A web design contract should transfer the design and code to you on full payment, put the domain and every account in your name, define revisions and the timeline, say what you get if it ends early, and cover redirects. In five free templates we read, none we could read in full mentioned the domain, account access or redirects.
Almost every web design contract a small business signs starts life as a free template. Those templates are written and published for designers, which makes sense: designers are the ones who go looking for a contract. So they protect the designer’s payment, the designer’s time and the designer’s right to stop working if the client goes quiet. That is reasonable. It also means the client’s side of the arrangement is often missing entirely.
We wanted to know how much is missing, so we read the templates.
This page explains what to ask for. It is not legal advice, and for anything large or unusual a lawyer is worth the fee.
What do free web design contract templates actually protect?
We looked at every free web design contract template we could find where the actual contract wording was readable on the page, rather than hidden behind a sign up form. Five qualified: four in full and one from its published clause summary. We checked each one for the twelve things a client most needs.
| Client protection | A | B | C | D | E |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Design and code transfer to you on payment | Yes | Yes | No | Partly | Yes |
| Domain registered in your name | No | No | No | No | Not shown |
| You get admin, hosting and account access | No | No | No | No | Not shown |
| Source files or a full backup handed over | No | No | No | No | Partly |
| Revisions defined | Blank | No | Blank | Blank | Yes |
| Timeline, and what you must supply by when | Partly | Partly | No | Partly | Yes |
| What you receive if it ends early | No | No | No | No | No |
| Licences for fonts, stock photos and plugins | No | No | No | No | No |
| Redirects or moving an existing site | No | No | No | No | Not shown |
| Fixes after launch | Yes | 30 days | No | No | 30 days |
Our own reading of five free, publicly available templates. Templates are anonymised. “Blank” means the clause exists but the number is left for the parties to fill in. Template E was assessed from its published summary of clauses rather than the full text.
Three things stand out. None of the four templates we could read in full says anything about the domain, about giving you access to the accounts, or about redirects, and the fifth template’s published summary does not mention them either. Those are the three things that most often cause trouble later. One template does not transfer the new design to the client at all: its ownership clause only protects material the client supplied. Another hands over the finished site but keeps ownership of the code inside it, the HTML, CSS and JavaScript, with the designer.
None of that makes these templates bad. They were written to protect the person who downloads them. If you are the client, it means you need to add the other half yourself.
The template that keeps the code is the one that would worry me most, because it reads as though you are getting everything. “The Website will become the intellectual property of Client” sounds complete. The line underneath it, keeping the code with the designer, is the one that matters if you ever move.
Most designers who use a template like that have never thought about it and would happily change it. Which is exactly why it is worth asking.
Who owns the website if the contract says nothing?
This surprises people more than anything else in this area. In the US, paying for creative work does not automatically make you the owner of it.
The work only becomes yours automatically if it counts as a “work made for hire”. For an independent designer, the Copyright Office’s guidance sets two conditions. The work must fall into one of nine listed categories, such as a contribution to a collective work, a translation or a compilation. And there must be a written agreement, signed by both sides, saying it is a work made for hire. A website does not obviously fit any of the nine categories.
From the US Copyright Office, Circular 30: works made for hire.
So the dependable way to own the design and code is a written assignment: a clause in which the designer transfers the copyright to you, usually on full payment. Without one, the safe assumption is that the designer still holds it, and you hold a right to use it. That is often fine in practice, until you want to move the site, change suppliers, or sell the business. Copyright is one of fourteen assets involved, and the rest, with how to check each one yourself, are in do I own my website.
The clauses to add if you are the client
Here is what to ask for, in plain English. A designer may prefer their own wording, which is fine, as long as the meaning survives.
| Clause | What it should say, plainly | Why it matters |
|---|---|---|
| Assignment of rights | On full payment, the designer assigns to the client all rights in the design, code and content made for this project | Without it, the designer is likely to keep the copyright |
| Pre-existing tools | The designer keeps their own reusable tools and frameworks, and grants the client a permanent licence to use them in this site | A fair middle ground, and it stops a dispute about whose code is whose |
| Domain | The domain is registered in the client’s name, in an account the client controls | The hardest asset to recover if it is in anybody else’s account |
| Accounts | The client holds owner level access to hosting, the CMS, Analytics and Search Console | Lets you change supplier without asking permission |
| Handover | On request, a full backup of files and database is provided within a set number of working days | Your exit route if anything goes wrong |
| Third-party licences | Paid fonts, stock photos and plugins are licensed in the client’s name, or the cost of transferring them is stated | Licences bought in the designer’s name can lapse when the relationship does |
| Redirects | Every page on the existing site is mapped to a page on the new one, with permanent redirects in place at launch | Protects the search traffic you already have |
| Early termination | If the project ends early, the client receives all work completed to date, on payment for that work | Without it, ending a project can leave you with nothing but an invoice |
Add the domain clause. Copyright disputes over a small business website are rare. A domain sitting in somebody else’s account is common, and it is the one thing that cannot simply be rebuilt.
What should the revisions and timeline clauses say?
Three of the five templates had a revisions clause with the number left blank, and one had none at all. A blank is an invitation to fill it in properly rather than leave it.
- Define a revision. One consolidated round of feedback on a stage of the work is a common and fair definition. Seven separate emails over a week should not count as seven rounds, or as one.
- Put a number on it. Two rounds per stage is the figure one of the templates suggests as typical. Agree what extra rounds cost.
- Say what starts the clock. Signature, deposit and receipt of your content can be weeks apart. Only the last is in your hands.
- Put your own obligations in writing too. If you will supply copy and photos by a date, say so. A timeline that only binds one side tends to slip on the other.
What drives the timeline is covered in how long it takes to build a website.
What about deposits and ending a project early?
Deposits are normal and fair. Of the templates that set one, a 25% deposit on signature was the figure written in, and another set a 25% kill fee on the remaining balance if the client cancels. Neither is unreasonable. The designer is protecting time they have set aside for you.
What was missing from every template was the other direction: what you receive when the project ends early. The answer you want is simple. If you pay for the work done so far, you get the work done so far, in a form somebody else could pick up. Without that sentence, a cancelled project can leave you with a paid invoice and nothing to show for it. If a project has already ended badly, the steps are in how to get your website back.
Nobody wants to discuss the ending at the start, and that is exactly when it costs nothing to agree. A designer who is happy to write down what happens if things go wrong is usually one who does not expect them to.
If a supplier resists every one of these clauses, that is useful information too. Most of them cost an honest supplier nothing at all.
How to raise this without souring the relationship
You do not need to send a marked up legal document. A short, friendly email does it:
- Thank them for the proposal and say you are keen to go ahead.
- List the additions you would like, in plain language, using the table above.
- Ask them to fold them into their usual contract rather than replacing it.
- Offer to sign the same day once it is updated.
Framed that way, it reads as a client who is organised and ready to commit, which is what most designers want. The longer list of questions to ask before you get this far is in questions to ask a web designer.
Common questions
What should be included in a web design contract?
Scope, price and payment schedule, the timeline and what each side must supply, a definition of revisions, transfer of the design and code on full payment, the domain and accounts in the client’s name, a backup on request, third-party licences, redirects, post launch fixes and what happens if it ends early.
Who owns my website if I paid for it?
Not necessarily you. Under US copyright rules, commissioned work from an independent designer is only automatically yours in narrow cases with a signed written agreement. The dependable route is a written assignment of rights to you on full payment.
Is a free web design contract template good enough?
For the designer, often yes. For the client, usually not without additions. In the five free templates we read, none of the four we could read in full covered the domain, account access or redirects, and two did not fully transfer ownership of the work to the client.
Can a web designer keep the code after I pay?
Yes, if the contract says so or says nothing. Some templates keep reusable code with the designer. A fair version keeps their tools with them but gives you a permanent licence to use everything in your site, plus ownership of what was made for you.
Do I need a lawyer for a web design contract?
For a small, standard site, many businesses manage with a good template plus the client clauses above. For a large project, anything involving ecommerce or other people’s data, or a contract you do not understand, a lawyer’s review is worth the cost.
Before you sign anything
See what your current site does well and badly, so the new contract fixes the right things. The free checker scores your homepage in about ten seconds and needs no sign up.