1. About these terms
These terms apply to your use of this website and to any design, development, automation, or consulting work Pinenox carries out for you. In them, "we", "us" and "our" mean Pinenox; "you" and "the client" mean the person or organisation engaging us.
Registered entity and address details are stated in full in every contract we sign and are available on request.
Most projects are also covered by a written proposal, quotation, or statement of work. Where a signed project document says something different from these terms, the signed project document takes precedence for that project, and these terms fill in anything it does not cover. By instructing us to begin work, or by paying a deposit, you accept these terms.
2. Scope of services
We provide services across four areas: web development, AI and chatbots, automation, and design and branding. What we will actually do for you is defined in the proposal for your project, which sets out deliverables, assumptions, dependencies, and a timeline.
- Anything not written in the proposal is out of scope. That is not us being difficult — it is how we keep estimates honest.
- Timelines in a proposal assume timely feedback, content, and approvals from you. Delays on your side move the delivery date accordingly.
- We may use subcontractors or specialists for parts of a project. We remain responsible to you for the work they do.
- We do not provide legal, accounting, tax, medical, or regulatory-compliance advice, and our deliverables should not be relied on as any of those.
3. Quotes and estimates
A quotation is based on the information available when we write it, and it is valid for 30 days unless it says otherwise. If the requirements change materially — more pages, more features, a different platform, additional integrations — we will tell you before doing the work and issue a revised quote or a change order for your approval.
Where a figure is described as an estimate rather than a fixed price, it is our good-faith assessment of the effort involved and not a cap. Fixed-price work is only fixed against the scope described in the proposal.
Third-party costs — domains, hosting, licences, stock assets, paid plugins, model or API usage, app-store fees — are ordinarily your responsibility and are not included in our fees unless the proposal says they are.
4. Project process and your responsibilities
Our process runs Discover → Strategy → Design → Development → Testing → Launch → Support. Each stage has an approval point, and we proceed on the basis of what you approved.
To keep a project moving, you agree to:
- Give us a single named point of contact who can make decisions and consolidate internal feedback.
- Supply content, images, brand assets, and access credentials by the dates agreed, in usable formats.
- Confirm that you have the right to use everything you send us — text, logos, photography, fonts, data — and that it does not infringe anyone else's rights.
- Respond to review requests and approvals within 5 business days.
- Test the deliverable during the review stage and report problems clearly, with steps to reproduce them.
If a project stalls on your side for more than 30 days, we may treat it as paused, invoice for work completed to date, and require a rescheduling fee to restart, because the resources reserved for you will have been reallocated.
5. Payment terms
- Deposit. Work begins once a deposit of 40% of the project fee is received. Deposits are non-refundable once work has started, as they secure your place in our schedule.
- Schedule. The balance is invoiced in two instalments — 30% at design sign-off and 30% at launch, according to the milestones in your proposal.
- Payment due. Invoices are payable within 7 days of the invoice date.
- Currency and taxes. All fees are in Indian Rupees (INR) and exclusive of applicable taxes, which are added where required by law. Bank charges and currency conversion costs are yours.
- Late payment. Overdue invoices may attract interest at 1.5% per month, and we may suspend work and withhold deliverables and hand-off until the account is settled.
- Retainers and subscriptions. Ongoing support or maintenance is billed monthly in advance and may be cancelled with 30 days notice.
6. Revisions and change requests
Each proposal states how many rounds of revision are included at each stage — typically two rounds on design and two on build. A round means one consolidated set of feedback, not a stream of individual messages.
Refining something already agreed is a revision and is included. Adding, replacing, or re-conceiving something is a change request: we will quote it, and it proceeds once you approve. Revisions requested after final approval or after launch are billed at our then-current rate of ₹2,500 per hour unless they are defects, which are covered under section 10.
7. Intellectual property and hand-off
- Your material stays yours. Content, trademarks, data, and assets you supply remain your property. You grant us the licence needed to use them for your project.
- Final deliverables transfer to you on full payment. Once all invoices are settled, ownership of the final, approved deliverables produced specifically for you passes to you. Until then, we retain ownership and you have no licence to use them commercially.
- We keep our own tools. Pre-existing frameworks, libraries, code components, internal templates, and general know-how remain ours. You receive a perpetual, non-exclusive licence to use them as embedded in your deliverable — not to resell them separately.
- Concepts not selected — rejected design routes, alternative concepts, working files, and drafts — remain ours unless the proposal says otherwise.
- Third-party assets such as fonts, stock imagery, plugins, and libraries are licensed under their own terms, which pass to you. Where a licence is subscription-based, keeping it current is your responsibility after hand-off.
- Portfolio rights. Unless you ask us in writing not to, we may show the work and name you as a client in our portfolio, case studies, and marketing. We will always respect a confidentiality request.
8. Third-party services
Projects commonly depend on services we do not control — hosting platforms, payment gateways, CRMs, email providers, messaging APIs, AI model providers, analytics tools, app stores. We will integrate them competently, but we are not responsible for their availability, pricing changes, policy changes, deprecations, outages, or data handling.
Where a third party changes or withdraws a feature your project relies on, the work needed to adapt is a new change request. Accounts with third-party providers should be in your name wherever possible, so that you retain control and ownership.
Where a deliverable includes AI features, you accept that generative systems can produce inaccurate or unexpected output. Where output is customer-facing or used for decisions, you are responsible for reviewing it and for the guardrails and human checks agreed in the scope.
9. Confidentiality
Each of us may learn confidential information about the other — business plans, pricing, credentials, unreleased products, customer data. Both of us agree to keep it confidential, to use it only for the project, and to protect it with reasonable care. This does not apply to information that is already public, was known independently, or must be disclosed by law. These obligations continue after the project ends.
Credentials you share with us are held only as long as needed for the work. We recommend rotating them after hand-off.
10. Warranties
We warrant that we will perform our services with reasonable skill and care, in a professional manner, and that the deliverables will substantially match the approved scope.
We will fix defects — deliverables that do not work as specified — free of charge if you report them within 30 days of launch. That covers genuine faults in our work. It does not cover changes of mind, new requirements, content edits, problems caused by modifications made by you or a third party, or failures of third-party services.
Beyond that, and to the extent permitted by law, deliverables are provided without other warranties. In particular we do not guarantee specific commercial results — search rankings, traffic volumes, conversion rates, revenue, or engagement — because those depend on factors outside our control. We also do not warrant uninterrupted or error-free operation of any website or system, or of this website.
11. Limitation of liability
Nothing in these terms limits liability that cannot lawfully be limited, including liability for death or personal injury caused by negligence, or for fraud.
Subject to that, and to the maximum extent permitted by law:
- Neither of us is liable for indirect, incidental, special, or consequential loss, including lost profits, lost revenue, lost data, loss of goodwill, or business interruption.
- Our total aggregate liability arising out of or in connection with a project is limited to the total fees paid by you for that project.
- We are not liable for failure or delay caused by events beyond our reasonable control, including outages, natural events, civil disruption, or changes in third-party platforms.
- You remain responsible for keeping your own backups of content and data you supply.
This website and its content are provided for general information. Our Insights articles are general guidance, not advice for your specific situation.
12. Termination
Either of us may end an engagement by giving 14 days written notice. Either of us may end it immediately if the other commits a material breach and does not remedy it within 14 days of being asked to.
On termination: you pay for all work completed and all committed third-party costs up to the termination date; deposits already paid are not refundable; we hand over the work completed to date once outstanding invoices are settled; and each of us returns or deletes the other's confidential material on request. Sections on confidentiality, intellectual property, liability, and governing law survive termination.
13. Governing law and disputes
These terms are governed by the laws of India, and the courts of Hyderabad, Telangana have exclusive jurisdiction over any dispute, without prejudice to any mandatory consumer rights you may have where you live.
Before starting formal proceedings, both of us agree to attempt to resolve the matter in good faith by discussing it directly — most disagreements on projects are scope misunderstandings and are resolved in a conversation.
14. General
- Whole agreement. These terms plus your signed proposal are the entire agreement between us on their subject matter.
- No partnership. We are independent contractors. Nothing here creates an employment, partnership, or agency relationship.
- Assignment. Neither of us may assign the agreement without the other's written consent, except as part of a business transfer.
- Severability. If any clause is unenforceable, the rest continues to apply.
- Notices. Written notice may be given by email to team@pinenox.studio and to the client's stated contact address.
15. Changes to these terms
We may update these terms as our services change. The version that applies to your project is the one in force when you accepted the proposal for it. The "last updated" date at the top always shows the current version.
16. Contact
Questions about these terms, a proposal, or an invoice: team@pinenox.studio. How we handle information you send us is described in our Privacy Policy.
These terms are provided as a plain-language template for information. They are not legal advice, and they have not been reviewed by a qualified lawyer. Have them reviewed for your jurisdiction before relying on them in a client engagement.