Privacy & Terms of Use
Plain-spoken business rules, ownership laws, and privacy details.
1. Terms of Use
Referral Program Rules
Referral credit ($40) applies to future projects of equal or lesser value than the referred project. The referred project must meet our baseline service package value ($750 CAD). Excludes repeat or mutual referrals between the same two companies. Retroactive within 60 days of referral completion.
E-Transfer Discount
E-Transfer price represents our 5% discount for cash and bank-to-bank transactions. All our websites are built on 100% durable static HTML code (unlike complex websites which can easily break).
Payment Structure & Deposits
All standard custom builds follow a 50/50 payment split. A 50% upfront deposit is required to secure your place on our build schedule, with the remaining 50% due upon staging approval before production launch. Once design or build labor begins, upfront deposits are strictly non-refundable to cover our dedicated production hours.
Hourly Support Rates & Billing Increments
All post-launch technical edits, copy updates, and maintenance requests are billed according to your active client tier. We charge a short-job premium for isolated, standalone 15-minute tasks to cover our setup and context-switching overhead. To keep things fair and transparent, our exact billing rates are structured as follows:
| Task Duration | Preferred Client (Caretaker Plan) | Standard SIACIK Client (No Caretaker Plan) | External Client (No Website) |
|---|---|---|---|
| 15 Minutes | $30.00 ($120/hr rate) | $40.00 *(Short-job premium) | $62.50 *(Subject to 30-min min) |
| 30 Minutes | $60.00 ($120/hr rate) | $62.50 ($125/hr rate) | $62.50 ($125/hr rate) |
| 45 Minutes | $90.00 ($120/hr rate) | $93.75 ($125/hr rate) | $93.75 ($125/hr rate) |
| 60 Minutes | $120.00 ($120/hr rate) | $125.00 ($125/hr rate) | $125.00 ($125/hr rate) |
*Note: Standard e-transfer 5% cash discounts apply strictly to upfront flat-rate website builds, custom packages, and annual Caretaker subscriptions ($60.00 flat instead of $65.00) if paid in full. The 5% cash discount does not apply to our hourly technical support, update, or consulting rates.
100% Client Ownership & Portability Rules
To guarantee you have complete, independent ownership of your digital assets, you pay your domain name registries (website name) and professional email hosting fees directly to your chosen providers (we only guide and configure them). Free hosting on Netlify or Cloudflare Pages is $0/month and includes up to 100GB of monthly bandwidth. In the extremely rare event that your website traffic exceeds this 100GB monthly bandwidth limit, you are solely responsible for any overage charges billed directly by your hosting provider. Upon final payment, we deliver your entire website as a folder of clean, readable, and fully unencrypted static source files (including raw HTML, CSS, JavaScript, and full-resolution images). Because these files belong completely to you and require no backend database or proprietary software to run, your website is fully portable; you are free to download, edit, or migrate your entire website to any other static hosting provider (such as moving from Netlify to Cloudflare Pages, or vice versa) at any time, with zero ongoing dependency on SIACIK.
Payment Links & Transaction Safety
We never collect, process, or store credit card data—all secure transactions are handled directly by Stripe's hosted checkout portals.
Build Boundaries & 48-Hour Launch Window
Every new build includes a dedicated 48-hour launch stabilization window. During these 48 hours, any critical bugs, layout alignment breaks, or technical rendering issues are resolved completely free. Once this 48-hour window closes, all future text edits, page expansions, or updates are treated as standard paid revisions and are billed at our standard flat rate of $125/hr in 15-minute increments.
Intellectual Property & Code Copyright
While every client receives 100% permanent ownership of their individual website files, copy, and layout assets upon final payment, SIACIK retains all intellectual property rights to our proprietary static-safe frameworks, custom code components, design presets, and brand assets. You are strictly prohibited from reselling, repackaging, licensing, or distributing SIACIK’s core website templates or design assets to third parties. Competitors, external agencies, and third-party developers are strictly forbidden from copying, cloning, or scraping our code to resell as their own web design services. You are fully permitted to modify, edit, or update your website files using any text editor or developer of your choice; however, any post-launch modifications you make are strictly at your own risk, and SIACIK is not responsible for repairing layout breaks or code failures caused by self-editing. To help you manage your own content safely, we can configure an optional static-safe content editor (such as Decap CMS) as a paid add-on, allowing you to edit text, photos, and project listings directly through a secure, visual admin panel without touching raw code.
Limitation of Liability & Governing Law
While we build tough, break-proof static websites, we do not control third-party hosting networks, domain registrars, or Google's search algorithms. SIACIK is not liable for any service interruptions, de-indexing, Google Business Profile suspensions, lost profits, or lost business revenue caused by third-party platforms or client-side account mismanagement. These terms are governed strictly by the laws of the Province of Ontario, Canada, and any formal legal discussions shall be resolved exclusively within the courts of Waterloo Region.
Pricing, Scope Adjustments & Tax Exemption
All flat-rate packages, standalone builds, and add-on prices are subject to change. Any custom feature requests, unlisted integrations, or scope expansions beyond your active contract will require a custom quote and paid add-ons. Under Canadian tax regulations, SIACIK operates as a registered Small Supplier (gross annual business revenue under the $30,000 CAD threshold) and is not required to charge, collect, or remit HST/GST. Your invoiced total represents your final out-of-pocket cost, with 0% tax added. Once our operations exceed this threshold, we will update our registration and tax statuses accordingly.
Subdomain Bridge Program & Migration Credits
To assist clients currently locked into annual contracts with proprietary website builders, we offer our "Subdomain Bridge" program. Under this program, we will build and host your portfolio slider page ($750) or your custom e-transfer pay portal ($750) on an independent subdomain (e.g., portfolio.yourdomain.com), or combine both tools on a single-page subdomain portal for a flat $1,000 upfront. When your page-builder contract expires and you migrate your root domain to SIACIK, 100% of your initial payment ($750 or $1,000) will be credited directly off your new Multi-Page or Complete Build package. This migration credit is valid for up to 18 months from the date of the initial subdomain setup, is non-transferable, and cannot be combined with other promotional credits or mutual referral discounts. Please note: Subdomain configuration is strictly contingent on the client having full administrative login access to their active domain registrar (DNS settings). If your current domain account is locked, inaccessible, or held by a third-party developer, you must purchase a separate, independent domain name (e.g., yourname-pay.com) directly from a registrar to host the standalone portal.
Our Community Payback Commitment
SIACIK pledges to donate 5% of all gross business revenue directly to food banks in Waterloo Region or where it is needed (e.g., local or international crisis). To ensure operational efficiency and clean bookkeeping, these donations are calculated, pooled, and processed collectively on a quarterly basis (or at our sole operational discretion), rather than on individual project transaction dates. For the purposes of this commitment, "gross business revenue" refers strictly to our earned build and service fees, and explicitly excludes client-reimbursed pass-through disbursements (such as direct domain name registries, software subscriptions, or business email hosting fees paid on behalf of the client) as well as any refunded transactions. This represents a good-faith community promise made in the spirit of local solidarity, and does not constitute a formal legal partnership, joint venture, or binding contractual obligation.
2. Privacy Policy
Voluntary Information Collection
We only collect standard contact information (like your name, email, company name, phone, package of interest, and bottleneck description) when you voluntarily submit it through our website contact forms.
Google Sheets Storage & Zero-Selling Pledge
This voluntarily submitted information is encrypted in transit using secure HTTPS and sent directly to a private Google Sheets database via an external Google Apps Script web app endpoint. We do not store or process your form submissions on our static web servers (Netlify). We have a zero-spam policy: we never sell, rent, license, or distribute your email or contact information under any circumstances. We will keep your contact info on file to stay in touch, but we will delete your record from our database immediately upon your request. The only exception is for active or past clients, where we must retain standard customer records and invoice details to comply with Canadian tax and business record-keeping laws.
Third-Party Services & Cookies
This website does not use tracking cookies, analytics, or behavioral pixels of its own. However, our third-party deployment providers (Netlify and Cloudflare) and secure payment processors (Stripe) may use temporary session cookies or process standard server connection data strictly to deliver hosting services and complete transactions. This website uses third-party services that may use cookies for analytics or embedded content. SIACIK does not store or track personal data. If we embed video players (like YouTube) or link out to external digital mapping services (like Google Maps or Apple Maps) on any page, these third-party platforms may collect device metadata or set functional tracking cookies independently upon interaction. These are managed entirely by those providers under their own respective policies.
Anti-AI Scraping Commitment
We structurally build and write our site files to resist unauthorized content scraping and harvesting. While search engines are welcome to crawl the site to list your business in search results, we do not design or host files to train automated AI engines or data-scrapers.
Spam Protection & Honeypot Security
To protect our Google Sheets database from automated spambots without forcing human users to solve annoying visual puzzles, we use standard "honeypot" form fields. These are invisible input fields that spambots automatically fill out, allowing our serverless form handler to cleanly detect and block spam submissions immediately.
Since SIACIK operates strictly in the B2B (Business-to-Business) space, we follow Canada’s Anti-Spam Legislation (CASL) guidelines very closely. Here is how B2B consent and compliant cold outreach work in plain English:
- Implied B2B Consent (Conspicuous Publication): You are legally allowed to cold-email another business in Canada without a prior relationship if: (1) They have publicly published their business email on their website, directory, or advertisements; (2) The publication is not accompanied by a "no solicitation" or "no marketing" statement; and (3) Your message is directly relevant to their business, role, or trade duties.
- Relationship-Based Implied Consent: If we have an active commercial relationship (e.g., we did business together, or you requested a quote/services), we have implied consent to contact you about business-related matters for up to 24 months.
- Explicit Consent & Newsletters: If you sign up for our weekly business tips or newsletters, we must obtain explicit consent via an opt-in checkbox that you actively and voluntarily check (never pre-checked).
- Unsubscribe Rights & Transactional Exemption: If you unsubscribe, we will remove your email from our B2B outreach and marketing lists immediately. However, this does not legally prevent us from emailing you about critical transactional matters (such as active projects, pending quotes, billing, invoices, or urgent platform alerts—such as critical Google Business Profile changes or hosting provider updates—that directly affect your website's indexing and performance), which are fully exempt from unsubscribe rules under Canadian law.
- How to Unsubscribe: You have the absolute right to opt out of our promotional or marketing lists at any time. Simply click the "Unsubscribe" link at the bottom of our newsletters, or reply directly to any of our marketing emails with the word "UNSUBSCRIBE" in the subject line, and your email address will be removed from our promotional lists within 10 business days.
3. Our Digital Contractor Standards
Complimentary Housekeeping (No Nickel-and-Diming)
We believe basic legal compliance—like having a functional Terms & Privacy page—is standard digital housekeeping. For every site we build (including our basic Standalone builds), a single combined legal page is always included at no extra charge if you supply the text or use our standard plain-spoken template. We do not believe in nickel-and-diming our clients for necessary safety checks.
True Independent Ownership (No Hosting Hostages)
To guarantee you are never vendor-locked, we guide you to register and pay for your domain names, professional email hosting, and Stripe setups directly under your own personal accounts. SIACIK acts strictly as an implementation contractor. We will never purchase your domain under our accounts or hold your website hostage under a proprietary subscription model.
Immortal, Static-Safe Builds
We build exclusively on 100% durable, flat HTML code with zero backend databases or bloated plug-in software. This means your website is completely break-proof, loads instantly, and can survive standard internet shifts without requiring expensive, ongoing monthly maintenance retainers.
Straight-Talk & Symmetrical Fair Pricing
All project costs are fixed, upfront, and transparent. We never negotiate, haggle, or inflate hours. Symmetrically, we pass a 5% discount directly back to you for cash and bank-to-bank e-transfer payments, keeping credit card transaction fees in your pocket where they belong.