My friend wants a website. How do we keep the project from ruining our friendship?

Your friend says, “Could you make me a simple website?” You say yes over dinner. Three weeks later, “simple” includes bookings, a shop, a logo and unlimited WhatsApp changes.

The problem is not that you failed to use intimidating legal language. You never made the invisible assumptions visible. Write a short project page that sounds like the two of you and answers the decisions most likely to become personal.

Name the favour honestly

Is this a gift, a discounted professional project, a swap or a normal paid job? Say which one.

“My usual fee would be $2,000; the friend price is $900” is clearer than “we’ll sort it out.” If part is a gift, state what is gifted and what costs money. Identify third-party expenses such as hosting, domain registration, fonts, stock media and plugins.

Do not call a vague future favour payment. If the deal is a service exchange, define both services, dates and what happens if one side cannot deliver.

Use a one-page friendship-saving brief

Copy and adapt this structure:

Project: Five-page brochure website: Home, About, Services, FAQ and Contact. No shop, member login or booking system.

What you provide: Final text, logo, photographs and one person’s consolidated feedback by 10 October.

What I provide: Responsive page build, contact form, basic handover and two revision rounds against the agreed design.

Price: $900 friend price. $300 before starting, $300 after design approval, $300 before launch. Hosting, domain and paid licences are separate and bought in your name.

Timing: Target launch 31 October if materials and feedback arrive on time. Delays move the schedule rather than creating emergency evenings.

Changes: Corrections to my mistakes are included. A new page, feature or direction gets a price and timeline before I start it.

Ownership and access: Final custom work transfers or is licensed as stated after payment. Existing tools, templates and third-party assets keep their own ownership and licence terms. Domain and hosting accounts belong to you.

Stopping: Either of us can stop in writing. You pay for completed milestones and approved expenses; I provide the agreed paid-for handover and remove my access.

This is a fictional starting point, not universal legal drafting. Adjust it to the actual project and applicable law.

Agree how feedback works

Friend projects often fail through message sprawl. Choose one channel, one decision-maker and a response window. Distinguish:

• a correction because the build misses the agreed brief;
• an included revision within the original direction;
• a new deliverable or changed direction.

Use the extra-work guide when the “tiny” request changes the scope. The language can stay warm: “Happy to add that. It is outside our five-page plan, so I’ll send the cost and revised launch date first.”

Put accounts in the right person’s name

Your friend should control the domain, hosting, analytics, email and paid service accounts where practical. Use delegated access instead of owning their business infrastructure forever. At handover, list the accounts, owners, billing contacts, recovery methods and access you will remove.

The website handover checklist covers files, licences, backups and operational knowledge. Doing a favour does not make account recovery less important.

Create a graceful exit before anyone needs it

Agree how to pause if materials do not arrive, how long you hold a place in your schedule, and what is delivered if either person stops. Do not make the friendship itself the enforcement mechanism.

A useful check-in might say:

I care more about the friendship than pretending the project is still clear. Our agreed site was five pages, and the booking system is a new feature. We can launch the original site first, add booking for [price and date], or stop after the completed design milestone. Which option works best for you?

Written clarity does not make the relationship cold. It gives both people a way to solve a project disagreement without turning it into a judgment about the friendship.