Alchema Interactive
Terms of service
Last updated 24 August 2026
These terms apply when you use this website, contact us through it, or commission work from us. "We" and "us" mean Chris Yates, trading as Alchema Interactive, of Paris, Texas. "You" means the person or business commissioning the work.
The short version. Prices on this site are honest starting ranges, not quotes. Timelines are targets we work hard to hit, not guarantees. You own the finished work once it is paid for. We are not responsible for services we do not run — hosts, registrars and payment processors go down sometimes, and that is not a defect in what we built.
What we do
We design and build websites, visual narrative sites, kiosk and touchscreen interfaces, and applications. We build new things. We do not offer ongoing IT support, we do not administer servers or networks we did not set up, and we do not integrate into systems we cannot see.
Prices, estimates and quotes
The figures published on this site, and any range the project wizard shows you, are estimates. They are the bands this work usually falls in. They are not offers, and nothing on this site constitutes a quote.
A quote is a written figure sent to you directly for a defined piece of work. Only that binds either of us, and only for the scope it describes.
Payment
- 50% to begin, and the remaining 50% on launch, unless we have agreed otherwise in writing.
- Work starts when the deposit clears. The deposit reserves your place in the schedule and covers work already done; it is not refundable once work has begun.
- Final payment is due on completion, whether or not you have chosen to make the work public.
- If an invoice goes unpaid for 30 days we may pause work and suspend access to anything we are hosting for you, having told you first.
Scope and changes
The quote describes what is being built. Changes are normal and welcome, but a change that adds work will be quoted separately before it is done — we will not do extra work and surprise you with a bill, and we will not absorb an unlimited amount of it either.
Every project includes a reasonable round of revisions within the agreed scope. Redesigning something already approved is new work.
Timelines
The turnaround times we publish and quote are targets, not guarantees. We plan carefully and we hit them far more often than not.
A schedule depends on you as much as on us. If we are waiting on content, feedback, approvals or access, the timeline moves by at least that long. If a date is genuinely fixed — an event, a launch, a show — tell us before we start, and we will say honestly whether it fits.
We are not liable for losses caused by a delivery date being missed.
What you provide, and what you promise about it
You will give us the content, images, logos, fonts and access the project needs. By sending them, you confirm that you own them or have the right to use them, and that our using them as part of your project infringes nobody's rights.
We rely on that. If a claim is made against us because material you supplied was not yours to supply, you are responsible for it.
You must not upload anything unlawful, malicious, or that you have no right to share. We may remove such material and close the account.
Ownership
When the final invoice is paid, ownership of the finished work — the design, the code, and the content we produced for you — transfers to you.
Until then it remains ours. We keep the right to our own underlying tools, libraries and techniques, which we reuse across projects, and the right to show the finished work in our portfolio unless you ask us in writing not to.
Third-party components — fonts, stock images, plugins, hosted services — remain under their own licences, which pass to you as they are.
Things we do not run, and are not responsible for
A finished project usually depends on services neither of us controls: hosting, domain registrars, DNS providers, email delivery, payment processors, content platforms, analytics, and the networks in between.
We are not liable for their failures. If a host goes down, a registrar lets a domain lapse, a payment processor changes its rules, an email provider filters your mail, or an API you depend on is withdrawn, that is not a defect in what we built and it is not something we can be held responsible for — including for any loss of business, revenue, data or goodwill that follows.
We will always help you get it working again. Doing so may be chargeable if it is not our error.
No guarantee of uninterrupted service
Software has faults and the internet has outages. We do not warrant that anything we build will run without interruption or be free of every error. We do warrant that the work will be performed with reasonable skill and care, and we will fix genuine faults in our own work.
We do not guarantee any particular business outcome — traffic, rankings, enquiries, conversions or sales. Nobody honestly can.
Limit of our liability
To the fullest extent the law allows, our total liability to you for anything arising out of a project — in contract, in negligence, or otherwise — is limited to the amount you have actually paid us for that project.
We are not liable for indirect or consequential losses, including lost profits, lost revenue, lost data, lost business or damage to reputation, even if we were told those were possible.
Nothing here limits liability that cannot lawfully be limited.
Ending a project
Either of us can stop. If you cancel, you pay for the work done to that point and the deposit is not returned. If we cancel, we will refund anything you have paid for work not yet done, and hand over what has been completed.
The client portal
Accounts are for people working with us on a project. Keep your password to yourself and tell us if you think somebody else has it. We may suspend an account being used to store material unrelated to a project, or in a way that risks the service for others.
The portal is a working tool, not a backup service. Keep your own copies of anything you upload.
Calls
Our phone line is answered by an automated assistant, and calls are recorded and transcribed. The assistant can take a message and describe our published price ranges; it cannot agree a price, a scope or a date, and nothing it says is binding on us.
Governing law
These terms are governed by the laws of the State of Texas, and any dispute will be dealt with in the courts of Lamar County, Texas.
Changes
We may update these terms. The version in force for your project is the one published when your quote was accepted. The date at the top of this page shows when it last changed.