Client terms, supplier agreement, associate agreement, NDA and website terms, written or reviewed as one set so the definitions, liability caps and IP terms agree with each other. A fixed price agreed in writing before work starts, and 10% off for subscribers.
A business collects its paperwork one document at a time. The client terms came from a template when the first customer signed, the supplier agreement is whatever the supplier sent, the associate agreement was adapted from somebody else’s, and the website terms were copied at launch. Each may read well by itself. Put side by side, they define the same words differently, cap liability at different levels and say different things about who owns the work.
The documents meet in the middle of a claim. Your client claims against you under your client terms; you look to the associate who did the work, or the supplier whose part failed, under theirs. If the promise you made to the client is bigger than the promise you hold from them, the difference comes out of your business.
“Four documents reviewed and amended as a complete contract suite.”
How one enquiry described the job
Read across a row to see what each document has to say about the same thing for the set to hold together.
| Client terms | Supplier agreement | Associate agreement | NDA | Website terms | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Definitions | Defines the services, the deliverables and confidential information. | Uses the same words for what the supplier provides into those services. | Uses the same definitions, so the associate’s work is the deliverable you promised. | Defines confidential information the way the client terms do. | Points to the client terms for anything bought, and does not define them again. |
| Liability cap | Your cap to the client, and what sits outside it. | The supplier’s cap to you, set against the exposure their part creates. | The associate’s liability for their own work, matched to their insurance. | Says whether a breach of confidence sits inside or outside any cap. | Limits liability for free content; consumer rules apply if you sell to the public. |
| Who owns the work | What the client gets: ownership of the deliverables, or a licence to use them. | A licence wide enough for you to pass on to your client. | A signed, written assignment to you of what the associate creates. | States that sharing information transfers no ownership. | Your content stays yours; sets what visitors may do with it. |
| Personal data | Who is controller and who is processor of client data. | Processor terms if the supplier handles your clients’ data. | Confidentiality and data duties matching your own. | Covers personal data shared while you talk. | A privacy notice that matches what the business does with data. |
| Ending it | Notice periods, ending for breach, and which clauses survive. | A notice period no longer than your client’s, so you are not left paying. | Ends when the client work ends, with handover of work and materials. | How long confidentiality lasts after the talks stop. | Which law applies and where a dispute is heard. |
Each document in the suite is drafted or reviewed against the others, and you get them back as one set.
The terms you sell on: scope, price and payment, who owns what you deliver, limitation of liability and ending the contract. Between businesses, a cap in your standard terms has to meet the reasonableness test in the Unfair Contract Terms Act 1977, and section 11(4) points the court at the resources you could expect to have and whether you could have insured. Liability for death or personal injury caused by negligence cannot be excluded at all (section 2(1)).
Business terms and conditions →The terms you buy on. Here you are more likely to be signing the supplier’s paper than writing your own, so the job is a read and mark-up against your client terms: their liability to you, service levels, notice, and what happens to your data. Where a supplier processes personal data for you, Article 28 of the UK GDPR requires a binding contract covering a set list of points, including acting only on your instructions, security, and deleting or returning the data at the end.
Guide to supplier agreements →For freelancers and associates who do work for your clients. It passes your client promises down the line (quality, confidentiality, ownership of the work) and records a self-employed relationship that matches how the work is done; HMRC’s CEST tool checks employment status for tax. The author of a work is its first owner; work an employee makes in the course of employment belongs to the employer, and a freelancer’s does not (Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, section 11). An assignment must be in writing and signed (section 90(3)).
Consultancy agreement template →Signed before you share pricing, client lists or plans with a prospective partner, investor or supplier. In a suite it uses the client terms’ definition of confidential information, so the same material is protected the same way whichever document applies. It sets what is excluded, how long the duty lasts and what the receiving side must do with the material when talks end.
NDAs explained →Terms of use for the site, and the privacy notice. A company must show its registered name, number, registered office and the part of the UK it is registered in on its website (Company, LLP and Business (Names and Trading Disclosures) Regulations 2015, regulations 24 and 25). Sell online to consumers and the Consumer Contracts Regulations 2013 give a 14-day cancellation period, and an unfair term is not binding on the consumer (Consumer Rights Act 2015, section 62).
Website terms and privacy →A data processing agreement, a reseller agreement or purchasing terms can join the set and take the same definitions. Employment contracts are a separate job with their own rules: the employment starter pack is from £895 +VAT.
Employment starter pack →Four illustrative mismatches between a client contract and the documents behind it. Each one is fixed by changing a clause before anything goes wrong.
Your client owns everything you deliver once it has paid.
The associate who made the work signed nothing about ownership.
Copyright stays with its author until a signed, written assignment moves it, so you have promised the client something you do not own.
Your client can end the contract on one month’s notice.
The software supplier you bought in for that client runs for twelve months.
The client leaves in a month and you keep paying for eleven.
You keep everything the client shares confidential.
The associate agreement has no confidentiality clause.
If the associate leaks it, the breach of your client terms is yours to answer for.
You process client personal data only on the client’s instructions.
The hosting supplier holds that data on its standard terms, with no processor clauses.
You cannot show the client, or the Information Commissioner, the contract Article 28 requires.
Every document you use now, including the ones you think are fine, and a line on what you sell and who to.
You get a short note saying which documents to keep and amend, which to replace and which are missing, and where they contradict each other.
Against a written scope. Nothing starts, and nothing is chargeable, until you approve it.
Client terms first, because every other document follows from what you promise customers. Then associate and supplier documents, then the NDA and website terms.
There is no single published price for a suite, because bringing four existing documents into line and drafting five from nothing are different jobs. The price is set once we have seen what you have, written against a scope, and agreed with you in writing before work starts. Subscribers get 10% off.
For a sense of scale: at the £200 to £350 +VAT an hour commonly quoted for commercial work, a set of five documents billed by the hour has no ceiling until the invoice arrives. The fixed price is the whole job.
A contract review: read in full, marked up, back within 5 working days.
Contract review →Business terms and conditions written for how you sell.
Terms and conditions →Client, supplier and associate agreements, NDA and website terms done together.
Start with your documents →Business Legal includes up to three contract reviews a month and cancels any time.
Subscription plans →Drafting and reviewing commercial contracts is not a reserved legal activity, which is why it can be priced as fixed-fee work. We explain what each clause does and why it is there; we do not hand over operative wording presented as safe to rely on without advice on your circumstances. If one of the documents is already the subject of a dispute, that part is not fixed-fee work: it goes to AD Solicitors (SRA no. 8011228), and you are told at the scoping stage, before you have spent anything. See preparing for a dispute if you are already there.
The documents are written under the law of England and Wales. If your business or your clients are in Scotland or Northern Ireland, say so at the start: contract law and some consumer rules differ there, and the governing law clause has to fit. The guide to business contracts covers the ground in longer form.
Buzz Legal handles contracts, terms of trade, employment paperwork and dispute preparation. Court work, and the other activities reserved by law, are carried out by AD Solicitors, authorised and regulated by the Solicitors Regulation Authority (no. 8011228). How this works, in full. For advice on your own situation, send us the documents.
It is a fixed price agreed in writing before work starts, set against a written scope, and nothing is chargeable until you approve it. The figure depends on how many documents are in the set, whether we are drafting from nothing or bringing your existing documents into line, and whether you sell to consumers as well as businesses. As reference points, a single contract review is £249 +VAT and business terms and conditions are from £695 +VAT. Subscribers get 10% off the suite. Send us what you have and the price comes back with the scope.
Yes, and that is where most suites start. You send every document you use now and we read them against each other: where the definitions differ, where the liability caps leave a gap between what you promise clients and what you hold from suppliers and associates, and where ownership of the work is not passed down. Documents that are sound are amended in place. Documents that cannot be brought into line are replaced. You get a note of what changed in each one, so you know which version to use from now on.
The client terms. Everything else in the set follows from what you promise the people who pay you: the associate agreement has to pass those promises down, the supplier agreement has to match their notice and liability, and the NDA has to protect information the same way. Once the client terms are settled, the associate and supplier documents are brought into line, then the NDA and the website terms. Doing it in that order means each document is written against a fixed point, so nothing has to be reworked.
A contract cannot be changed by one side alone, so an associate who signed the old agreement stays on it until they agree to the new one. The usual route is to send the new agreement with a short covering note explaining what has changed and why, and to use it for all new work from a set date. Some changes matter more than others: a written assignment of the work they have already created for your clients is worth getting signed now, because copyright stays with its author until it is assigned in writing.
Subscribers get 10% off the fixed price of a suite. The subscription itself covers ongoing work: Business Legal at £249 +VAT a month includes up to three contract reviews a month, which suits a business that signs other people’s paperwork regularly once its own set is in place. Legal Foundations and Business Legal cancel any time on 30 days’ notice. A suite is a one-off piece of work with its own fixed price, so you can have one done without subscribing, and subscribe later if the volume of contracts justifies it.
Every contract you use now, even the ones you are happy with, and a line on what you sell and who to. You get back a written scope and a fixed price for the set. See the privacy policy for how we use your details.
Client, supplier and associate agreements, NDA and website terms done as one set, at a fixed price agreed in writing before work starts.
