Contents:
- Introduction
- Payment
- Refunds
- Domains
- Set up time
- Themes
- Hosting
- Design support and services
- Website handover
- Marketing
- Plagiarism
- Subscription
- Technical support
- No liability
- Non-exclusivity
- Governing law and dispute resolution
(1) Introduction
(a) These terms were last updated on 21st December 2023 with immediete effect. Previous versions of these terms include: 12th August 2023, 30th April 2022, 17th December 2020.
(b) The Chapa Link name, oval shaped brand with two triangular symbols, ChapaLink.co.tz and ChapaLink.com are the product of Lateral Labs, a web design agency operating in Tanzania since January 2017 with valid Tax Identification and VAT numbers.
(c) By using and submitting your information through this website, you agree to being referred to as a “customer” and to being aware of the privacy policy, benefits you receive, and the conditions attached to benefits, as follows below.
(2) Payment
(a) The current price of a website subscription with Chapa Link will be updated here and will be included in the invoice shared after you sign up.
(b) We reserve the right to provide other value added services at a higher subscription rate.
(c) We reserve the right to change our subscription prices on this section based on market trends, operational costs, inflation and other factors without communicating the change in advance.
(d) An initial sign-up requires a minimum 3-month advance in order to set up a website. Thereafter, that is from month # 4 onwards, you are able to pay on a monthly basis.
(e) Annual subscriptions will receive a 10% discount for upfront payment.
(f) We reserve the right to offer more discounts on a case by case basis.
(g) We accept payment electronically via cards or bank transfers, and will issue a government-authorized receipt for your records.
(h) We reserve the right to add more payment methods in the future and will make these clearly available on our order forms.
(3) Refunds
(a) Once subscription payments are made, they are non-refundable.
(b) We reserve the right to offer refunds on a case by case basis.
(4) Domains
(a) Domain names are subject to availability and will be purchased in accordance with the law, including copyright and top-level domain requirements of the country the website will serve.
(b) Our plans include estimations for .co.tz, .or.tz, .ac.tz, .com and .net domains. Any other top-level domains will need to be assessed for cost and may change the customer’s final subscription fee.
(c) We register domains on behalf of our customers.
(d) Each customer’s final domain will list their name, address and phone number as the registered user of the domain, and will also list our company name, address and phone number as the technical contact of the domain.
(e) If customers would like to transfer their domain to another provider, they may get in touch with us to request the EPP or Auth code required for the transfer. We do not charge for domains being transferred outside our management.
(f) If a customer would like our services but already has a domain name registered elsewhere, we reserve the right to negotiate and adjust their subscription fee on a case by case basis.
(5) Set up time
(a) After you have signed up and paid for a website subscription with us, we aim to share an update with you as soon as possible depending on our team’s case load.
(b) Each of our plans has a delivery promise, starting from 3 business days, excluding weekends and Tanzanian public holidays. We reserve the right to take up to 30 days as a maximum time to get your website live.
(c) Part of our service includes helping our customers generate and/or customise content for their website. We reserve the right to share limits on what we are able to do on a case by case basis.
(6) Themes
(a) Some of our website plans may include a fixed number of themes with a fixed number of fields to all our customers.
(b) In these cases, customers will be provided with demo websites to view prior to their subscription.
(c) We do not change the layout of the theme or the type of fields available; we can switch existing text, image and some color changes depending on customer preferences as part of your subscription.
(d) For additional changes, customers are liable to additional change fees depending on the number of sections or components they request changes for and the scope of these changes. Such arrangements and fees required will be negotiated and communicated with the customer in advance.
(e) Over time, we may add new themes and website functionality and these will be made available to all our customers.
(f) Customers are welcome to change themes within their subscription period at no extra fee, provided that they are able to submit content to us for the theme change.
(g) We reserve the right to add new functionality and themes at any time.
(7) Hosting
(a) Customers are guaranteed enough website hosting storage to suit the needs of the website we design for them.
(b) We do not provide customers with access to the host for subscription plans, also known as FTP or cPanel access.
(c) We can provide more advanced and direct hosting plans that customers can manage themselves on a contractual basis with different terms of service defined therein.
(d) We reserve the right to provide more hosting space, content management facilities and/or other website-related apps and support services at a higher subscription rate.
(e) Customer hosting space will not be resold unless you discontinue your monthly subscription with Chapa Link.
(f) If a customer would like our services but already has a hosting service registered elsewhere, we reserve the right to negotiate and adjust their subscription on a case by case basis.
(8) Design support and services
(a) Customers can share content, that is text and/or media, to populate the fields we provide and we will update these on our customers’ behalf.
(b) If customers do not have text or images, we will endeavour to suggest text and images for them based on an initial conversation with them to learn about the purpose of their website.
(c) We reserve the right to share limits on how much content we can provide to customers depending on the scope of their website.
(d) As part of a monthly subscription, we provide one (1) update per month for any section of the subscription website, eg: About is one section, Portfolio is another section, Contact is another section.
(e) For additional changes to additional sections, customers are liable to additional change fee depending on the number of sections or components you request changes for and their scope. Such arrangements and fees required will be negotiated and communicated with you in advance.
(f) We reserve the right to take up to 30 days as a maximum time to address updates on request.
(g) Customers may decide that they want to discontinue their subscription with Chapa Link and consult us for a website with a larger scope and a different contractual arrangement. Customers are welcome to do this with notice within their subscription period and as long as any past dues have been paid.
(h) We reserve the right to add additional services as part of the Chapa Link product at any time, and may not always communicate changes to our services.
(9) Website Handover
(a) Chapa Link’s standard website subscription plans and fees are ongoing and services are provided as long as the subscription is paid.
(b) All services stop if a subscription fee is not paid.
(c) If a customer wishes to pay once for website design and development services, or wishes to take over a website after paying a subscription for a variable number of months, we reserve the right to propose a handover fee on a case by case basis.
(d) A handover fee does not include any service beyond the final handover payout.
(d) If a customer wishes to stop paying a subscription and take over the domain only, and not any of the hosted, designed or developed services or content, we are happy to provide the domain transfer code as all our domains are registered in our customer’s names.
(e) Once the domain is transferred, it is the customer’s responsibility to rebuild the website on a hosting plan secured with another vendor.
(f) Chapa Link does not provide access to cPanel, FTP or provide website files for download.
(10) Marketing
(a) We reserve the right to use customer logos and websites on mock-ups for marketing purposes, and when doing so will link to the relevant website.
(b) The Chapa Link team will also solicit testimonials from customers for sharing with the public.
(c) By signing up to Chapa Link services, you agree to receiving marketing, service-related or other notifications from us via email and/or phone.
(11) Plagiarism
(a) We understand that plagiarism is the act of copying ideas, text, images and other works of one person and using them as another person.
(b) We do not plagiarise. We do not support plagiarism.
(c) If we find that customers are using text or images that belong to another party, we will advise them to replace these with their own work. Failure to do so will result in us as the hosting administrators replacing the plagiarised content on our customers’ behalf.
(d) We reserve the right to stop subscription services if we find that the customers business or website content poses a risk to our business, technology or the rest of our customer base.
(12) Subscription
(a) We process new customer accounts after a minimum 3-month advance payment has been made, and we keep accounts live on the basis of pre-paid subscription fees.
(b) New customer accounts will not be created if a minimum 3-month advance payment has not been made.
(c) Retainer customer accounts will not renew if the advance payment for a pre-agreed duration has not been made.
(d) We reserve the right to expire subscriptions at any time after their end-date and if renewal payments have not been made.
(e) If customers lapse a payment, we reserve the right to take their website down and close their account.
(f) If customers would like to reactive a previous subscription, but did not renew before the expiry date, we reserve the right to charge a reactivation fee, for a period of up to 12 months after they made their initial sign-up payment.
(g) For expired accounts beyond 12 months, subscriptions will need to be re-initiated with a minimum 3-month advance in addition to the reactivation fees.
(h) We do not guarantee backed up website content in the case of expired subscriptions.
(i) Customer bills are initiated the day they make their first payment, for instance the 7th of January, and will continue on the same day every month, eg: 7th of April, 7th of May, 7th of June, etc.
(13) Technical Support
(a) Our customer service channels are available here from 9am – 5pm Monday to Friday. We currently do not provide support outside of these hours. We do not work on Saturday, Sunday and Tanzanian public holidays
(b) During working hours, we will endeavour to support our customers to the best of our abilities, even in the case of having to facilitate issue resolution with a third party vendor.
(14) No liability
(a) We are not responsible for how our customers manage their business or their dealings.
(b) Chapa Link is also not responsible for customer business planning, sales, modeling, performance, results or third party liabilities such as licensing or product registration.
(c) Part of our service includes working with third party vendors such as domain and hosting service providers. We are not liable for third party issues, such as server down time. We commit to communicating with our customers when issues arise that may disrupt the performance of our customer websites.
(15) Non-exclusivity
(a) The Chapa Link product is not an exclusive website provider to customers, that is, customers are free to work with any other provider at any time.
(b) When we process a new order, we are not committing to dedicate all our resources to that single order, that is, we provide the same service to any customer that signs up.
(16) Governing Law and dispute resolution
(a) As a customer of Chapa Link, you agree to abide by Tanzanian law.
(b) If a dispute arises between Chapa Link and a customer, we will endeavor to settle the dispute amicably. Where amicable resolution fails, we will appoint an arbitrator to assist in settling the dispute. Only when arbitration fails will Chapa Link and associated parties seek legal advice to settle disputes.
(c) We seek to make our customers happy all the time and will do our best to prevent disputes from arising.