Stargate Creative Services

Stargate Connections' creative services are reserved exclusively for customers who have, or sign up for, other Stargate internet services, such as hosting, connectivity or networking.

All creative work is considered billable at our standard hourly rate, invoiced at a minimum of 1/2 hour and 1/4 hour increments thereafter per request or defined project.

Estimates may be given upon request for larger projects (see note), but remain estimates only, not fixed quotes. If customers have budgetary limits, it is advised to notify us in advance so we can ensure creative work does not exceed these limits. (We feel very strongly about trust, and never charge more than is actually needed beyond our minimum charges.)

All requests for creative work should be sent by email to webupdates@stargate.ca. Sending creative service requests to other departments may slow response time. Phone calls should also be accompanied by an email to ensure the request details are accurately documented in our ticketing system.

The normal work days for this department are Monday to Friday with staff working flexible hours ranging from 8:00am to 5:30pm. Off-hours work is available, but all time-sensitive requests should be made with at least 24 hours advance notice.

Billable Services

  • HTML and CSS markup
  • copy writing and text editing, including corrections to customer-supplied content
  • image creation and manipulation
  • posting content to customer websites
  • programming (ColdFusion, PHP, JavaScript, etc.)
  • audio/video production, media conversion and animation
  • training on industry-standard topics (e.g. HTML techniques)
  • meetings and discussions of established projects
  • learning or reverse-engineering third-party* created code, products or websites
  • migrating website content from/to third-party* web servers
  • WordPress* installation, maintenance and updates
  • restoring website content from backup archives
  • converting PowerSite content to static HTML
  • hacked website forensics (beyond one hour)

Gratis Services

(included as part of other fees, such as hosting)

  • PowerSite training (and other proprietary Stargate services)
  • PowerSite security and performance maintenance
  • PowerSite version upgrades
  • discussion of new project proposals (prior to commitment)
  • correcting or investigating errors caused by Stargate
  • hacked website forensics (first hour only)

Recommendations

Many common website updates can be made within our 1/2 hour minimum charge. Customers are advised to send as many updates as possible in a single request to avoid excessive invoicing for small, individual requests.

Please avoid asking for estimates for simple requests. We can advise you if we believe a request will exceed a certain expectation. By default, allow for at least 3/4 hour at our current rate, which covers most basic content updates plus any potential changes upon review.

For larger projects, our estimates can only be prepared based on the details you provide us in advance of those estimates. Please be as detailed as possible up front. Any additional information, materials or requests sent after an estimate is provided will likely make that estimate unreliable.

* Note: We can rarely provide estimates for work involving third-party programming or hosting services due to the potential for many unknowns. (We won't know how much work will be involved until we actually do it.)

Policy on WordPress Themes and Plugins

For customers who use Stargate for their WordPress maintenance, Stargate Connections does not handle payment or account management of WordPress themes or plugins. Customers with themes and/or plugins that require payment must manage those accounts themselves and provide the necessary information (such as API license keys) to Stargate as necessary. We will provide as much guidance as possible.

Website Migration

Stargate considers website migration — transferring the content from another hosting provider to Stargate's web hosting environment — a creative service for which the same policies above apply.

Ideally, we prefer that the original developer performs the actual migration of content and/or databases since they will be more familiar with your website, but we can make a best-effort to perform your website migration if requested. To do so, we will need full access to your previous hosting environment, OR, a complete copy of all required files and/or databases ready to be uploaded. (We cannot perform migrations managed through WordPress migration plugins or processes; we only work directly with the website files and database scripts.)