44 of the Electronic Communications and Transactions Act gives you the right to cancel without reason and without penalty within 7 days after the agreement was concluded. If you cancel within that period, we will refund what you have paid within 30 days, less the cost of any work you asked us to begin during that period.

Please note that this right does not apply to everything. Section 42(2) of that Act excludes certain transactions, including work made to your own specification, and once a bespoke website has been started at your request it may fall outside the cooling-off right. If you want to preserve the right in full, tell us not to start until the 7 days have passed.

Cancelling later

• You may cancel a project at any time in writing.
• The deposit covers work already done and is not refundable once we have started.
• If work beyond the deposit has been done, we will invoice for it at the quoted rate, in proportion to what was completed.
• We may cancel if you do not pay, do not supply agreed material, or ask us to do something unlawful. In that case you pay for work completed to date.

12. Warranties and liability

• We will carry out the work with reasonable skill and care.
• Where a package includes a post-launch fault correction period, we will fix genuine defects in what we built, free of charge, within that period. It does not cover new features, content changes, or faults caused by changes made by someone else.
• We do not warrant that a website will be free of every error, that it will be available without interruption, or that it will achieve any particular search ranking, traffic level, or sales result.
• To the fullest extent the law allows, our total liability arising out of the work is limited to the amount you have paid us for that project.
• Neither of us is liable for indirect or consequential loss, including lost profits or lost data.
• Nothing in these terms excludes liability that cannot lawfully be excluded, including under the Consumer Protection Act 68 of 2008 where it applies to you.

13. Confidentiality

We keep your business information confidential and use it only to do the work. We handle personal information in line with our Privacy Policy. Where we process personal information on your behalf, we do so as your operator under POPIA and only on your instructions.

14. Portfolio use

Unless you ask us in writing not to, we may show the finished website, screenshots of it, and your business name in our portfolio and marketing. We will never publish your confidential business information, customer data, or anything from behind a login.

15. Use of this website

You may use originarclabs.com to read about us and to contact us. Please do not attempt to gain unauthorised access to any part of it, interfere with its operation, or use it to send unlawful, misleading, or abusive content. The text, design, and images on this website belong to us. Unauthorised access to a computer system is an offence under Chapter 13 of the Electronic Communications and Transactions Act.

16. Disputes

If something goes wrong, tell us first at hello@originarclabs.com and we will try to sort it out directly. If we cannot, we both agree to attempt mediation in good faith before starting legal proceedings. Nothing here prevents either of us from approaching a court, or you from approaching the Consumer Goods and Services Ombud or another body with jurisdiction.

17. General

• These terms are governed by the law of the Republic of South Africa, and the South African courts have jurisdiction.
• The quote, together with these terms, is the whole agreement between us. Where the quote and these terms conflict, the quote applies.
• A change to the agreement is only effective if we both record it in writing, which includes email.
• If a clause is found to be unenforceable, the rest of the terms continue to apply.
• Failing to enforce a term at one time does not waive the right to enforce it later.
• We may update these terms. The version in force is the one published when your quote was accepted.