Terms of Service

By accessing or using athearia.com (the site), the Client Hub, or engaging Athearia for services, you agree to these terms. If you don’t agree, please don’t use the site or our services.

“Athearia,” “we,” and “us” mean Athearia Inc., a corporation incorporated under the laws of Alberta, Canada (225 Railway St E, Suite 216, Cochrane, AB T4C 2C3, Canada).

These terms apply to site visitors and to clients of Athearia’s website builds and care plans. Our services are offered to businesses. By engaging us you confirm that you are acting for a business or professional purpose and, if on behalf of a business, that you are authorized to accept these terms for it. Where a written estimate, proposal, or agreement you approve says something different from these terms, that document governs for that engagement.

How you accept. These terms are our client services agreement. When you pay a build estimate or start a care plan, the secure checkout asks you to confirm that you agree to the version of these terms then in effect before the payment is completed. We keep a record of that acceptance: the name and email entered at checkout, the date and time, the payment reference, and the version of these terms. The current version is shown at the top of this page.

You may use the site for lawful purposes: to learn about our services, contact us, request a preview or quote, and manage your account. You agree not to:

• Use the site in any way that violates applicable laws or regulations.
• Attempt to gain unauthorized access to any part of the site, the Client Hub, or the infrastructure behind them.
• Submit content that is unlawful, misleading, or designed to impersonate another person or business.
• Use automated tools to submit forms, request sign-in links, or scrape the site.

We may suspend or restrict access to the site or the Client Hub at our discretion if we believe it’s being used in a way that violates these terms.

Athearia designs and builds custom websites in three directions (Standard, Premium, and Custom) and offers monthly care plans (Essential Care, Growth Care, and Specialized Support). What each includes is described on the pricing page, and the description that applies to you is the one published when you approve your estimate.

Website builds are quoted per project. For Standard and Premium sites we follow a preview-first process: you tell us about your business, we create a homepage preview, you approve the design direction, and we then provide a written estimate for the full build. Custom projects (ecommerce, booking, portals, backends, integrations, and similar) are scoped through a discovery conversation and priced in a written proposal.

We may decline or discontinue any engagement at our discretion, for example where the request is outside what we build or where we can’t deliver it to our standard.

A preview is a design concept we create from your intake and from publicly available information about your business, at no charge and with no obligation on either side. Previews are hosted on a preview address we control (an athearia.com or vercel.app subdomain), are shared with you by link, are marked so search engines don’t index them, and are not your business’s official website.

Sometimes we create a preview for a business we haven’t spoken to yet and send it to the address that business publishes for enquiries. A preview like that may show your business name and material from your public presence, only to demonstrate the concept. If you’d rather we hadn’t, reply and say so: we’ll take the preview down promptly and won’t contact you again (see our privacy policy).

Previews are offered for marketing websites only — the Standard and Premium packages, which present your business and bring you enquiries. Custom projects (online stores, booking systems, customer accounts or portals, dashboards, integrations, automation, or anything else with a backend) are scoped in a discovery conversation and priced in a written proposal; we don’t build those on speculation.

Until an estimate is approved and paid for, a preview and everything in it remain Athearia’s property. We may take a preview down at any time, and we will take it down promptly if you ask. A preview is a direction, not a finished product: the final site may differ in detail, and specific features are only committed to in your written estimate.

Your price is the approved estimate. The estimate describes the pages, features, and assumptions the price is based on. As long as the scope doesn’t materially change, that is the price. If you ask for something the estimate didn’t include, or the scope grows during the build, we’ll re-estimate the difference and ask for your approval before doing that work.

Payment. Payments are processed by Stripe through a secure checkout link we send you. Amounts are in Canadian dollars (CAD) unless the estimate states otherwise, and exclude applicable taxes (such as GST/HST), which are added where required. Payment is due on the schedule set out in your estimate or proposal; for Custom projects this may be a deposit followed by one or more milestone payments. We may pause work, delay a launch, or withhold delivery while a payment is overdue.

Your inputs. A build depends on content, images, brand assets, feedback, and approvals from you. Delays on your side push the timeline out. If an engagement stalls for an extended period because we’re waiting on you, we may close it and invoice for the work completed to date; restarting later may require a new estimate.

Care plans are monthly subscriptions, billed in advance from the day you subscribe and renewed automatically on the same day each month until cancelled. There is no minimum term and no free trial; the first payment is taken at checkout. For a website we are building, the care plan is offered separately when the site is ready to launch; nothing recurring is billed during the build. Prices for Essential Care and Growth Care are published on the pricing page; Specialized Support is priced per engagement. We may offer a one-time credit on a first care invoice at our discretion; it is not a trial and creates no ongoing entitlement.

What’s included is finite. Every plan covers managed hosting, SSL, monitoring, routine upkeep of your site, and the ability to restore it to a previous version (see Security and backups), plus a monthly allowance of change-work: up to one hour per month on Essential Care and up to four hours per month on Growth Care (which includes the monthly improvement, SEO monitoring, and analytics summary described on the pricing page). Specialized Support includes the hours set out in its proposal. Unused time doesn’t roll over. Requests beyond the allowance, or outside the plan’s scope (such as redesigns, new features, or new pages), are quoted separately before any work starts. No plan is unlimited.

Response times are not guaranteed. Athearia is a small studio. We reply to support requests as soon as we reasonably can and we’ll tell you if something will take a while, but we don’t commit to a specific response or resolution time, and nothing on this site or in the Client Hub should be read as one. Urgent problems, such as a site being down, are prioritized over routine requests. Support requests through the Client Hub are available while a care plan is active; while your site is being built, reach us by replying to any email from us.

Changing or cancelling. You can switch between Essential Care and Growth Care, or cancel, at any time from the Client Hub. Changes and cancellations take effect at the end of the current billing period; you keep full access until then. Cancelling doesn’t refund the current or any previous period. We may also end a plan with at least 30 days’ notice, or immediately for non-payment or misuse.

After a plan ends. When a care plan ends, so do hosting, maintenance, monitoring, and support under it. Your site may be taken offline from Athearia’s hosting after the final paid period. A handoff of your website’s files is available as described under Ending services and handoff. If a recurring payment fails and isn’t resolved after Stripe’s retries, we may suspend the plan and the services it covers until payment is made.

Any timeline we give, including the target launch windows shown on the site, is an estimate. Timelines start once we have the content, assets, and approvals we need from you, and they depend on how quickly feedback comes back. We’ll keep you informed, but we don’t guarantee a specific launch date unless a written agreement says so.

You are responsible for the content you provide or approve for your website: text, images, logos, video, product information, prices, and claims about your business. You confirm that you own this material or have the right to use it, and that it doesn’t infringe anyone else’s rights or break any law or regulation that applies to your industry.

We may suggest stock imagery, fonts, or other third-party assets; those remain subject to their own licenses. Where an asset needs a license in your business’s name, we’ll tell you, and it is your responsibility to keep it in good standing.

You are also responsible for reviewing the site before launch and for the accuracy of anything published on it after launch.

The Athearia name, logo, brand assets, and the content and design of athearia.com are owned by Athearia. You may not reproduce or republish them without written permission.

Your website. Once an engagement is paid in full, you own the website we delivered for you: its design, the content you supplied, and the site’s code as delivered to you. Until full payment, the work remains Athearia’s property and we may withhold delivery or take it offline.

What stays ours. Athearia keeps ownership of its pre-existing materials, internal tools, templates, build systems, processes, and know-how, including anything of that kind used to produce your site. To the extent any of it is built into your delivered website, you receive a perpetual, non-exclusive license to use it as part of that website. Third-party assets (fonts, stock imagery, libraries, plugins) remain under their own licenses.

Athearia may show the work in its portfolio and marketing, may use a screenshot of your website in the emails we send you about your project, and may include a discreet credit on the site, unless you ask us in writing not to.

Domains. Your domain name should be registered in your business’s name. We’ll help you connect it, but you are responsible for keeping the registration, renewals, and registrar account in good standing.

Hosting. While you are on a care plan, your site is hosted on infrastructure managed by Athearia through third-party providers. Previews and sites in progress are hosted on preview addresses we control.

The site and our services depend on third-party providers, including Vercel (hosting and cookieless analytics), Stripe (payments), Supabase (database and file storage), Resend (transactional email), GitHub (source-code hosting), and Google (business email and, for sites under a care plan, Search Console and similar tools). We may use other reputable providers as needed. Each is governed by its own terms, and Athearia isn’t responsible for failures, outages, or changes in third-party services beyond our control.

What we do. We build and host sites with reasonable, industry-standard security practices: encrypted connections (HTTPS), reputable hosting and infrastructure providers, access to our systems limited to the people who need it, and, while a care plan is active, routine updates and monitoring. “Backups” means this: your site’s code and content are kept in version control and every deployment of the site is retained, so while you’re on a care plan the site can be restored to a previous version.

What no one can promise. No website, network, or provider is completely secure, and restoring a previous version can’t recover everything in every situation (for example, data held in a third-party service). We don’t guarantee that a site will never be attacked, compromised, or lose data, and we aren’t responsible for incidents at third-party providers or in systems we don’t control.

Your part. You are responsible for the security of the accounts and services you control: your domain registrar, your business email, any third-party tools or plugins you add or ask us to connect, and the passwords and devices you use. Keep your own copies of the content, images, and data you give us, and tell us promptly if you suspect a problem with your site or your accounts.

Care plans are month-to-month and can be cancelled at any time to end at the close of the current billing period. Fees already paid are not refunded, in whole or in part.

Website builds. Work begins once you approve an estimate and make the payment it calls for, so payments for work performed are non-refundable. If you end an engagement before completion, Athearia may keep payments for work completed to date and may invoice for any completed work not yet paid for. Any refund beyond that is at Athearia’s discretion, based on the stage of the work.

If Athearia ends an engagement for reasons other than your breach or non-payment, we’ll refund any prepaid amount for work not yet performed.

Athearia does not guarantee search rankings, search traffic, lead volume, sales, or revenue outcomes. We build websites with an SEO-ready foundation (clear structure, fast pages, sensible metadata, local SEO basics where applicable) and, on Growth Care, we monitor and make recommendations. No honest provider can guarantee what search engines or your customers do next.

We also don’t guarantee that the site or your website will be available without interruption. Hosting, networks, and third-party services can fail, and we’ll work to restore service when they do.

Except as expressly stated in a written estimate or agreement, the site and our services are provided “as is” and “as available,” without warranty of any kind, express or implied, including the implied warranties of merchantability, fitness for a particular purpose, and non-infringement. Figures shown on the site for illustration (such as sample dashboards, statistics, or example businesses) are examples, not promises. Suggestions we make about content, marketing, SEO, or your industry are practical advice, not legal, financial, or regulatory advice; you remain responsible for your business’s compliance. We aren’t responsible for delays or failures caused by events beyond our reasonable control, including outages of third-party providers, internet failures, or other force-majeure events.

When you contact us or become a client, you agree to receive the emails needed to provide the service: confirmations, estimates and payment links, receipts and invoices, sign-in links to the Client Hub, support updates, and notices about your project. Every email identifies Athearia and gives you a way to reach us. Outreach to businesses we haven’t worked with follows Canada’s Anti-Spam Legislation and always includes a way to opt out; see our privacy policy.

To the maximum extent permitted by law, Athearia’s total liability arising out of or related to the site or our services is limited to the amount you paid to Athearia in the twelve months before the event giving rise to the claim. Athearia is not liable for indirect, incidental, special, consequential, or punitive damages, or for lost profits, lost data, or business interruption, even if advised of the possibility. A written engagement agreement may set a different cap for that engagement.

You agree to defend, indemnify, and hold harmless Athearia from any claims, damages, or expenses (including reasonable legal fees) arising from your misuse of the site, your breach of these terms, the content you provide or approve, or the operation of your business through your website.

Either of us can end ongoing services. You can cancel a care plan or other recurring service at any time from the Client Hub, effective at the end of the current billing period. Either of us may also end any ongoing service by giving the other at least 30 days’ written notice (email is enough). Amounts owing up to the end date remain payable, and prepaid amounts are handled as described under Refunds and cancellations.

Handoff. When services end, and once everything owing is paid, we’ll provide an orderly handoff on request: your website’s files and code as delivered, the content and assets you supplied, and reasonable help pointing any domain or account that is in your name to a new provider. Domains, subdomains (such as preview addresses on athearia.com), hosting accounts, and tools that are in Athearia’s name stay with Athearia and aren’t transferred. Larger migration work, such as setting the site up with a new host, may be quoted separately.

Our obligations end. Once the notice period has run and the handoff is complete (or you haven’t asked for one within 30 days of the end date), Athearia’s obligations for that service end. We don’t provide indefinite hosting or lifetime support, and we may delete our copies of the site after that point, subject to any records we’re required to keep.

We may suspend or end services, including access to the Client Hub and hosting of a site, for non-payment, misuse, unlawful content, or a breach of these terms that isn’t fixed within a reasonable time after we notify you. Sections on payment, intellectual property, disclaimers, liability, indemnification, and governing law survive the end of any engagement.

We may update these terms from time to time. The “Last updated” date at the top of this page reflects the current version. Material changes affecting active clients will be communicated directly, and continued use of the site or services after a change means you accept the updated terms.

These terms are governed by the laws of the Province of Alberta and the federal laws of Canada that apply there, without regard to conflict-of-laws principles. Any dispute will be resolved in the courts of Alberta, and you agree to their jurisdiction. If any part of these terms is found unenforceable, the rest remains in effect.

Questions about these terms? Email hello@athearia.com or write to Athearia Inc., 225 Railway St E, Suite 216, Cochrane, AB T4C 2C3, Canada.