Terms and Conditions

Last updated: 10 October 2026. This English version is provided for convenience. The German version is legally binding.

1. Scope

1.1 These General Terms and Conditions (Allgemeine Geschäftsbedingungen, AGB) apply to all contracts between Manuel Eigen, Waldemarstr. 81 10997 Berlin (hereinafter “Contractor”) and his clients (hereinafter “Client”) for services in the fields of design (branding, corporate design, editorial & print, UI/UX) and development (websites, web apps, online shops, themes, plugins) as well as consulting and ongoing support.

1.2 They apply only to entrepreneurs within the meaning of Section 14 of the German Civil Code (BGB), legal entities under public law and special funds under public law.

1.3 Deviating terms of the Client apply only if the Contractor expressly agrees to them in text form.

2. Offer and conclusion of contract

2.1 The Contractor’s offers are non-binding unless expressly designated as binding. Offers are valid for 30 days.

2.2 A contract is concluded when the Client accepts the offer in text form (e.g. by email) or the Contractor begins performance.

2.3 The scope of services is set out in the offer. Changes or additions after the conclusion of the contract (change requests) are quoted and remunerated separately.

3. Services

3.1 Design services comprise the conception, draft and elaboration of the work named in the offer, including the number of draft rounds and revision loops agreed there. Additional rounds are charged on a time-and-materials basis.

3.2 Development services comprise the implementation of the functions described in the offer on the basis of the technologies named there (e.g. Next.js, WordPress, Shopware, Shopify). The functional scope defined in the offer is decisive; functions not expressly named are not owed.

3.3 For online shops, the Contractor owes the technical implementation. The Client is responsible for the legal set-up of the shop (legal texts, price information, consumer rights, accessibility obligations, taxes); the Contractor does not provide legal advice in this respect.

3.4 Hosting, domains, licences for shop systems, plugins, fonts and stock material are not part of the service unless the offer states otherwise. The Client concludes these contracts himself; the Contractor assists with the set-up.

3.5 Deadlines are binding only if expressly designated as binding in the offer. They are postponed by a reasonable period if the Client fulfils his duties to cooperate late.

4. Client’s cooperation

4.1 The Client provides all content, data, access and approvals required for the service in good time and in a suitable form (e.g. texts, images, logos, access credentials for hosting and the shop system).

4.2 The Client warrants that he holds the necessary rights to the materials provided and indemnifies the Contractor against third-party claims arising from the use of these materials.

4.3 The Client names a contact person who is able to take decisions and grant approvals.

5. Acceptance

5.1 Upon completion, the Contractor hands over the service for acceptance (Abnahme) (for development: on a staging environment or the target system).

5.2 The Client inspects the service within 10 working days and reports defects in text form. If no material defects are reported within this period, the service is deemed accepted. The same applies if the Client puts the service into productive use (e.g. takes the website live).

5.3 Immaterial defects do not entitle the Client to refuse acceptance; they are remedied under the warranty.

5.4 For design services, the approval of a draft constitutes acceptance of that draft. Changes requested after approval are chargeable.

6. Remuneration and payment

6.1 The remuneration agreed in the offer applies – as a fixed price or on a time-and-materials basis at the agreed daily or hourly rate. All prices are net and exclusive of statutory value-added tax (Umsatzsteuer).

6.2 For projects from EUR 2,000 net, a down payment of 50 % is due upon placement of the order; for longer projects, the parties agree on partial payments by milestone. The remainder is due upon acceptance.

6.3 Invoices are payable within 14 days of receipt without deduction. In the event of default, the statutory default interest applies (Section 288(2) BGB).

6.4 Expenses (e.g. printing costs, stock material, licences, travel costs outside Berlin) are charged separately after prior agreement.

6.5 The Client may only set off claims that are undisputed or have been established by a final court judgment.

7. Rights of use

7.1 All work results are protected by copyright. The Client receives the rights of use (Nutzungsrechte) designated in the offer; their scope (non-exclusive or exclusive, territorial, temporal, substantive) is defined there. In the absence of such a provision, the following applies:

• a) For logos, trademarks and corporate design elements as well as software developed individually for the Client, the Client receives the exclusive right of use, unlimited in time and territory, for all types of use.
• b) For all other work (e.g. layouts, illustrations, websites based on existing systems), the Client receives the non-exclusive right of use, unlimited in time and territory, for the purpose provided for in the contract.

7.2 The rights pass to the Client only upon full payment of the remuneration. Until then, use is permitted on a revocable basis.

7.3 Drafts, alternatives and preliminary stages that have not been approved remain with the Contractor and may not be used by the Client.

7.4 The Client or third parties may edit or further develop the work results unless the offer provides otherwise. Transferring the rights of use to third parties – other than affiliated companies and service providers of the Client – requires the Contractor’s consent.

7.5 After publication, the Contractor may name the project as a reference and show it in his portfolio, on his website and on social media unless the Client objects in text form.

8. Source code, working files and third-party licences

8.1 For development services, the Client receives, upon full payment, the source code of the individually created components (e.g. theme, plugin, application) as well as the access credentials for the CMS, shop system and repository, insofar as these were managed by the Contractor.

8.2 Open working files (e.g. InDesign, Illustrator or Figma files) are not part of the contract unless agreed. Reproduction-ready final files (e.g. PDF, SVG, PNG, print data) are always part of the service.

8.3 Work results may contain open-source software (e.g. under MIT, Apache or GPL licences) and third-party components (e.g. Shopware, WordPress, Shopify themes, plugins, fonts, stock material). The respective licence terms apply to these; the Contractor grants no further rights to them. The Client acquires paid licences in his own name.

8.4 General tools, libraries, code modules and know-how that the Contractor uses across projects remain his property; the Client receives a non-exclusive right of use to them within the scope of the project.

9. Warranty and liability

9.1 For development services, the warranty period is 12 months from acceptance. Defects are first remedied by subsequent improvement. Deviations resulting from changes made by the Client or third parties, from updates of third-party systems (browsers, shop systems, plugins) or from faulty content supplied by the Client do not constitute defects.

9.2 The Contractor is liable without limitation for intent and gross negligence and for damage resulting from injury to life, body or health.

9.3 In the event of slight negligence, the Contractor is liable only for the breach of material contractual obligations (obligations whose fulfilment is essential for the proper performance of the contract and on whose observance the Client may regularly rely), limited to the foreseeable damage typical for the contract – and at most to the amount of the remuneration for the affected order.

9.4 The Contractor is not liable for data loss where the Client has not made adequate backups, nor for outages of hosting, third-party services or shop systems that he does not operate.

9.5 The Contractor does not check work results for infringements of trademark, competition or other intellectual property rights; any search (e.g. a trademark search before using a logo) is the Client’s responsibility unless expressly commissioned.

10. Term and termination

10.1 Project contracts end with acceptance and payment. The Client may terminate the contract at any time (Section 648 BGB); in this case, the services rendered up to that point and the costs incurred up to termination are to be remunerated – for fixed prices, at least the share corresponding to the project progress.

10.2 Support and maintenance contracts run for an indefinite period and may be terminated by either party with one month’s notice to the end of a month. Unused hour quotas expire at the end of the billing period unless otherwise agreed.

10.3 The right to extraordinary termination remains unaffected.

11. Confidentiality

Both parties treat information that becomes known to them as confidential in the course of the collaboration (in particular business figures, access credentials, unreleased products) as confidential – also after the end of the contract.

12. Final provisions

12.1 German law applies, excluding the UN Convention on Contracts for the International Sale of Goods (CISG).

12.2 The place of jurisdiction for all disputes arising from the contractual relationship is Berlin, provided the Client is a merchant (Kaufmann), a legal entity under public law or a special fund under public law, or has no general place of jurisdiction in Germany.

12.3 Amendments and additions to the contract must be made in text form (email suffices).

12.4 Should individual provisions be invalid, the remainder of the contract remains valid. The invalid provision is replaced by the statutory provision.