Terms of service

1. Who we are and what these terms cover

ClearLicensed (the "Service") is run by Softvion Technologies LLC, 5904 Jessamine St, Unit 08, Houston, TX 77081, United States ("we", "us"). These terms are the agreement between you and us. By creating an account, starting a trial or using the Service you accept them. If you sign up for a company, you confirm that you can accept these terms for that company, and "you" then means the company.

You must be at least 18 years old. The Service is meant for businesses and the people who work for them, not for consumers.

2. What the Service is

ClearLicensed helps you keep track of contractor license, continuing education (CE), bond and insurance dates. It shows information about state licensing rules, sends reminders by email, stores the documents you upload, and offers an optional managed filing service where our team files a renewal for you by hand.

We are not a law firm, a licensing board, an insurance agent or a government agency, and no state board is affiliated with us or endorses us. Nothing in the Service is legal, tax or insurance advice. Reading our information does not create a lawyer and client relationship.

3. Accounts and security

You sign in with a one-time code that we send to your email address. Give us accurate details and keep your email account secure. You are responsible for everything done under your account, including by team members you invite.

If you think someone else got into your account, write to [email protected] right away. We may ask you to confirm who you are before we act on a request about an account.

4. Free trial and plans

• A new account gets a 14-day trial of the Basic plan. No payment card is needed. There is also a Free plan for one license, with email reminders and no time limit.
• The paid plans are Starter ($20 a month), Basic ($49 a month) and Premium ($99 a month). Paying yearly takes 20% off the monthly price. The pricing page and the checkout screen show the current prices and limits, and they win if they differ from this page.
• Each plan has limits on licenses, team members and document storage, as shown on the pricing page.
• When the trial ends without a paid plan, the account moves to the Free plan. You can still view and export your data and delete records, and the limits of the Free plan apply until you subscribe. We do not delete your data just because a trial ended.

5. Billing

Payments are handled by Stripe. Subscriptions are charged in advance, monthly or yearly, and renew automatically until you cancel. By subscribing you authorize us, through Stripe, to charge your payment method each period. We never see or store your full card number.

If a payment fails, we may retry it and tell you by email. If it keeps failing, the subscription ends and the account moves to the Free plan until you pay again. If we change a price, we tell you at least 30 days before it applies, and the new price starts with the next billing period after that notice. You can cancel before then.

Prices are in US dollars. Taxes are added where the law requires them. You are responsible for any bank or card fees on your side.

6. Cancellation and refunds

You can cancel at any time in the billing page of the app or through the Stripe billing portal. Cancelling stops the next renewal. You keep access until the end of the period you already paid for.

Refunds for subscriptions:

• The first payment on any paid plan, monthly or yearly: if you ask within 14 days of the charge, we refund it in full.
• A yearly renewal charge: if you ask within 7 days of the charge, we refund it in full.
• Monthly renewals, and any request after those windows: no refund for the period already started. You can cancel before the next one.
• If we charged you by mistake, or charged more than once, we refund the extra amount whenever you tell us.

Managed filing has its own refund rules, in the managed filing section below. To ask for a refund, write to [email protected] from the email on your account. Refunds go back to the original payment method and can take several days to show up. This policy does not take away any refund right the law gives you.

7. Acceptable use

Do not:

• break the law, or use the Service for anything unlawful, deceptive or fraudulent, including entering license details that are not yours or that you are not allowed to manage;
• try to get into another customer's account or data, or probe, scan or test the Service for weaknesses without our written permission;
• upload malware, or anything that could harm the Service or other people;
• overload the Service, or use bots, scrapers or automated tools to copy our state data in bulk or to resell it;
• share your sign-in with people outside your team, or resell or sublicense the Service;
• use the Service to send spam or to harass anyone.

We may suspend an account, or remove content, that breaks these rules. Where it is reasonable, we will tell you first.

8. Your content and documents

What you enter or upload (license details, dates, notes, bond and insurance papers, CE records, messages) is your content. It stays yours. You give us a limited right to store, process and display it only as needed to run the Service for you, to give you support, to do managed filing you ask for, and to meet legal duties.

You promise that you have the right to upload your content and to share it with us, and that it is not unlawful. Please do not upload anything you do not need for license tracking, such as Social Security numbers, bank account numbers or card numbers.

Documents are kept in private storage and can only be opened through signed links that expire. Our staff open your content only when it is needed for support, a managed filing, security or the law. You can export your license list at any time and delete records and documents in the app. How we handle personal information is explained in the privacy policy.

If you send us feedback or ideas, we may use them without owing you anything.

9. State data is informational only

We collect licensing rules, fees, deadlines, CE hours and board details from public sources. They change often and can differ by license class, county or city. What we show may be incomplete, out of date or wrong. It is general information, not legal advice. Always check with the issuing board before you rely on it, pay a fee or miss a deadline.

We do not promise that any information is accurate, complete or current. You remain responsible for knowing your license requirements and for renewing on time, whatever the Service shows. A "verified" label means we checked the cited sources on the date shown, nothing more. Read the data disclaimer too. It is part of these terms.

10. Reminders and notices

We send reminders and account notices by email. Email can be delayed, filtered into spam, blocked or lost, and a reminder depends on the dates you entered being right. Reminders help you remember. They do not move the duty to renew on time from you to us. You can change your reminder settings in the app. Some emails, such as sign-in codes, billing notices and changes to these terms, are part of running your account and cannot be switched off while the account is open.

11. Text message reminders

Text message reminders are not live yet. If you join the text reminder list, these rules apply to the texts we send to the mobile number you give us.

• What we send: one text when text reminders open, then short reminders about license, bond and certification dates you track, and replies to your STOP and HELP messages. Message frequency varies with your reminder settings, usually fewer than 8 messages a month.
• Your consent: you agree to get these texts by checking the box on the sign-up form. Consent is not a condition of buying anything from us. You can still use ClearLicensed with email reminders only.
• STOP and HELP: reply STOP to any text to stop them. We send one last message to confirm. Reply HELP, or email [email protected], for help.
• Rates: message and data rates from your mobile carrier may apply. We do not charge for texts.
• Carriers: mobile carriers and their networks are not liable for delayed or undelivered messages. Texts can fail or arrive late, so a text is a helper and not a guarantee. You are still responsible for renewing on time.
• Your number: keep it current and tell us if you change it or give it up, so texts do not reach someone else.

[TODO: confirm this wording with the text message provider and a lawyer before any text is sent. Carriers check consent language, and the program name, opt-in page and sample messages may have to be registered.]

12. Managed filing

Managed filing is an optional service. Our team prepares and submits a renewal for you by hand on the state's online portal or by the method the board allows. These terms apply to it in addition to the rest of this page.

Your written authorization

When you ask for managed filing on a license, the app shows you a short authorization for that license and asks you to tick a box before you can send the request. By ticking it you authorize us, in writing, to act as your administrative agent for that renewal only. We store the wording you accepted, its version, the time, and a hashed form of your IP address. We then use the information and documents you gave us to prepare the filing and to submit it to the licensing board for the named license. This authorization covers only the license you named in the request. It does not let us sign contracts for you, change other licenses, change your business details, or do anything else. Accepting the authorization does not commit you to pay: we send you a price first, and nothing is charged until you pay it.

What you do

• Give us accurate and complete information, and answer our questions quickly. Late or wrong information can mean a late or rejected filing.
• Confirm that you are allowed to submit the renewal and that you meet the board's requirements, such as CE hours, bonds and insurance. We check what you send us. We do not decide whether you qualify.
• Pay the state or board fees, late fees, course fees and any other charges the board sets. They are separate from our fee. We tell you the amount before we file where we can, and you can pay the board directly or pay us to pass the fee on, depending on the request.

What we do and do not promise

After you send a request we look at it and email you a price for that license. You pay online if you agree. We do the filing work described in the request. We do not promise that a board will accept a renewal, how long it will take, or that your license will stay in good standing. Boards decide. We are not liable for processing delays, portal outages, board decisions, requests for more information, fee changes, or penalties that come from late or inaccurate information, or from a board's own timing. Filing a renewal does not change your own responsibility for your license.

Our fee and refunds

• You can cancel a request in the app at no cost until you have paid. After you have paid, send us a message in the request: if we have not started work, you get a full refund of our fee. We process refunds by hand.
• Once work has started, we keep a part of the fee that matches the work done. Once the renewal has been submitted to the board, our fee is not refundable.
• If we do not file the renewal by the due date in the request for a reason within our control, we refund our fee in full.
• State and board fees are paid to the board and are not refundable by us. Whether a board refunds them is up to the board.

How to take your authorization back

You can withdraw the authorization at any time by sending a message in the request, or by writing to [email protected] with the license and request you mean. We stop working on it as soon as we read the message, which on business days is normally within one working day. Anything already submitted to a board stays submitted. We never ask for your board portal username or password, and the app has no place to enter one. Please do not send one in a request note or a message. If a board needs you to sign in yourself, we tell you what to do.

13. Our rights

We own the Service, its software, design, text and the way we organize state information. You get a limited, non-exclusive right to use the Service for your own business while your account is open, and you may not copy it, resell it or reverse-engineer it. The state laws and board forms themselves belong to their publishers.

14. Availability and outside services

We work to keep the Service running, but we do not promise it will never be down, slow or lose data. We back up our systems, and you can export your license list at any time. Some parts depend on other companies, such as Stripe for payments, an email provider, our hosting provider, and the state portals. We are not responsible for their outages or changes. We may change or retire features, and will give reasonable notice of anything that matters.

15. No warranties

The Service is provided "as is" and "as available". To the fullest extent the law allows, we make no promises or warranties of any kind, express or implied, including about accuracy, fitness for a particular purpose, uninterrupted service, or that reminders will arrive. Some places do not allow some of these exclusions, so they apply only as far as your local law lets them.

16. Limit of liability

To the fullest extent the law allows, we are not liable for indirect, incidental, special, consequential or punitive damages, or for lost profits, lost work, lost contracts, fines, penalties or license lapses, even if we were told they could happen. This includes any loss that comes from relying on state information or reminders, or from a board's decision on a managed filing.

Our total liability to you for all claims about the Service is limited to the greater of the amount you paid us in the 12 months before the claim or $100. Nothing in these terms limits liability that the law does not allow to be limited, such as liability for fraud.

17. Indemnity

You agree to defend and cover us against claims, losses and reasonable costs that come from your content, from information you gave us for a managed filing, from your breach of these terms, or from your use of the Service in a way that breaks the law or another person's rights. We will tell you about the claim promptly, and you may not settle it in a way that binds us without our consent.

18. Ending your account

You can stop using the Service and delete your account at any time in the app settings, or by writing to us. Deleting an account does not by itself refund a payment. The refund rules above decide that.

We can suspend or close an account that breaks these terms, puts the Service or other customers at risk, or does not pay. Where it is reasonable we tell you why first. After an account closes you may ask us to export your data, and we will do so within a reasonable time while we still have it. Sections that by their nature should survive, such as limits of liability, indemnity and governing law, continue to apply.

19. Governing law and disputes

These terms are governed by the laws of [TODO: governing law and venue. Owner note: usually the US state where the business is registered or has its address], without regard to its conflict-of-law rules. Disputes will be brought in the courts located in [TODO: county and state for venue], and you and we agree to those courts. Before either side files a claim, please write to [email protected] and give us 30 days to work it out.

20. Changes to these terms

We may update these terms. For changes that matter, we email the account owner or post a notice in the app at least 30 days before they apply, unless the change is needed sooner for legal or security reasons. The date at the top of the page shows the latest version. If you keep using the Service after a change takes effect, you accept it. If you do not agree, cancel before then.

21. General

These terms, with the privacy policy, cookie policy and data disclaimer, are the whole agreement between you and us about the Service. If a part is found unenforceable, the rest stays in force. If we do not enforce a right right away, we have not given it up. You may not transfer your account or these terms without our consent. We may transfer ours as part of a sale or reorganization. Neither side is responsible for delays caused by events outside its reasonable control, such as outages of the internet or a power grid, or government action. Nothing here makes either of us the other's partner, employee or agent, except for the limited authorization you give us in a managed request.

We give legal notices to the email on your account. You give notices to [email protected].

22. Contact

Questions about these terms: [email protected]. Mail: Softvion Technologies LLC, 5904 Jessamine St, Unit 08, Houston, TX 77081, United States.