Obligation-free consult
We won't bill you for a first conversation. Tell us what you're working on and we'll come back with a direction; no expectation attached.
MSAs built for the
technology industry.
Drafting, negotiation and deal-closing support for Master Services Agreements and Statements of Work; for software developers, SaaS providers, managed service providers and the businesses that buy from them. Obligation-free consultation, fast pricing, and a track record of client satisfaction.
One master agreement,
thousands in services revenue.
An MSA is the durable legal backbone of an ongoing technology relationship. Establish the framework once and run every project, sprint or service period under consistent terms; deals close faster because the only thing left to negotiate is the work itself.
Built for technology delivery
Software development, SaaS subscriptions, managed services and systems integration each push on different clauses. We draft MSAs around how technology work is actually delivered and paid for, not around a generic services template.
Both sides of the table
We prepare the master terms you sell on, and we review and negotiate the enterprise paper your customers ask you to sign; the redlines, security annexures and data processing terms that arrive with every large deal.
01/03
MSA core
IP ownership, liability caps, service levels and data terms, drafted once to carry every engagement that follows.
02/03
Statements of Work
Fixed-scope and agile SOW templates legally linked to the master terms, so a project lead can open a new engagement in minutes.
03/03
Operationalise
E-signature flows, centralised storage and obligation tracking; the operational layer that keeps an MSA from gathering dust on a shared drive.
From master terms to operational paper.
A working MSA is shaped to the technology relationship it governs. The phases below cover the drafting questions that decide whether the document scales, and the integration work that decides whether anyone actually uses it.
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Shape the framework to the way the work is delivered.
A managed service with monthly service periods, an agile development relationship and a chain of fixed-scope builds each need different master terms. We map how engagements fire, who signs on each side, and what changes between projects; the framework follows that pattern, so neither side reopens the master terms for every SOW.
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Settle the terms that decide the long-tail risk.
Intellectual property is the headline question in technology MSAs. Bespoke development clients usually expect to own what they pay for; SaaS and productised providers need to retain ownership and licence it instead, with background IP and reusable components carved out either way. Around it sit liability caps calibrated to deal size and insurance, indemnities for IP infringement and data incidents, service levels with credits that can actually be measured, and the consumer guarantees under the Australian Consumer Law that drafting cannot simply exclude.
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Treat data and security as first-class contract terms.
If you host, process or access customer data, the MSA needs to say who owns it, what happens to it on exit, and what security standard applies in between. Enterprise customers increasingly arrive with data processing schedules and security annexures of their own; offshore subcontractors and cloud regions bring the overseas disclosure rules under the Privacy Act 1988 (Cth) into play; and both sides now want clarity on whether AI tools are used in delivery and who owns the outputs. We draft these terms to reflect what your stack actually does.
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Build the SOW template suite so deals close fast.
Most of the friction in technology contracting lives at the SOW layer, not the MSA layer. We provide a re-usable template suite; a short fixed-scope SOW, a longer agile SOW, and the clause variants that pre-resolve the conversations sales and procurement always have around acceptance, IP carve-outs, third-party software and change requests. Once the suite is in place, a project lead can spin up a new SOW in minutes rather than days.
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Land the agreement inside the systems you already run.
A staged escalation pathway catches the missed deliverable or scope disagreement before it becomes a dispute, and the operational layer keeps the rest honest: the right contract version in front of the right person, obligations surfacing when they are due, and finance, delivery and legal sharing a single view of what each engagement commits to. Some clients are best served by a CMS-plus-DocuSign deployment, others by a full contract-lifecycle-management platform; the architecture follows the business.
What's in scope for a
typical MSA engagement.
The core engagement covers drafting, negotiation and the operating playbook. Heavier platform work and specialist matters attach as add-ons or are referred out.
Included — standard
- In MSA core drafting & negotiation. A bespoke Master Services Agreement calibrated to your delivery model, whether that is software development, SaaS subscription, managed services or systems integration.
- In SOW template suite. Matched Statement of Work templates for fixed-scope and agile engagements, sitting under the MSA so each project lands without re-papering the relationship.
- In IP, liability & indemnity calibration. Assignment or licence model, background IP carve-outs, and caps and indemnities set against your insurance, margin and counterparty profile.
- In Data, security & privacy terms. Data ownership and exit, security schedules, AI-use provisions and data processing terms aligned with your obligations under the Privacy Act 1988 (Cth).
- In Customer-paper review & negotiation. Redlines on the enterprise MSA a large customer asks you to sign, with fallback positions your deal team can reuse on the next one.
- In Escalation & dispute pathway. A staged escalation and dispute-resolution framework that keeps commercial relationships intact before anyone reaches for litigation.
Add-ons & referred
- Add E-signature & document storage. E-signature workflow and a single source of truth for executed contracts, for teams still chasing PDFs around inboxes.
- Add Contract-lifecycle management. CLM tooling selection and implementation when contract volume justifies it; playbooks, clause libraries and approval routing wired to your sales motion.
- Add Operations & sales playbook training. Working sessions with the deal team so the MSA is used the way it was drafted; fallback positions, approval thresholds and escalation triggers covered.
- Add Ongoing counsel via Artificer OnDemand. Subscription access to the same lawyers for SOW reviews, redlines, renewals and day-to-day commercial questions.
- Out Tax & accounting advice. Tax treatment and accounting positions sit with your accountants and tax advisers; we draft commercially around what they confirm.
- Out Specialist referrals. Patent prosecution, personal legal matters and sector-specific regulatory work are referred to lawyers who run those areas day-to-day.
Questions most frequently asked.
Plain answers to the questions that come up most often when a technology business is standing up (or fixing) its master agreement.
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We already have an MSA template. Do we need a new one, or can you fix the one we have?
Usually the latter. Most working teams already have something on the shelf; the question is whether it matches the way the work is actually delivered and paid for. We start by reading what you have and what you are signing into, then propose the smallest set of changes that closes the gaps. A clean revision of a familiar template is normally faster to operationalise than a new one.
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How do MSAs and Statements of Work actually fit together?
The MSA carries the terms that should not change from project to project: liability, IP, data and security, indemnities, change control, dispute resolution. Each SOW carries the things that do change: scope, timeline, deliverables, acceptance criteria, fees. The SOW is legally attached to the MSA so a project lead can spin up a new engagement without re-opening the master terms.
Most of the friction in technology contracting lives at the SOW layer. A re-usable suite of SOW templates (typically a short fixed-scope SOW and a longer agile SOW) is where the deal-velocity gain actually comes from.
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Should our customers own the IP in what we build, or should we licence it to them?
It depends on what you sell. Clients commissioning bespoke development usually expect to own the deliverables once they have paid for them; SaaS and productised providers need the opposite, retaining ownership and granting a licence, because assigning IP away undermines every future customer of the same product. Either way, your background IP and the reusable components you bring to every project should be carved out and licensed, never assigned. Getting this model wrong is the most expensive mistake we see in technology MSAs.
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A large customer wants us to sign their MSA. What should we look at first?
The order of priority is usually: the liability position (caps, carve-outs and indemnities, particularly for data incidents and IP infringement), the IP clause (watch for assignment language that captures your pre-existing tools), the data and security schedules (which can impose standards your stack does not currently meet), and payment terms. Enterprise paper is written for the buyer; the aim of the review is a short list of redlines that protects the genuinely dangerous positions without slowing down the deal.
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Do you also help us operationalise the MSA once it is signed?
Yes; that is usually where the value compounds. We help land the agreement inside the workflows the business already runs: e-signature flows, centralised document storage, obligation tracking, and the operating playbook for sales and delivery. Our approach is technology-agnostic; the architecture follows the business, not the other way around.
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How is this priced?
Fixed-fee where we can scope it cleanly, which is most of the time. The first consultation is obligation-free and is not billed; after that we issue an online Statement of Work with a fixed estimate before any work starts. Ongoing operational counsel (the kind that picks up the next SOW dispute or customer redline) is usually best handled via an Artificer OnDemand subscription rather than ad-hoc engagement.
Build scalable partnerships.
Tell us where the friction is in your contracting process; the enterprise MSA that's been stuck in redlines for six weeks, the SOW structure that's slowing down project kickoff, or the IP clause you've never had time to fix. We'll come back with our view of the fastest path forward.
Fast, fair pricing
Online Statement of Work with fixed estimates, delivered digitally at speed. Don't sign anything until you've seen ours.
Collaborate your way
Digital by default, or on-site if the project warrants it. We meet you on the tooling your team already uses; Slack, Teams, Matrix, your own conferencing.