Terms of Service

1. The Service

Trade Receptionist provides an AI telephone answering service for UK tradespeople and small businesses ("Subscribers"). The service answers inbound calls, collects caller information, provides job-booking assistance, and delivers post-call summaries via SMS and email.

We use third-party providers to deliver the service, including Twilio (telephony and SMS), Retell AI (AI voice agent), Supabase (data storage), and Stripe (payments). Your use of the service is also subject to those providers' terms where applicable.

2. Accounts and Eligibility

• You must be 18 or older and a business owner or authorised representative to register.
• You are responsible for keeping your login credentials secure.
• One account per business. You may not resell or sublicense access without our written consent.
• We reserve the right to refuse or terminate accounts at our discretion.

3. Free Trial

We offer a 14-day free trial to new Subscribers. A payment card is required to start a trial, and nothing is charged during it. Unless you cancel before the trial ends, your subscription starts automatically at the end of the 14 days and the card on file is charged the price of the plan you chose, then on each renewal date after that. You can cancel at any time during the trial from your account settings and you will not be charged. Trial usage is subject to a fair-use limit of 50 inbound calls.

4. Subscription Plans and Billing

We currently offer four monthly subscription plans:

• Starter — £49/month (up to 50 calls/month)
• Pro — £89/month (up to 150 calls/month)
• Business — £159/month (up to 350 calls/month)
• Agency — £249/month (up to 600 calls/month)

Annual billing is available at a discount equivalent to two months free. Prices are exclusive of VAT where applicable. Billing is handled securely through Stripe. By subscribing, you authorise us to charge the payment method on file on a recurring monthly or annual basis.

If a payment fails, we will retry up to three times over seven days. Continued non-payment will result in service suspension. We will notify you by email of any failed payments.

5. Cancellation and Refunds

You may cancel your subscription at any time from your account settings. Cancellation takes effect at the end of your current billing period — you retain full access until that date. We do not offer prorated refunds for unused periods.

If you experience a significant service outage directly caused by our platform (not a third-party provider) lasting more than 24 consecutive hours, you may request a prorated credit by contacting legal@tradereceptionist.co.uk within 14 days of the incident.

6. Acceptable Use

You must not use Trade Receptionist to:

• Conduct any activity that is illegal under UK or applicable international law.
• Deceive callers about the nature or existence of the AI answering service.
• Process calls for industries requiring specialist regulatory compliance (e.g. financial advice, medical triage, legal advice) without ensuring appropriate disclaimers are in place.
• Circumvent call limits or usage restrictions.
• Attempt to reverse-engineer, copy, or resell the service.

We reserve the right to suspend your account without notice if we reasonably believe there is a breach of this section.

7. AI Call Handling — Important Disclaimer

Our AI receptionist is designed to handle routine trade enquiries accurately. However, it is an automated system and may occasionally misunderstand callers, mishear information, or fail to capture all relevant details. You remain responsible for reviewing call summaries and following up with callers as appropriate.

The AI is not a substitute for human judgement in genuinely urgent or life-threatening situations. When an emergency keyword is detected, the system sends you an immediate alert — but you must ensure your own emergency response procedures are in place. We accept no liability for any loss arising from an AI-handled call.

8. Call Recording and Transcription

Calls handled by our service may be recorded and transcribed to generate summaries and improve service accuracy. Callers must be informed that their call may be recorded and handled by an AI system. Our AI agent includes this disclosure at the start of each call. You must not disable or circumvent this disclosure.

Call recordings are retained for 90 days and then deleted automatically. Transcripts and summaries are retained for as long as your account is active, plus 12 months after cancellation.

9. Data and Privacy

By using the service, you act as a data controller for personal data collected from your callers (including names, phone numbers, postcodes, and job details). We act as your data processor for that data. Our data processing practices are set out in our Privacy Policy and our Data Processing Agreement, which forms part of these Terms.

You are responsible for ensuring you have a lawful basis for collecting and processing caller personal data under the UK GDPR, and for informing callers accordingly.

10. Intellectual Property

All software, AI models, branding, and content forming part of the Trade Receptionist platform are owned by Trade Receptionist Ltd or our licensors. These Terms do not grant you any rights in our intellectual property beyond the limited licence necessary to use the service as intended.

You retain ownership of your business data (caller records, summaries, leads). We do not use your business data to train AI models without your explicit consent.

11. Limitation of Liability

To the maximum extent permitted by law, Trade Receptionist Ltd shall not be liable for any indirect, incidental, special, or consequential loss arising from your use of the service, including but not limited to loss of revenue, missed jobs, or data loss.

Our total aggregate liability to you for any claim arising under or in connection with these Terms shall not exceed the total fees paid by you in the 12 months preceding the claim.

Nothing in these Terms limits liability for death or personal injury caused by negligence, fraud, or any other liability that cannot be excluded by law.

12. Service Availability

We aim to provide a reliable service but cannot guarantee 100% uptime. Planned maintenance will be communicated in advance where possible. We are not responsible for outages caused by Twilio, Retell, Stripe, or any other third-party provider.

13. Governing Law

These Terms are governed by the laws of England and Wales. Any disputes shall be subject to the exclusive jurisdiction of the courts of England and Wales.

14. Changes to These Terms

We may update these Terms from time to time. We will give you at least 14 days' notice of material changes by email before they take effect. Continued use of the service after that date constitutes acceptance of the updated Terms.

15. Contact

For questions about these Terms, please contact us at legal@tradereceptionist.co.uk.