Contracting
How we contract
The defaults we work to, written out so you know them before a proposal arrives. The binding document is the agreement we sign for your engagement, and these are the terms it starts from.
Last updated 5 October 2026
You own the work
Intellectual property in everything we produce for you transfers to you on payment. Code, designs, documentation and data models are yours, without a licence back to us and without a clause that keeps you dependent.
Where we use open-source components, they keep their own licences, and we tell you which ones and under what terms. Where we reuse a generic internal utility of ours, you get a perpetual licence to it rather than a dependency on us continuing to exist.
What a quote covers
A fixed-cost quote names the scope it covers and, just as importantly, what it excludes. We would rather have an awkward conversation about exclusions before you sign than an argument about them in week six.
If we underestimate a fixed-cost project, that is our problem and we absorb it. If you change what you want, that is a change and we price it separately. The distinction is written into the scope so it does not become a matter of opinion.
Payment
- Fixed-cost work is invoiced against named milestones, not on a calendar
- Time and materials is invoiced monthly in arrears with the hours itemised
- Retainers and staff augmentation are invoiced monthly in advance
- Payment terms are 14 days from invoice unless we agree otherwise in writing
- Invoiced in Naira or USD. Clients outside Nigeria are billed in USD
Confidentiality
Anything you tell us about your business is confidential, whether or not an NDA is in place, and whether or not the conversation turns into work. We will sign yours if you have one.
We will not name you as a client, publish a case study, or use your logo without your written permission. Several of the engagements we are proudest of are not on this site for exactly that reason.
Changing direction
Scope changes. We plan for it rather than pretend otherwise: re-scoping happens in the open, with the cost and schedule effect stated before the work starts, not discovered in an invoice.
Ending it
Retainers and time-and-materials engagements can be ended by either side with 30 days written notice. Fixed-cost projects can be stopped at the end of any agreed milestone.
Whenever it ends, you keep everything produced up to that point, in your own accounts, with the documentation written as we went. There is no handover fee, because the handover already happened.
Liability
Our liability under an engagement is capped at the fees paid under it. We do not accept liability for indirect or consequential loss. Nothing in any agreement limits liability that cannot lawfully be limited.
This is the one section where the signed agreement genuinely matters more than this page, so read it there.
Law
Our engagements are governed by the laws of the Federal Republic of Nigeria unless we agree otherwise in writing, which we are willing to do for clients whose procurement requires it.
This page summarises our standard position in plain language. It is not itself a contract and it is not legal advice. The agreement we sign for your engagement is the document that binds either of us, and where the two differ, that agreement governs.