Terms of service

Who I am

Butterfly Effect Digital, LLC is a North Carolina limited liability company based in Raleigh, North Carolina. In these terms, “I,” “me,” and “my” mean Butterfly Effect Digital, LLC, and “you” means the person or business hiring me. You can reach me any time at chris@butterflyeffect.digital.

These terms cover my web services: website design, development, and hosting, plus logo and social promo work I quote separately. By approving your site and starting your plan, or by accepting them at checkout, you agree to them.

Firefly Medaka

Firefly Medaka (fireflymedaka.com) is another business of mine. Fish, plant, and pond orders are governed by its own terms at fireflymedaka.com/terms and its own privacy policy at fireflymedaka.com/privacy, not by this page. If you see “Butterfly Effect Digital” or “BED* FIREFLYMEDAKA.COM” on a card statement, that is why: both businesses share one Stripe account.

What the website plan includes

The plan covers a standard website build and everything it takes to keep that site running:

• The first build, made with your real content, and refinement with you after that
• Hosting, SSL, uptime monitoring, and updates
• Unlimited edits whenever you ask by email (see Edits and changes below)
• Support by email at chris@butterflyeffect.digital

There is no setup or launch fee.

“Starting at $99 a month” is the price of a standard build. If your project is bigger than that, such as an online store, I will say so and quote it before you approve anything, and the price in that quote is the price that applies. New pages, redesigns, new features, logo design, logo refinement, and social promos are quoted separately and agreed in writing before I start. I will never bill you for something you have not agreed to.

Edits and changes

Edits are part of your plan, and I do not count them against a monthly limit. Email me whenever you want something changed and I will make it. I aim to handle edits within two business days, often the same day. I cannot promise a response time, because I am one person and sometimes I am not available.

An edit is a change to something your site already has or does: text, photos, business hours, prices, menus, schedules, a new event or post, and layout tweaks such as spacing, sizes, colors, or moving an item. If a request is close to the line, I will tell you which side it falls on, and why, before I do anything.

I quote first, and agree the price with you in writing before I start, for new pages, redesigns, and new features (an online store, booking, member logins, or a new integration, for example), and logo work.

“Unlimited” means I do not cap how many edits you send. Building new parts of the site is a quoted project, not an edit, and nothing is billed unless you have agreed to it in writing.

Built first, then you decide

I build your site and show it to you before you owe me anything. If you do not want it, you walk away and it costs you nothing, and on request I delete the build and the material you gave me. If you do want it, you tell me by email, it goes live, and your plan starts that day. Nothing is billed before you approve.

The unapproved build is my work. Until you approve it and the plan starts, you do not have the right to publish or use it.

Price, billing, and the one year minimum

The plan starts at $99 a month. It has a one year minimum, billed monthly (or paid for the year in one payment if you’d rather), then month to month after the first year. The one year minimum means twelve months, counted from the day your site goes live. It does not mean the plan is month to month from the start. I confirm your monthly price in writing, by email, before you approve, and that is the price on your plan.

Unless you choose to prepay, I bill monthly, in advance, through Stripe. You give your card to Stripe, not to me, and Stripe emails you a receipt each month. Your card statement will read BUTTERFLYEFFECTDIGITAL. Prices are in US dollars. If sales tax applies to anything I charge you, I will show it on your invoice.

The minimum is a real commitment. You can cancel at any time. If you cancel during the first year, the months left in that year are still due, on the same monthly schedule (or are already covered, if you prepaid), and your site stays up until the year is done. The one exception: if I fail to deliver what I promised in these terms and don’t fix it within 30 days of you telling me in writing, you can cancel without owing the rest of the year, and the refund rules under “Paying in one payment” below apply to anything you prepaid. Once the first year is over, the plan continues month to month and you can cancel whenever you like.

Paying in one payment

You can pay for the first year, or more, in one payment: email me after you approve your demo and I will send a Stripe invoice for your monthly price times the months. A prepaid first year is not refunded if you cancel, but I refund whole prepaid months that have not started (counted from the day those 30 days end), and I send the refund to the card you paid with within 10 business days, if I fail to deliver and do not fix it within 30 days of your written notice, or if the plan ends after the first year. If you buy the site for $4,900, unstarted prepaid months are credited against it, and before prepaid months run out I email you 14 days ahead, after which the plan continues month to month on the same card unless you end it.

If a payment fails

If a charge does not go through, I will email you so you can fix it, and you can ask me for a way to update your card through Stripe. If it stays unpaid for 14 days after that email, I may take your site offline until the balance is paid. Taking a site offline does not cancel the plan or the months you owe. When the balance is paid, I put the site back.

If you think a charge is wrong, please email me before you dispute it with your bank. I would rather fix it in a day than argue about it for a month, and I refund any charge that was a mistake on my side.

Refunds

Months you have already paid for are not refunded when you cancel, because the site stays up through the end of the month you paid for. The exceptions are a billing mistake on my side, which I refund in full, and the refunds for prepaid months described under “Paying in one payment” above.

What is yours, and what is mine

These are yours:

• Your business name, your logo, and your trademarks
• The text, photos, video, and other material you give me, and the right to keep using them anywhere
• Your domain name. If you already own one, it stays in your account. If I register one for you, it is registered in your name.

Hosting and uptime

I host your site on Cloudflare and watch it for outages. I work hard to keep it up and to fix problems quickly, but I do not promise it will never go down, and this plan does not come with a guaranteed uptime percentage or a credit for downtime. Outages at Cloudflare, your domain registrar, or the internet in general are outside my control. I will tell you if something is wrong on my side.

No promises about results

I build sites to be found and to work well on phones. I cannot promise a search ranking, a number of visitors, or a number of sales, because nobody can.

Cancelling

To cancel, email me at chris@butterflyeffect.digital. Once your first year is complete, cancelling stops future billing, and your site comes down at the end of the last month you have paid for. If you prepaid beyond that month, I refund the whole months that have not started, as described under “Paying in one payment.” You can buy the site outright at any time instead, as described above. If you want your own text, photos, and logo files back, ask and I will send them to you.

I may end your plan, and take your site down, if your payments stay unpaid, if your site breaks the law or someone else’s rights, or if you use it to harm other people. If I end a plan for any of those reasons, the months left in the first year remain owed (or stay paid, if you prepaid them).

Other companies’ services

Your site depends on services I do not run: Stripe for payments, Cloudflare for hosting, and Resend for email. Their own terms apply to their part, and I am not responsible for what they do or fail to do.

Limits on my liability

To the extent the law allows, I provide my services as they are, without warranties beyond the ones I have made in these terms. My total responsibility to you for any claim is limited to the amount you paid me in the twelve months before the problem happened. I am not responsible for indirect or consequential losses, such as lost sales, lost profits, or lost data. Nothing here limits anything the law does not allow me to limit.

Changes to these terms

I may update these terms as my business changes. The version posted here when you approve your site is the one that applies to your plan, unless you and I agree to something different in writing. The price I confirmed to you by email stays your price for your first year. After that, I will email you at least 30 days before any price change, and you can cancel before it takes effect.

The whole agreement

These terms, plus anything I confirm to you in writing by email, are the whole agreement between you and me. If a written quote for a custom project says something different from this page, the quote wins for that project. If any part of these terms turns out not to be enforceable, the rest still stands.

Governing law

These terms are governed by the laws of the State of North Carolina, United States. If you and I cannot sort out a disagreement by talking, it will be handled in the state or federal courts that serve Wake County, North Carolina. Please email me first. Most problems are quicker to fix than to fight over.

Contact

Questions about these terms go to chris@butterflyeffect.digital.