Terms of Service

1What these terms cover

These terms are between you and Motive11 LLC, a Pennsylvania limited liability company, referred to here as Motive11, I, or me. They apply when you pay an invoice, accept a proposal, or purchase services through a payment link or checkout page.

Motive11 is one person and says so. You are hiring Mark Szymanski, and the work is done by him. The contract is with the company, which is why the legal name appears above, but there is no corporate we standing behind it and no reason to write like there is.

For larger or more complex engagements we may sign a separate agreement or statement of work. Where a signed agreement says something different, the signed agreement wins and these terms fill in anything it does not address.

Your project's proposal or statement of work defines what is being built. These terms define how we work together while it happens.

2Scope and changes

What is included is what your proposal or statement of work says is included. Work outside that is new scope.

New scope is not a problem, and it happens on most good projects. It is quoted and approved before it is built, so nothing is a surprise on an invoice. If a request is small enough that quoting it would cost more than doing it, it just gets done.

3Payment

• Project fees are due in full before work begins. On larger projects I will consider installments, on fixed calendar dates set in your proposal, with the last one falling before delivery. I do not tie payments to completion, launch, or approval, because those are dates you control and I do not.
• Recurring and monthly fees begin at project kickoff, not at launch. The work starts when the engagement starts.
• Invoices are due on receipt unless stated otherwise. Work may be paused on accounts more than 15 days past due.
• Fees paid for work already performed are non-refundable. If we part ways mid-project, you pay for what was done and you keep it.
• Third-party costs such as hosting, domains, licenses, and API usage are yours, whether billed directly to you or passed through at cost.

4What I need from you

Projects stall on inputs far more often than on building. To keep yours moving, you agree to provide content, assets, access, and decisions in reasonable time, and to give feedback in consolidated rounds rather than a stream.

You confirm you have the right to give me whatever you send, including copy, images, logos, and data. If a project sits idle on your side for more than 30 days, it may be paused and rescheduled, and resuming it may require a new timeline.

5AI

AI is a core part of how this work is produced. Material you provide may be transmitted to third-party AI providers for processing during your engagement.

If you want specific material kept out of AI processing, identify it in writing before or when you provide it. It will be handled manually, and where that materially changes the work, the additional time and cost is quoted before proceeding.

6Confidentiality

Each of us will protect the other's confidential information and use it only for this engagement. Neither of us will disclose it to anyone who does not need it to do the work.

Processing your material through the AI providers and service vendors described in the AI Policy is an agreed part of performing the work and is not a breach of this section. That is stated plainly here so the two documents do not contradict each other. If your situation requires something stricter, tell me before we begin and we will scope it accordingly.

7Ownership

On full payment, the deliverables built specifically for you are yours, and any rights I hold in them transfer to you. Before full payment, they are not.

I keep ownership of the general tools, frameworks, libraries, templates, and methods used to build them, including anything developed before or outside your project. You get a permanent right to keep using those as part of your deliverables. This means I can keep using my own toolkit on other work, and it does not limit what you can do with what I built you.

Third-party components such as fonts, plugins, stock assets, and open-source libraries stay under their own licenses.

One honest limit, explained in full in the AI Policy: under current United States law, material generated purely by AI cannot be copyrighted, because copyright requires human authorship. I transfer every right I actually hold, and I do not claim copyright exists where the law says it does not. Where ownership is the point, such as brand marks, there is real human authorship in the work.

8Showing the work

I may reference your project in my portfolio, case studies, and content, including screenshots and a description of what was built and what it achieved. Anything you have marked confidential stays out, and I will not publish your private business figures without asking first.

If you would rather I did not mention the work at all, just say so and I will not.

9What I do and do not promise

I promise the work will be performed professionally and competently, and that I will tell you the truth about it, including when something is not working.

I do not promise specific business outcomes. No one honestly can. Search rankings, traffic, conversion rates, revenue, and lead volume depend on your market, your offer, your pricing, and your follow-through, most of which sit outside anything I control. Anyone guaranteeing you numbers is selling you something.

Beyond that promise, services are provided as-is. Third-party platforms, hosts, and APIs go down, change their pricing, break their integrations, and occasionally shut off entirely. I will help you deal with it, and I am not liable for their behavior.

10Limitation of liability

To the extent the law allows, total liability for any claim arising out of the work is limited to the amount you paid for the engagement the claim relates to. Neither of us is liable to the other for indirect or consequential losses, including lost profits or lost data.

Keep your own backups of anything you cannot afford to lose. I keep backups too, and two is better than one.

11Ending the engagement

Either of us may end the engagement with written notice. You pay for work performed up to that point and you keep it, subject to the ownership section above.

Ongoing and monthly services can be cancelled with 30 days written notice before the next billing date. I will hand over what you need to carry on elsewhere. I am not going to hold your website, your accounts, or your data hostage, and I would rather part on good terms than have you stuck.

12Changes, law, and the rest

These terms may change, and the date at the top reflects the current version. Changes apply to new work from the date they are posted. Clients with active engagements will be told directly when a change is significant rather than being left to notice.

These terms are governed by the laws of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. We will try to sort out any dispute directly first, because that is faster and cheaper for both of us. If a provision here turns out to be unenforceable, the rest still stands.

Questions about any of this are welcome before you buy, and the answer will be a straight one. Reach me at [email protected].