client agreement

Operator: SKILLS AND BIDS, INC.
Registered address: 2401 NW 19 Street, Fort Lauderdale, FL 33311, USA
Legal contact: legal@skillsandbids.com
Effective date: October 18, 2026
Last updated: October 18, 2026

This Client Agreement (“Client Agreement”) supplements the Skills & Bids Terms of Service and applies when you use Skills & Bids as a client, purchaser, hiring party, booking customer, or business requesting work.

If there is a conflict, the accepted project contract or service booking controls the commercial details of that transaction, this Client Agreement controls client-specific responsibilities, and the Terms of Service control general Platform use unless the relevant document expressly states otherwise.

1. Client status and authority

You represent that:

• you are legally capable of entering the engagement;
• information you provide is accurate;
• if you act for a business, you have authority to bind it; and
• the requested work and payment are lawful.

You are not an employee, partner, or agent of Skills & Bids.

2. Your relationship with freelancers

Except where Skills & Bids expressly states otherwise, the freelancer is an independent provider contracting directly with you.

Skills & Bids is not the freelancer’s employer and does not supervise day-to-day performance merely by providing marketplace tools.

You are responsible for evaluating whether the legal relationship you create with a freelancer is properly classified under applicable employment, labor, tax, licensing, and worker-protection laws.

A label in the Platform does not override applicable law.

3. Job posts and requests

You must describe requested work accurately enough for a reasonable freelancer to understand the material requirements.

A job post, invitation, booking request, or custom quote request must not:

• be deceptive;
• require illegal or prohibited work;
• contain unlawfully discriminatory requirements;
• misrepresent budget, location, schedule, scope, or decision authority;
• request unauthorized access to systems or data; or
• require a freelancer to violate another person’s rights.

4. Selecting a freelancer

You are responsible for deciding whether a freelancer is suitable.

Platform verification, ratings, ranking, recommendations, reviews, experience, profile completeness, or badges are decision-support signals and not guarantees.

For regulated or on-site work, you should independently confirm licenses, insurance, permits, or qualifications that matter to the engagement.

5. Contract formation

A binding engagement is created when the Platform indicates that an offer, proposal, booking, custom quote, milestone, or contract has been accepted.

The accepted transaction terms may include:

• scope;
• deliverables;
• rate or total price;
• milestones;
• approved expenses or add-ons;
• remote, on-site, or hybrid delivery;
• service location;
• timing and availability;
• cancellation terms;
• intellectual-property terms; and
• any other Platform-supported terms accepted by both parties.

Do not rely on a material side agreement that conflicts with the accepted Platform contract without documenting the change through an available contract-change mechanism or a clear written agreement with the freelancer.

6. Payment authorization

You authorize Skills & Bids and its payment providers to charge the payment method you select for:

• accepted fixed-price or milestone amounts;
• approved hourly amounts;
• service bookings;
• approved add-ons or adjustments;
• subscription charges;
• disclosed fees and taxes; and
• other amounts you expressly authorize or validly owe under an accepted transaction.

You must maintain a valid payment method when a contract or booking requires one.

An authorization, capture, transfer, or payout may occur at different times depending on the transaction flow.

7. No escrow representation

Unless expressly stated otherwise by a separately regulated offering, Skills & Bids payment processing is not legal escrow.

Do not represent to a freelancer or third party that funds are held in regulated escrow merely because the Platform shows a funded, authorized, pending, held, or similar payment state.

8. Fixed-price and milestone engagements

For fixed-price work:

• define the scope and acceptance criteria with reasonable clarity;
• review submitted work in good faith;
• approve conforming work within the Platform’s displayed review period;
• identify specific deficiencies when rejecting or disputing work; and
• do not demand material additional work without agreeing an appropriate scope or price adjustment.

A preference change is not necessarily a defect in delivered work.

9. Hourly engagements

For hourly work:

• communicate the work authorized for the billing period;
• review submitted time within the displayed review window;
• raise specific objections promptly;
• do not knowingly approve inaccurate time;
• do not ask the freelancer to misclassify hours, fabricate entries, or bypass time controls; and
• pay for authorized time in accordance with the accepted contract.

If the Platform permits overtime or weekly limits, the accepted contract and displayed controls determine how they apply.

10. Service bookings

For a service booking, you must provide:

• accurate service selection;
• correct delivery method;
• an accessible and lawful service location when on-site;
• relevant access instructions;
• information about material safety conditions; and
• reasonable cooperation needed to perform the service.

If you are not entitled to authorize work at the service location, do not book it.

Cancellation and rescheduling are subject to the booking terms and applicable law.

11. Safety for on-site services

You must provide a reasonably safe environment for on-site work.

You must not:

• conceal a known dangerous condition relevant to the service;
• harass or threaten a freelancer;
• misuse the freelancer’s personal information;
• pressure the freelancer to perform unlawful or materially different work; or
• retain a freelancer at a location against their will.

If the agreed service requires access to a home, office, vehicle, equipment, or restricted area, you are responsible for having lawful authority to grant that access.

12. Expenses, materials, and add-ons

A freelancer is not required to incur an expense or provide a paid add-on unless it is part of the accepted contract or separately approved.

Where a Platform feature supports add-ons or reimbursable expenses, use that feature when reasonably available so the commercial record is clear.

13. Deliverables and intellectual property

Unless the accepted contract states a different rule:

13.1 Client-specific deliverables

Upon the freelancer’s receipt of full payment for the applicable deliverable, the freelancer assigns to you the intellectual-property rights the freelancer owns in the final deliverable created specifically for you under that contract, excluding Freelancer Background Materials.

13.2 Freelancer Background Materials

“Freelancer Background Materials” means tools, code, templates, methods, know-how, libraries, designs, processes, inventions, content, or other materials that:

• existed before the engagement; or
• were developed independently of the engagement and are reasonably reusable.

The freelancer retains ownership of Freelancer Background Materials.

To the extent Freelancer Background Materials are embedded in a paid final deliverable, the freelancer grants you a perpetual, worldwide, non-exclusive, transferable with the deliverable, sublicensable, royalty-free license to use those materials as necessary to use, reproduce, modify, distribute, display, perform, maintain, and exploit the paid final deliverable.

13.3 Third-party materials

Third-party and open-source materials remain subject to their own licenses.

The freelancer must identify material license restrictions that would materially limit the agreed intended use when reasonably known.

13.4 Moral rights

To the extent permitted by law and necessary to give effect to the agreed rights, the freelancer waives or agrees not to assert moral rights in the paid client-specific deliverable.

13.5 No transfer before full payment

Unless the contract states otherwise, intellectual-property ownership does not transfer for unpaid or refunded work.

14. Confidential information

If you provide non-public information that is reasonably understood to be confidential, the freelancer must use it only for the engagement and protect it with reasonable care, subject to lawful disclosures and any more specific NDA between you.

You must likewise protect the freelancer’s confidential information.

You should not provide secrets, credentials, regulated data, or personal information beyond what is reasonably necessary.

15. Reviews

You may leave a truthful review based on the engagement.

Do not use reviews to:

• extort a refund or free work;
• punish a freelancer for asserting a legitimate legal or contractual right;
• reveal private information; or
• discriminate or harass.

16. Disputes

If you believe work, time, a booking, or a payment is incorrect:

1. identify the specific issue;
2. communicate in good faith with the freelancer where safe and appropriate;
3. use the Platform’s dispute process within the displayed deadline; and
4. provide relevant evidence.

Skills & Bids may facilitate or decide Platform remedies according to the applicable dispute rules, but this does not make Skills & Bids the provider of the underlying freelance service.

17. Refunds and chargebacks

A refund depends on the transaction state, accepted terms, Platform rules, payment-provider rules, and applicable law.

You should not use a payment-provider chargeback to obtain a duplicate recovery after a full Platform refund.

Nothing in this Agreement removes non-waivable cardholder or consumer rights.

Skills & Bids may restrict accounts that repeatedly or fraudulently abuse payment-dispute processes.

18. Worker classification, employment, and benefits

You are responsible for determining whether your arrangement creates employment, agency, worker, contractor, tax-withholding, benefits, workplace-safety, or other obligations under applicable law.

Skills & Bids does not guarantee that a person described on the Platform as a “freelancer” will legally qualify as an independent contractor in every jurisdiction or engagement.

If the relationship should legally be employment, you are responsible for using an appropriate lawful engagement structure outside any Platform flow that is not designed to serve as employer of record.

19. Taxes and records

You are responsible for:

• business and tax records applicable to your purchases;
• tax withholding or reporting obligations imposed on you;
• invoices or documentation required by your jurisdiction; and
• determining whether a payment is deductible or subject to sales, use, VAT, GST, withholding, or similar tax.

Skills & Bids or its providers may issue records or reports where legally required.

20. Account restrictions

Skills & Bids may limit client functionality for:

• unpaid balances;
• payment fraud or excessive risk;
• repeated sham jobs or abusive disputes;
• serious Community Standards violations;
• sanctions or legal issues; or
• safety concerns.

Existing payment and contract obligations survive an account restriction.

21. Incorporation of other terms

The following form part of this Client Agreement:

• Terms of Service;
• Privacy Policy;
• Cookie Policy;
• Community Standards;
• Marketplace Agreement;
• Refund Policy;
• Cancellation Policy; and
• the accepted contract, booking, or order-specific terms.

22. Contact

Client support: support@skillsandbids.com
Legal notices: legal@skillsandbids.com