Cost to get your TOS written?

I'm planning on making an ecommerce site where some percentages of final sale is taken out so I will be needing to get a TOS written.

How much are these on average? I know they are a pain in the butt to write up since you need a lot of requirements written so no one can sue you. They protect liability issues so I'm just curious on the average pricing of these so I know when I can request to get one of these written up!

Thank you!

 

how long is a piece of string? ring up a few solitors and get some quotes, most firms will have a free consultation to get some prices

 

Google "startup terms of service" and you might find some sample block fee prices. Make sure that whoever you use is reputable, though, and experienced in Terms of Service and Privacy Policies. Not every lawyer knows about DMCA protection, FTC disclosure, click-wrap requirements, etc.

 

currently trying to write some for my website and basically just read other similar sites and copied bits from all theirs!

 

It'll entirely depend on your local jurisdiction and the pricing for legal advice there.

You have two main options:
a) Find a local lawyer/solicitor/attorney. Expect to pay $xxx per hour, and it'll quickly mount up for a few hours work. The benefit of this is it could easily save you a fortune if you ever have to rely on your terms and conditions.

b) Use a legal template. Anything from $25-200 depending on the site/service you use. You might want to take a look at Rocket Lawyer (http://www.rocketlawyer.com/) and similar, depending on which country you are in and looking for. They have various document templates you can pick from, hopefully one is fairly close!

The third option, which many seem to go for, is finding a similar company operating in the same jurisdiction, and simply copy and paste. The risk is that they will notice and won't be happy, but at the other end of the scale, they might have done exactly the same and copied someone else - and so on - so you actually find out that it's not compatible with your local/state/federal laws and isn't enforceable against your customers.

My own opinion is it's worth spending a bit at the beginning to cover yourself, it'll potentially save you a fortune should you need to rely on it later in court or other proceedings.

 

A decent lawyer will likely charge $100+/hour - noting that you'll likely have to pay for the meeting / consultation to discuss with them about what the logistics are around your site/ecommerce transactions.