Refunds, set out clearly

The short version

You are paying us for time, expertise and design work, so what we can refund depends on how far a project has progressed. Before any work starts, you can cancel and get your deposit back. Once work is underway, you pay for the work that has been done.

We would rather never need this page. If something has gone wrong, tell us first — in almost every case an honest conversation resolves it faster than a refund would.

Deposits

Most projects begin with a deposit. It is not a fee for holding your slot — it is an advance payment against the work, and it reserves the time in our diary that would otherwise be offered to another client. That is the honest reason it exists, and it is why its treatment changes once a project is under way.

While a project is still at the enquiry or planning stage, the deposit is refundable. Once we have begun the work it was taken against, it is no longer refundable in isolation, because by then it has been earned. It is not lost, though — it is offset against your final invoice, so the total you pay for the project does not change. You pay the same amount either way; the deposit simply moves when part of it is paid.

We will always confirm the deposit amount, what it covers and the point at which it stops being refundable in writing before you pay it. If you are ever unsure whether a deposit is still refundable, ask us and we will tell you the position for your specific project rather than pointing you at a general rule.

Before work begins

If you cancel before we have started work on your project, any deposit you have paid is refunded in full. We will confirm in writing when we consider work to have started — normally the point at which discovery or design work begins.

Cancelling at this stage is straightforward and we will not make it awkward. Email us, tell us you would like to stop, and the refund is processed without a conversation about why. We would rather you cancel early and honestly than feel obliged to continue with something that is no longer right for your business.

Milestone and staged payments

Larger projects are usually billed in stages rather than as a single sum. A typical structure is a deposit to begin, one or more payments as agreed stages are reached, and a final balance before launch. The stages are set out in your proposal, so you always know what triggers the next invoice.

If you stop mid-project

If you decide to stop, the practical position is simple: a stage that has been completed and approved is chargeable, and a stage that has not yet begun is not. If you have paid ahead of where the project actually reached, the difference is refunded. If the work has run ahead of the payments, we will send you a final invoice for the difference.

In practice, the second situation is the rare one. Most clients who stop partway do so with at least one stage unpaid, so a refund is the normal outcome rather than a bill. Either way, we will show you the calculation rather than simply stating a figure.

Once work is underway

Because our work is bespoke, the time we have already spent cannot be returned. If you cancel partway through a project, you are charged for the work completed up to the date of cancellation, and anything you have paid beyond that is refunded.

Where a project is billed in milestones, a milestone that has already been delivered and approved is not refundable. A milestone that has not yet started is.

We will always set this out in figures for you — a clear breakdown of what has been done, what it costs, and what is being returned — rather than leaving you to work it out.

Monthly support and maintenance plans

Ongoing support is billed monthly and runs on a rolling basis. You are not tied into a long fixed contract — you can cancel at any time by giving us notice, typically 30 days, so we can plan the handover properly and make sure nothing is left unsupported.

The month you are currently in is already being worked, so it is not refundable once it has begun. The following month will not be charged, provided notice reaches us before it starts. If you have paid for a period we will not reach because of your notice, that unused portion is refunded.

Support time you have already used in the current month is not refundable either, for the same reason any other completed work is not — it has been done. What we will not do is hold you to a term you did not agree to or make cancelling deliberately difficult. See our website maintenance and support page for what the plans cover.

Third-party costs

Some projects involve buying things on your behalf — domains, hosting, premium fonts, stock imagery, plugins or subscriptions. Once these have been purchased in your name they are generally non-refundable, because the supplier will not return them to us.

We will always tell you before we commit to any third-party cost, and we never buy anything on your behalf without your agreement. Where a purchase can be transferred to you or cancelled, we will do that rather than simply writing it off.

Where a purchase is made in your name, it is yours. Licences, domains and hosting accounts belong to you and can be moved to another provider or another developer. If you leave partway through, we will help you transfer them rather than leaving them stranded on our accounts.

What is not refundable

Rather than leaving you to infer it from the rest of this page, here is the list in one place. The following are not refundable:

• Bespoke design or development work that has already been delivered to you, whether or not you have used it.
• Time already spent on your project up to the date you cancel, including strategy, planning, copy, design and build.
• Milestones or stages that have been completed and approved.
• Third-party purchases made in your name, such as domains, hosting, fonts, imagery, plugins or subscriptions.
• Support or maintenance time already used in the current billing month.
• Work you asked us to redo because you changed your mind about a decision you had already agreed.

This list is about money rather than about goodwill. If a project ends badly, we would rather part on reasonable terms than argue over the last invoice — and where a refund is genuinely owed under the sections below, this list will not be used to avoid it.

If we are at fault

If we cancel a project for our own reasons, or if we deliver something that does not match what was agreed and we cannot put it right, you receive a full refund of everything paid for the undelivered or non-conforming work. We will not argue about it.

If we miss an agreed deadline for reasons within our control, you are entitled to ask us to stop and to receive a refund for work not yet carried out. We would ask only that you give us a reasonable chance to put a delay right first, since most delays are short and fixable, but the choice to stop is yours.

Your statutory rights

Nothing in this policy reduces your rights under UK consumer law. Where you are a consumer, you benefit from the Consumer Contracts Regulations 2013 and the Consumer Rights Act 2015.

One point worth knowing: the Consumer Contracts Regulations give consumers a 14-day right to cancel most distance contracts, but that right does not apply once a bespoke service has been fully performed with your agreement. Because our projects are bespoke and begin when you ask us to begin, we will ask you to confirm that you want work to start. If you would rather wait out the 14 days before we begin, that is entirely fine — just say so.

Separately, the Consumer Rights Act 2015 requires services to be carried out with reasonable care and skill, within a reasonable time where no deadline is agreed, and for a reasonable price where no price is agreed. Where a service falls short of that standard, a consumer is entitled to ask for it to be put right, and where that is not possible, to a price reduction. This sits alongside everything else on this page and is not affected by it.

Consumers and businesses

The rights described above apply to consumers — broadly, an individual acting for purposes wholly or mainly outside their trade or profession. If you are a limited company, a sole trader buying for your business, or otherwise contracting in the course of business, different rules apply.

In a business-to-business contract, the statutory consumer cancellation rights do not apply. The Consumer Contracts Regulations 2013 and the Consumer Rights Act 2015 are there to protect consumers, not businesses. Where the law does not give you a right to cancel, we can still choose to offer one, and we do — see our Terms for the standard terms around cancellation and payment.

In practice, this changes very little about how we deal with you. Business clients can still cancel, still receive work completed and paid for, and still get a refund of anything paid beyond that. We would rather apply the same fair approach to everyone than treat a business client differently because the law allows it. What we cannot do is offer a consumer right to a business, because doing so would misstate your position rather than improve it.

Cancelling partway through

If a project ends early, you should still walk away with the work you paid for rather than an empty folder. Where a project is cancelled, we will hand over everything that has been completed and paid for up to that point, including the working files that make up that work.

In practical terms that usually means:

• The design or build files for any completed and paid-for stage.
• Any brand assets, copy or content we have produced for you.
• Account access or a transfer for anything registered or hosted in your name.
• A short written summary of where the project reached and what remains outstanding.

We do not hold completed work to ransom or delete it because a project has stopped. If you later decide to pick the project up again — with us or with someone else — the groundwork you paid for is yours to build on.

How to request a refund

Email us with your name, the project and the reason for your request. We will acknowledge it within two working days and give you a decision, with the figures behind it, within ten working days.

Approved refunds are returned to the original payment method within 14 days. We do not charge an administration fee.

If we cannot find a resolution within those ten working days — for example, because we are waiting on a supplier to confirm whether something can be returned — we will tell you what is outstanding, who we are waiting on, and when you can expect an answer. Being left without an update is the thing we most want to avoid.

How long refunds take

Refunds are returned to the original payment method — the card, account or method you paid with. We cannot send a refund to a different card or account, because that is how refunds are correctly processed and it also protects you against fraud.

We process approved refunds within 14 days of approving them. After that, the time it takes to appear is down to your bank or card provider rather than to us. Card refunds typically show up within five to ten working days, though some providers take longer. Bank transfers are usually quicker. If a refund has not arrived after a fortnight, tell us and we will chase it with our payment provider and give you something in writing you can take to your bank.

Chargebacks and payment disputes

If you are unhappy with a payment, please talk to us before raising a chargeback with your bank. We will always deal with a problem directly, and in most cases we can resolve it in days rather than months.

A chargeback is not a faster route to a refund. It freezes the amount while your bank investigates, which typically takes considerably longer than our own ten working days, and it removes our ability to agree a part-refund or a practical fix in the meantime. It also means we lose access to the information that would let us put things right, because the conversation moves to your bank instead of staying with us.

This is not a threat and we will never treat a chargeback as an act of bad faith. If you have already raised one and would rather resolve things directly, get in touch — we are happy to pick the conversation back up and settle it properly.

Complaints

If you are unhappy with a decision we have made about money, raise it with us first. Email us, mark it as a complaint, and we will look at it again — genuinely, not as a formality. A second opinion inside our own business is often enough to put a mistake right, and it is the quickest route to an outcome.

If we still cannot agree, there are routes outside our business for a consumer to take, including the relevant ombudsman or dispute-resolution body for the kind of service involved, and the small claims process through the courts. Those routes are there for a reason and we will not penalise you for using them. The honest position is simply that they take longer than talking to us first, so it is worth giving us the chance to sort it out.

Contact us

For anything to do with payments, invoicing or refunds, email contactus@jonesdigital.co.

See also our Terms of Use and Copyright Policy.

This page sets out how we approach refunds in practice and is written as plain guidance rather than legal advice. It is not a substitute for the terms agreed for your project, and it is not legal advice for you or your business. If you need advice on your own legal position, a solicitor or a service such as Citizens Advice is the right place to go.