A plain-English services agreement for consultants, agencies and freelancers. Covers scope and variations, fees and payment terms, client responsibilities, IP transfer on payment, confidentiality, and a capped liability clause — written to be readable by a client rather than only by a lawyer.
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This template covers the clauses a Professional Services contract needs — written in plain language your client can actually read.
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Download it as PDF or Word and fill in the bracketed placeholders: your company, your client, the dates, the value and the notice period.
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Add signature fields, send it to your client, and let DraftYourBid chase it. You get the signed copy back with a certificate of completion and a full audit trail.
Attach the scope of work rather than describing it in the agreement itself. The scope changes far more often than the legal terms do, and keeping them in separate documents means you can revise one without reopening the other.
Say explicitly that anything outside the attached scope is a variation agreed in writing before it starts. Without that sentence, every "quick extra" becomes an argument about whether it was included.
Tie intellectual property transfer to payment in full. Handing over ownership on delivery instead of on payment removes most of your leverage if an invoice goes unpaid.
Cap your liability at the fees paid in the preceding twelve months. Uncapped liability on a small engagement is a risk out of all proportion to the fee, and most clients accept a cap without argument.
Name the governing law and the courts. A cross-border services agreement with no jurisdiction clause is expensive to argue about precisely when you can least afford it.
Is a services agreement the same as a contract?
A services agreement is a type of contract: the one used when a supplier provides work rather than goods. The term is used interchangeably with "consultancy agreement" and "professional services agreement".
Do I need a signed services agreement for small jobs?
A signed agreement matters most on the jobs where something goes wrong, and you cannot tell in advance which those will be. For small work, keep the same agreement and shorten the attached scope rather than skipping the contract.
What payment terms should a services agreement have?
Net 30 from the invoice date is the common default for business clients. State the interest rate on overdue amounts explicitly. In many jurisdictions a statutory rate applies by default, but naming it makes the consequence visible to the client.
Can I send this agreement for electronic signature?
Yes. Electronic signatures are legally recognised for commercial services agreements across the EU, the UK and the US. Sending it for e-signature also gives you a timestamped audit trail, which is stronger evidence than a scanned wet signature.
This template is a starting point, not legal advice. Contract law differs by country and by sector — have a lawyer review it before you rely on it for anything significant.
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