Clear expectations.
Better work.

1. Acceptance of These Terms

By accessing or using the Ciel Asylum website, placing an order, approving a proposal, making an advance payment, or otherwise engaging Ciel Asylum for services, you agree to these Terms of Service and any additional terms incorporated into the applicable order, proposal, statement of work, or project agreement.

If you are accepting these Terms for a business, organization, or other entity, you represent that you have authority to bind that entity.

If you do not agree to these Terms, do not use the website to purchase services or enter into an engagement with Ciel Asylum.

2. Services & Project-Specific Terms

Ciel Asylum provides creative, branding, website, digital experience, e-commerce, AI and automation, development, integration, infrastructure, support, consulting, and related professional services. The exact services included in an engagement are defined by the applicable proposal, order, scope, or project agreement.

Project-specific documents may define deliverables, milestones, revision allowances, client responsibilities, payment schedules, ownership, licenses, maintenance, support, acceptance criteria, or other terms. If a signed or expressly accepted project-specific agreement conflicts with these general Terms, the project-specific agreement controls for that project.

3. Client Responsibilities

Clients are responsible for providing reasonably accurate information, timely decisions, consolidated feedback, requested content, credentials, approvals, and access needed to complete the engagement.

Unless otherwise agreed, the client is responsible for:

• Designating an authorized decision-maker or point of contact.
• Reviewing deliverables and providing feedback within requested timeframes.
• Ensuring that client-supplied text, images, logos, data, software, media, trademarks, and other materials can lawfully be used for the project.
• Maintaining backups or copies of client-owned systems, data, credentials, and content when work involves an existing environment.
• Complying with laws and industry obligations applicable to the client's own business, content, products, services, and customers.

Delays in approvals, access, content, decisions, or feedback may require schedule adjustments and can affect quoted timing or availability.

4. Fees, Payments & Third-Party Costs

Prices, deposits, advance payments, milestone payments, recurring charges, and due dates are stated in the applicable proposal, invoice, checkout, order, or project agreement. Unless expressly stated otherwise, quoted prices do not include taxes, licenses, paid media, stock assets, premium software, third-party subscriptions, domain registrations, hosting, transaction fees, shipping, or other external costs.

Ciel Asylum may accept payments through PayPal, Stripe, Square, WooCommerce-supported checkout, or other approved methods. Payment-provider terms may also apply to the transaction.

Work may be paused when an undisputed payment is materially overdue. Ciel Asylum may withhold final delivery, transfer, launch, publication, credentials, or other completion actions until amounts due for the applicable project are paid, to the extent permitted by law and the project agreement.

5. Refund Guarantee & Cancellations

Ciel Asylum's goal is to provide high-quality, professional service. For eligible engagements, Ciel Asylum offers a refund guarantee of up to 100% of the advance payment subject to the conditions below.

Refund restrictions

• No refund is available once three rounds of revisions have been requested.
• The refund request must be received in writing within 14 calendar days of the order date.
• Domain-registration fees are non-refundable.
• Express or expedited service is non-refundable once that service has been initiated.
• Updates, maintenance, modifications, or add-ons to an existing website or existing project are non-refundable once work has begun.
• Third-party fees, licenses, purchases, subscriptions, payment-processing charges, or other external costs already incurred on the client's behalf are not refundable unless the third-party provider refunds those amounts to Ciel Asylum.

Approved refunds are returned using a reasonable method determined by Ciel Asylum and the payment provider. Processing times can vary by payment method and financial institution.

Cancellation after the refund window or after refund eligibility has ended does not automatically cancel payment obligations for completed work, committed resources, third-party costs, or milestones already earned under the applicable project agreement.

6. Revisions, Scope Changes & Timing

Included revisions are defined by the applicable plan, proposal, or project agreement. A revision is generally a request to modify work already presented within the approved scope; it is not a new deliverable, new direction, added feature, or material expansion of the original scope.

If requested changes materially expand the agreed scope, Ciel Asylum may propose additional fees, revised milestones, or an updated schedule before proceeding with the additional work.

Project dates are estimates unless a written agreement expressly states otherwise. Timing can be affected by client response times, third-party services, approvals, technical dependencies, platform limitations, unforeseen conditions, and changes in scope.

7. Client Materials, Content & Instructions

The client retains ownership of materials the client owns and provides to Ciel Asylum. The client grants Ciel Asylum a limited license to use, reproduce, modify, transmit, or process those materials as reasonably necessary to perform the requested services.

The client represents that it has the rights, permissions, licenses, and authority needed for materials and instructions supplied to Ciel Asylum. Ciel Asylum may decline to use material that appears unlawful, infringing, deceptive, malicious, or otherwise inappropriate for the engagement.

8. Intellectual Property & Final Deliverables

Ciel Asylum retains ownership of its pre-existing intellectual property, reusable systems, methods, processes, know-how, templates, design systems, frameworks, code libraries, internal tools, concepts not selected for final delivery, and other materials developed independently of a specific client engagement.

Unless a project agreement states otherwise, upon full payment Ciel Asylum grants the client a perpetual, non-exclusive license to use the final custom deliverables created specifically for that client for the client's own business purposes, subject to any third-party licenses or restrictions incorporated into the deliverables.

If a project is intended to include an assignment of copyright or other exclusive ownership rights in specified final deliverables, that transfer must be stated in the applicable written project agreement or other written assignment. No transfer includes Ciel Asylum's pre-existing materials or third-party components unless expressly stated and legally transferable.

Ciel Asylum may display completed, publicly released work in its portfolio, case studies, credentials, awards submissions, social channels, or promotional materials unless the project agreement contains a confidentiality or portfolio restriction.

9. Third-Party Platforms, Software & Services

Projects may depend on WordPress, WooCommerce, hosting providers, domain registrars, payment processors, APIs, plugins, themes, fonts, stock media, analytics, cloud platforms, AI providers, or other third-party technologies.

Third-party products and services are governed by their own terms, licenses, availability, security, pricing, and technical limitations. Ciel Asylum does not control and cannot guarantee the continued availability, compatibility, pricing, performance, or policy of an independent third-party service.

If a third-party change materially affects a project, Ciel Asylum may recommend an alternative, workaround, migration, or additional scope.

10. AI-Assisted Work

Ciel Asylum may use artificial intelligence and automation tools to support design, copy, code, research, analysis, ideation, production, workflow automation, and related services when appropriate, requested, or useful to the engagement.

AI-assisted outputs can contain errors, omissions, unexpected similarities, technical defects, or other limitations and should not be treated as professional legal, medical, financial, regulatory, or other specialized advice unless separately provided by a qualified professional.

Ciel Asylum applies human review and professional judgment appropriate to the engagement, but clients remain responsible for reviewing and approving final business claims, factual statements, regulated content, and material decisions before publication or deployment.

Additional information about Ciel Asylum's use of AI is available in the AI Transparency statement and Privacy Policy.

11. Acceptable Website Use

You may not misuse the Ciel Asylum website, attempt unauthorized access, interfere with security or availability, submit malicious code, scrape or harvest information in a manner that violates applicable law or access restrictions, impersonate another person or entity, use forms for spam or abuse, or use the website to facilitate unlawful activity.

Ciel Asylum may restrict or block access when reasonably necessary to protect the website, services, users, clients, or infrastructure.

12. Service & Website Disclaimers

Ciel Asylum will perform professional services using reasonable care consistent with the agreed scope. Except for express commitments stated in a written project agreement or where applicable law requires otherwise, the website and services are provided without additional warranties, whether express or implied.

Ciel Asylum does not guarantee a particular search ranking, revenue level, conversion rate, sales result, audience size, AI outcome, uninterrupted third-party service, or other business result unless a specific written guarantee is expressly included in the applicable project agreement.

13. Limitation of Liability

To the maximum extent permitted by applicable law, Ciel Asylum will not be liable for indirect, incidental, special, exemplary, punitive, or consequential damages, or for loss of profits, revenue, goodwill, data, or business opportunity arising from or related to the website, services, third-party platforms, or an engagement.

To the maximum extent permitted by applicable law, Ciel Asylum's aggregate liability arising from a particular paid engagement will not exceed the amount actually paid to Ciel Asylum for the specific services giving rise to the claim during the twelve months preceding the event giving rise to the claim.

Nothing in these Terms excludes or limits liability that cannot lawfully be excluded or limited.

14. Suspension & Termination

Either party may end an engagement as permitted by the applicable project agreement. Ciel Asylum may suspend or terminate services for material nonpayment, abusive or unlawful conduct, security risk, persistent failure to provide required access or decisions, or material breach of the applicable agreement.

Termination does not erase obligations that accrued before termination. Provisions concerning payment, intellectual property, confidentiality, disclaimers, limitation of liability, dispute resolution, and other terms intended by their nature to survive will continue to apply.

15. Governing Law & Disputes

These Terms are governed by the laws of the State of New York, without regard to conflict-of-law principles, except where applicable law requires otherwise.

Before filing a formal claim, the parties are encouraged to make a good-faith effort to resolve the issue directly. Unless applicable law or a project-specific agreement requires another forum, disputes arising from these Terms or Ciel Asylum services may be brought in a court of competent jurisdiction serving New York City, New York.

These Terms do not require arbitration and do not waive rights that applicable law does not permit a party to waive.

16. Changes to These Terms

Ciel Asylum may update these Terms as services, pricing structures, technologies, providers, or legal requirements change. The effective date at the top of the page will be updated when a revised version is published.

Changes generally apply prospectively. A project-specific agreement already accepted by the parties remains governed by its own terms unless the parties agree to modify it.