Client Terms of Service

Last updated: 11 July 2026 · Version 2

These terms are a binding agreement between the provider identified in clause 1 ("we", "us", "the Provider") and the business that registers for or uses our AI assistant service ("you", "the Client"). By starting a trial, subscribing, or continuing to use the Service, you agree to these terms. In terms of the Electronic Communications and Transactions Act 25 of 2002 ("ECTA"), an agreement concluded electronically — including by clicking to subscribe — is valid and enforceable.

1. Provider information (ECTA section 43)

2. Definitions

"Service" — the hosted AI assistant we provide: customer webchat and WhatsApp conversations, appointment booking, reminders and review requests, marketing draft generation and publishing tools, and the administration dashboard, all running on the Instance. "Instance" — the isolated hosted environment (own database, own login) we operate for you. "Client Data" — all data in your Instance: conversations, bookings, contact details, uploaded images and configuration. "Customer" — a person who interacts with your assistant. "Personal Information" has the meaning in the Protection of Personal Information Act 4 of 2013 ("POPIA"). "CPA" — the Consumer Protection Act 68 of 2008. "Business Day" — any day other than a Saturday, Sunday or South African public holiday. "Fees" — the subscription and other charges quoted to you.

3. Acceptance and authority

The person accepting these terms warrants that they are duly authorised to bind the Client. You confirm the Service is acquired for business purposes. Where the CPA nonetheless applies to you (for example, if you are a juristic person below the asset/turnover threshold in section 5(2) of the CPA, or a natural person), nothing in these terms excludes or limits any right you have under the CPA that cannot lawfully be excluded or limited.

4. The Service

We will provide the Service with reasonable skill and care. The assistant answers enquiries using the business information you supply, offers and books appointments only from real availability, escalates to a human where configured, and generates marketing drafts that are never published without your approval. We may improve or modify features, provided we do not materially reduce the core Service you pay for without notice under clause 19.

5. Trials

Demo Instances are free for the stated trial period (normally 14 days). When the trial ends the Instance stops serving Customers. If you do not subscribe within 30 days after expiry, we may delete the Instance and its Client Data. We may withdraw or shorten a trial that is abused (including resale, automated traffic, or unlawful content).

6. Fees, billing and taxes

(a) Fees are billed monthly in advance, in South African rand, by card via PayFast or by EFT, at the price quoted to you. A once-off setup fee may apply.
(b) AI usage is not included: you either connect your own AI-provider account (you pay that provider directly) or we pass the metered usage cost through to you at the rate disclosed on your dashboard.
(c) Unless stated otherwise, quoted Fees include VAT if we are registered for VAT at the time, and we will issue compliant invoices where required by the Value-Added Tax Act 89 of 1991.
(d) If a payment fails or a subscription is cancelled with PayFast, the Service continues for a grace period of 7 days and is then suspended until payment resumes. Client Data is retained during suspension.
(e) We may change Fees on at least one calendar month's written notice; the change applies from your next billing cycle after the notice period. If you don't accept a Fee change you may cancel before it takes effect.
(f) The agreement runs month to month. You may cancel at any time, effective at the end of the paid period. There are no lock-ins and no cancellation penalties.

7. Cooling-off (ECTA section 44)

Where section 44 of ECTA applies to your subscription, you may cancel within 7 days after subscribing without reason or penalty and receive a refund of Fees paid, less the reasonable value of Service already consumed with your consent during that period. This right does not apply where an exception in section 42(2) of ECTA applies. Nothing in this clause limits any CPA cooling-off right (section 16) that applies where you subscribed as a result of direct marketing.

8. Your obligations and acceptable use

You are responsible for:
(a) the accuracy and lawfulness of the business information the assistant works from (prices, hours, services, claims);
(b) reviewing and approving every marketing draft before publication — your approval is your editorial decision, and published content is your content;
(c) ensuring every person on your mailing and broadcast lists has the consent (or existing-customer relationship) that section 69 of POPIA requires for electronic direct marketing, and not re-adding anyone who has unsubscribed;
(d) the third-party accounts you connect (WhatsApp/Meta, Google, LinkedIn, email) and your compliance with those platforms' terms;
(e) keeping your login credentials secure and telling us promptly of any suspected compromise;
(f) not using the Service for anything unlawful, deceptive, defamatory, or harmful, not attempting to breach or test its security without our written consent, and not reselling it without a written agreement with us;
(g) responding to escalations — the assistant hands difficult or sensitive matters to you, and what happens next is in your hands.

10. Intellectual property

(a) The Service, its software, and everything we built to provide it remain our (or our licensors') property. You get a non-exclusive, non-transferable right to use the Service while subscribed.
(b) Client Data is yours. You grant us a licence to host and process it solely to provide the Service.
(c) To the extent any rights subsist in AI-generated drafts, we assign our interest in drafts you approve and publish to you; you are responsible for what you publish (clause 8(b)).
(d) Feedback you give us about the Service may be used by us without restriction or payment.

11. Confidentiality

Each party will keep the other's non-public information confidential and use it only for purposes of this agreement, except where disclosure is required by law or the information is already public through no breach. This clause survives termination for 3 years.

12. Security

We implement and maintain the safeguards section 19 of POPIA requires, appropriate to the risk: each Client runs in an isolated Instance with its own database and credentials; per-tenant credential isolation so one client's compromise cannot expose another's provider keys; encrypted transport (HTTPS); access limited to what support and operations require; and nightly backups retained for 14 days. No system is perfectly secure, but we will always tell you the truth about incidents (clause 13(e)).

13. Personal Information and POPIA (data processing terms)

For Personal Information of your Customers, you are the responsible party and we are your operator as defined in POPIA. This clause is the written contract section 21 of POPIA requires. We will:
(a) process Customers' Personal Information only for providing the Service to you and on your lawful instructions, and for no other purpose;
(b) treat it as confidential (POPIA section 20) and ensure anyone we authorise to access it is bound by confidentiality;
(c) maintain the security measures in clause 12 (POPIA section 21(1));
(d) engage only the sub-operators reasonably necessary to run the Service, currently: the AI model provider you select or we supply (message content, to generate replies); Meta Platforms (WhatsApp Business Platform, if you connect WhatsApp); your calendar provider (booking details, if connected); our hosting provider (infrastructure). We remain responsible for our sub-operators' processing on our behalf;
(e) notify you without undue delay where we have reasonable grounds to believe your Customers' Personal Information has been accessed or acquired by an unauthorised person (POPIA section 22 rests on you as responsible party; we will give you the information you need to comply, and will cooperate with the Information Regulator);
(f) cross-border transfers (POPIA section 72): AI model providers process message content on servers that may be outside South Africa. By using the Service you instruct this transfer as necessary for the performance of the Service; your Instance's customer-facing privacy page discloses it, and you must not remove that disclosure from any privacy notice you publish yourself. All Client Data at rest is stored in Johannesburg, South Africa;
(g) never sell Client Data or use it to train AI models;
(h) on termination, delete the Instance and its Client Data within 30 days, except what we must keep for legal or bookkeeping purposes; before deletion you may request an export of your bookings, contacts and transcripts, which we will provide in a common machine-readable format;
(i) assist you, at reasonable cost, with data-subject requests (access, correction, deletion) relating to Client Data.
You warrant that you have a lawful basis for the Personal Information you put into the Service (including mailing lists) and that your instructions to us will not put us in breach of POPIA.

14. Our own processing

Your account information — contact details, payment records, support correspondence — is processed by us as responsible party, to manage the client relationship, bill you, and meet our legal obligations, and is retained for as long as you are a client plus the period bookkeeping and tax law requires (generally 5 years). PayFast processes card payments; we never see or store full card numbers.

15. Service levels and support

We aim for the Service to be available continuously and run it with reasonable skill and care, but we do not warrant uninterrupted or error-free operation. Planned maintenance will be brief and scheduled sensibly. Support is provided by WhatsApp (+27 76 786 4417) and email (angus@inhouseit.durban) on Business Days during reasonable business hours.

17. Indemnity

You indemnify us against third-party claims, fines and reasonable costs arising from: content you approved for publication; marketing sent to persons without the consent POPIA requires (where the list was yours); your breach of a connected platform's terms; or Client Data you had no lawful basis to process — except to the extent the claim was caused by our breach of this agreement.

18. Suspension, termination and force majeure

(a) We may suspend the Service for non-payment (after the clause 6(d) grace period) or for a serious or persistent breach of clause 8, giving you notice and — where the breach is remediable — 7 days to fix it before termination.
(b) You may cancel at any time under clause 6(f). We may terminate for convenience on one calendar month's notice, refunding any Fees paid for the period after termination.
(c) Neither party is liable for failure caused by events beyond its reasonable control, including electricity supply interruptions (load-shedding), network or hosting-provider failures, and acts of third-party platforms — provided the affected party takes reasonable steps to mitigate and keeps the other informed.
(d) Clauses 9-11, 13(f)-(h), 14, 16, 17 and 19-21 survive termination.

19. Notices and domicilium

The parties choose as their addresses for all notices (domicilium citandi et executandi): for us, angus@inhouseit.durban; for you, the email address on your account. Notices sent by email are treated as received on the first Business Day after sending, unless a delivery failure is received. Either party may update its address by notice. Data messages constitute writing and signature for all purposes of this agreement (ECTA sections 12 and 13).

20. Disputes and governing law

This agreement is governed by the law of the Republic of South Africa. The parties will first attempt in good faith to resolve any dispute by direct negotiation within 20 Business Days of written notice of the dispute. Failing that, either party may approach a court of competent jurisdiction in South Africa; both parties consent to the jurisdiction of the Magistrates' Court even where the claim would otherwise exceed it. Nothing prevents either party from seeking urgent interim relief, or you from lodging a complaint with the Information Regulator or the National Consumer Commission where those bodies have jurisdiction.

21. General

(a) Whole agreement: these terms, your subscription order, and the pricing quoted to you are the entire agreement and replace all prior representations not recorded here.
(b) Variation: no variation is effective unless recorded in writing (including by data message) and accepted by both parties, save for updates under clause 22.
(c) Severability: if any clause is unenforceable it is severed and the rest stands.
(d) No waiver: indulgence or delay is not waiver.
(e) Cession: you may not cede or assign without our written consent (not unreasonably withheld). We may cede or assign to a purchaser of the business that runs the Service, on notice to you.
(f) Interpretation: headings are for convenience; "including" means "including without limitation"; no contra proferentem rule applies merely because we drafted these terms.

22. Changes to these terms

We may update these terms. Material changes will be notified to you by email or dashboard notice at least 14 days before they take effect; continued use after that date is acceptance. The version date at the top always reflects the current text, and prior versions are available from us on request. If you do not accept a material change you may cancel under clause 6(f) before it takes effect.