What happens to the money

Everything below is that one sentence applied to different weeks of a project. If a rule further down ever seems to contradict it, this section is the one that was meant, and we would rather be told about the contradiction than rely on it.

Software is not a product in a box that can be returned unopened. By the time a refund is being discussed, hours have usually been spent and something exists. So the question is rarely “all or nothing” — it is “how far did we get, and what is that worth”. We answer that with what was actually delivered, not with how it felt.

Whatever this page eventually says, Kenyan law gives buyers protections that a web page cannot sign away.

Ferrin must decide, with legal advice, which Kenyan consumer legislation applies to a studio selling services to businesses and to individuals, and name it here precisely. We are not going to cite a statute we have not checked.

We do not bill for a first meeting, for the questions we ask to understand the job, or for producing a scope and a price. Take the quote to somebody else and compare it — that is what a quote is for.

Nothing is refundable at this stage because nothing has been paid. The first money changes hands only after you have agreed to a written scope and price, which is the point described in how work starts on the terms page.

One honest exception: if you ask for substantial work before agreeing to anything — a detailed technical plan, a designed prototype, a data audit — we will tell you in advance that it is paid work and what it costs. You will never be invoiced for something you thought was part of the sales conversation.

A deposit does a specific job for a studio this size: it reserves weeks in a calendar with very few weeks in it. When a booked project disappears, that time is usually too late to fill.

That is the argument for a non refundable deposit. The argument against it is that a client who cancels the day after paying, before a single hour was spent, has a fair point. A real policy picks a side and says so before you pay, rather than after.

Ferrin must decide the deposit rule and write it here as plain numbers: is the deposit refundable at all; is there a cooling off window measured in days during which it comes back in full; and is any part of it kept to cover the booking itself. Then repeat the same rule in the quote, so nobody pays a deposit without having read it.

Until that is settled, we will say the rule out loud in writing before asking you for any money on a specific project.

You do not have to justify stopping. Budgets move, a business changes direction, priorities shift. What happens next is mechanical:

• We stop, the same day you say so.
• We write down what was completed and what it comes to.
• If you have paid more than that, the difference comes back to you. If you have paid less, we invoice the difference.
• We hand over what exists — the code, the designs, the accounts — the same way we would at a finished handover.

You are not left with nothing. An unfinished site is still work another developer can continue, which is one of the reasons the code is written to be handed over from the first week rather than the last.

Ferrin must decide how “work completed” is measured on a project priced as a whole rather than by the hour — by agreed stage, by an honest percentage, or by hours logged — and say which before a project starts, not while one is being cancelled.

The reasons would be real ones: illness, capacity, or a project that has turned into something we are not the right studio to finish. In every one of those cases the fault is ours and the arithmetic should favour you.

So: we hand over everything built to that point, in your name, with nothing withheld over money. We refund the part you paid for that was never delivered. We do not keep a cancellation fee for a project we are the ones walking away from.

We would also help you hand the work to somebody else — a walkthrough for the next developer costs us an afternoon and saves you weeks.

Ferrin must decide how quickly a refund in this situation is paid, and write the number of days. “As soon as possible” is what a client reads as “never”.

You see the work every week on a real link, and that exists precisely so that unhappiness surfaces in week two rather than at handover. Tell us in week two.

Sorting out what is actually wrong matters, because the three causes have different answers:

• It does not do what we agreed. Our problem, our time, no charge. That is not a refund, it is finishing the job.
• It is broken. Same answer — we fix defects in what we built. Whether that has a time limit after handover is the warranty question on the terms page.
• It does what we agreed, and the agreement was wrong. Honest, common, and not a refund. We reprice the change and you decide whether you want it.

A refund becomes the right answer when what was delivered genuinely is not what was agreed and cannot be made right. In that case, see the principle in section 01.

Care is optional maintenance — updates, backups, small fixes. It is not a licence to use your own website. Everything is already in your name, so stopping the payment stops the service and nothing else.

Ferrin must decide what happens to a month already paid for when it is cancelled halfway through: refunded pro rata, or run to the end of the month and then stop. Also decide the notice period, if any. Pick one and put it in the care agreement.

What is already settled: no exit fee, no charge to hand back access, and no deletion of anything of yours because a subscription ended.

A domain registered in your name is yours and is not coming back as cash. Hosting paid for a year is paid for a year. An app store developer fee belongs to the store. Where those were bought on your behalf, they appear on your invoice at cost with nothing added.

The good news is that they stay with you. A cancelled project still leaves you holding your own domain, your own hosting and your own accounts, all of which have value to whoever finishes the work.

This is also why we would rather you bought these in your own name from the start, with your own card or M-PESA. Fewer things in our name means fewer things to argue about later.

Refunds return along the same route as the payment. It is the simplest way for both of us to prove what happened, and it keeps us out of the business of sending money to a different account on somebody's say so.

We will put the amount, the reason and the date in writing, and you should keep that alongside the original receipt.

Ferrin must decide the payout window — the number of working days from agreeing a refund to sending it — who pays the M-PESA or bank charge on sending a refund back, and whether refunds are ever made in Kenyan shillings only when the original payment came from outside Kenya in another currency.

Nearly every disagreement about money in this line of work is really a disagreement about what was in the scope. Put the written scope and the record of what was delivered side by side and the answer is usually obvious to both people within an hour.

If it is not obvious, it goes wherever your signed agreement says it goes. That has not been settled yet.

Ferrin must decide, with legal advice, the venue for an unresolved dispute — Kenyan courts or arbitration in Nairobi — and keep that answer identical to the one on the terms page. Two different answers in two documents is worse than none.

Whatever is decided, it does not remove any right Kenyan law gives you, and it does not stop you complaining to a regulator. If the disagreement is about personal data rather than money, the route is the Office of the Data Protection Commissioner, as set out on the privacy page.