Website Care Plan & Maintenance Terms

These Website Care Plan & Maintenance Terms ("Care Terms") constitute an ongoing recurring Statement of Work (SOW) schedule entered into between Sheernox Technology Group ("Sheernox", "we", "us", or "our"), a sole proprietorship registered in the Province of British Columbia, Canada (Business Number: 732754924), with its registered business address at 1-1885 Grasslands Blvd, Kamloops, BC, V2B 0B8, Canada, and the client identified in the applicable service order ("Client").

These Care Terms are incorporated by reference into, and governed by, the Sheernox Web Design & Development Terms and Conditions and the Terms and Conditions of Service. In the event of an express conflict regarding ongoing maintenance and support retainers, these Care Terms take precedence.

Sheernox provides three standardized tiers of website care retainers. The specific deliverables, monitoring cadences, and developer allocations applicable to each plan are set forth below:

The reply times in clause 1.5 and the turnaround in clause 3.3 are targets that Sheernox works to meet; they are not guarantees and do not carry service credits. The selected tier and its recurring monthly fee are confirmed upon checkout within the Sheernox Client Portal.

The scope of ongoing website maintenance under this SOW is designed to preserve the operational health, security, and integrity of existing web properties. Specifically included within routine maintenance:

• 2.1 Content Management System (CMS) Updates: Application of minor and major core security releases for supported platforms (WordPress, WooCommerce, static sites, and plain HTML sites; custom PHP applications once Sheernox has reviewed and accepted them).
• 2.2 Third-Party Plugin & Extension Patching: Routine updating of verified plugins, extensions, and themes to mitigate known Common Vulnerabilities and Exposures (CVEs).
• 2.3 Database Hygiene & Maintenance: Periodic pruning of post revisions, transient data, spam comment queues, and overhead tables to maintain database responsiveness.
• 2.4 Security Scanning: On Professional and Enterprise Care, remote security integrity scans on request, to detect file alterations, injected scripts, phishing kits, and blocklisting by search engines. Essential Care does not include security scanning.

Every Care Plan includes monthly support hours (clause 1.4), which may be used for minor content updates and standard technical adjustments:

• 3.1 Eligible Tasks: Text copy additions and revisions, replacing existing imagery, publishing customer-provided blog posts, updating contact information, modifying navigation menu links, updating existing web form fields, and minor CSS aesthetic adjustments.
• 3.2 Task Submission: Support requests must be submitted through our verified client ticketing portal at https://my.sheernox.com or via email to support@sheernox.com from an authorized contact email.
• 3.3 Turnaround Target: Sheernox aims to complete content update requests under 1 hour in scope within a few business days (Monday through Friday, 08:00 to 17:00 Pacific Time).
• 3.4 Use-It-or-Lose-It (Non-Rollover Policy): Monthly content hours are allocated on a strict monthly retainer basis to reserve dedicated engineering capacity. Unused hours do not accumulate, transfer, or roll over into subsequent billing cycles and cannot be redeemed for cash or credit.

To reduce the risk of updates breaking a live website, Sheernox tests updates on a staging copy for Enterprise Care, and offers a free rollback on every plan:

• 4.1 Staging Copy (Enterprise Care): Before updates are applied to the live website, they are applied to a copy of the website in a separate staging environment.
• 4.2 Testing (Enterprise Care): Core, plugin, and theme updates are tested on the staging copy before they go live.
• 4.3 Deployment (Enterprise Care): Tested updates are applied to the live website during a low-traffic window, after a backup is taken. Urgent security patches may be applied sooner.
• 4.4 Rollback (All Plans): If an update applied by Sheernox causes a problem on the live website, Sheernox restores the website from the most recent backup at no extra charge (on Enterprise Care, the backup taken just before the update went live). Problems caused by changes made outside Sheernox's care are governed by Section 7.0.

Care Plans are strictly focused on operational maintenance, health, and minor content adjustments. Major design overhauls, software engineering, and architectural refactoring fall outside standard care scopes.

Clients with an active Care Plan benefit from discounted preferred engineering rates for any approved out-of-scope work:

All additional hourly fees are stated in Canadian Dollars (CAD), billed in the account's billing currency under Section 9.8 of the Master Terms, and subject to applicable GST (5%) and BC PST (7%).

While Sheernox employs industry-leading security practices, no web application connected to the internet can be guaranteed 100% immune from novel zero-day exploits or credential compromise.

In the event of a confirmed security incident or malware infection on an enrolled website:

• 6.1 Isolation: Sheernox may place the affected website in maintenance mode while it is cleaned, to prevent malware spreading and to protect website visitors.
• 6.2 Remediation Protocol: Our security engineers clean infected core and plugin directories, restore known clean state files from verified offsite backups, audit database tables for injected payloads, and update all administrative credentials and API keys.
• 6.3 Coverage Limitation: Malware cleanup and hack recovery are included at no additional charge for Professional and Enterprise Care Plan subscribers, and Enterprise Care incidents are handled first. This does not cover compromises caused by changes made outside Sheernox's care as described in Section 7.0, which are billed at our preferred hourly rate. For Essential Care subscribers, Sheernox will restore the most recent uninfected backup snapshot free of charge; in-depth forensic code scrubbing is billed at our preferred hourly rate.

To maintain stability, the client agrees to the following operational boundaries:

• Access Credentials: The client must provide Sheernox with full administrative CMS credentials, hosting control panel access, and DNS access necessary to perform maintenance.
• Client & Third-Party Modifications: If the client, client employees, or external third-party agencies access the website backend and install unvetted plugins, edit core system files, or alter database schemas without prior consultation with Sheernox, any subsequent downtime, broken features, or security breaches are excluded from maintenance coverage. Remediation of such conflicts will be billed at our preferred out-of-scope hourly rate.
• Third-Party Software Disclaimers: Sheernox does not author third-party themes, CMS platforms, or commercial plugins. We are not liable for software bugs, deprecation, or licensing costs imposed by independent third-party vendors.

Website Care Plans operate as recurring monthly subscriptions subject to the following commercial conditions:

1. Automatic Recurring Billing: Monthly subscription fees are billed in advance on a recurring monthly billing cycle to the credit card on file via Stripe.
2. Late Payment & Grace Period: If automatic payment fails, maintenance services and automated backup synchronizations are subject to automated suspension immediately upon the due date until the account balance is cleared. Sheernox may, at its sole discretion, extend a grace period of up to seven (7) days to a client who contacts support; absent payment or contact, automated suspension applies. Accounts remaining delinquent past thirty (30) days are treated as abandoned under Section 9.4 of the Master Terms and Conditions.
3. Cancellation Policy: Either party may cancel a Care Plan at any time by providing fourteen (14) days' advance written notice via our client support ticket system at https://my.sheernox.com or by emailing support@sheernox.com.
4. No Mid-Cycle Refunds: Care Plan fees are non-refundable for partial months. Service continues through the conclusion of the paid monthly billing cycle.
5. Offboarding Site Snapshot: At the end of the 14-day notice period, Sheernox generates and delivers a final, complete offsite backup archive (database SQL dump and compressed media directory) to the client at no extra charge.