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DRAFT — not yet reviewed by a lawyer. Published so it’s honestly visible, not because it’s finished. See Privacy Policy and POPIA notice too.

Terms of Service — Crechely

Status: DRAFT — not yet reviewed by a lawyer. Do not publish this or start charging customers until a lawyer has reviewed it, the bracketed placeholders are filled in, and it's cross-checked against the Privacy Policy (`PRIVACY_POLICY.md` in this folder) and `SECURITY.md` in the main project so the three documents agree with each other.

Last updated: 2 October 2026

1. Who these terms are between

These Terms of Service ("Terms") are an agreement between Straight Glow, trading as Crechely, ("we", "us"), the provider of Crechely (the "Service"), and the school or organization that creates an account ("you", "the school", "Customer"). By creating an account or using the Service, you accept these Terms on behalf of your school, and you confirm you're authorized to do so.

2. What the Service is (and isn't)

The Service is software that helps a school run its centre: record its classes, children and their parents/guardians, online applications, attendance, timetables and forms, as well as payment plans, payments received and statements. It is a record-keeping tool for your school's own use, and your school decides what is recorded in it.

It is not: accounting, tax, or legal advice; a payment processor for collecting money from parents (your school still collects fees through whatever means it already uses — bank transfer, cash, etc. — and records that collection in the Service); a guarantee of accuracy of any statement or figure beyond what your own staff entered; or a substitute for your school's own financial controls and record-keeping obligations under applicable law.

You are responsible for the accuracy of the data your school's staff enter, and for reconciling the Service's records against your school's own bank statements and financial records periodically.

3. Accounts and roles

  • Your school's account is created by whoever first registers; that person becomes the first Admin. Admins can invite other staff and assign them a role (Admin, Accountant, Manager, Teacher, Receptionist or Read-only) that controls what they can see and do.
  • You're responsible for who you invite and what role you give them — Accountant and Admin roles can record and see financial data; choose accordingly.
  • You're responsible for keeping login credentials confidential and for all activity under your school's account. Tell us immediately at support@crechely.co.za if you suspect unauthorized access.
  • We may suspend an account we reasonably believe is compromised, being used fraudulently, or in breach of these Terms, and will try to notify the school's Admin(s) when we do.

4. Subscription, billing, and cancellation

  • New schools get a 30-day free trial. No card is needed, and nothing is charged automatically when the trial ends.
  • The Service is offered on a paid subscription: R499 a month, R4,990 a year, or (for the first 10 schools only) the founding price of R299 a month, all in South African rand (ZAR). We give at least 30 days' notice by email before a price change applies to your next renewal.
  • Payment is processed by Paystack. By subscribing, you also agree to Paystack's own terms for the payment method you use.
  • Subscriptions renew automatically each billing period until cancelled. You can cancel at any time from the Billing page in Settings; cancelling stops future charges, and you keep access until the end of the period you have paid for, after which the school becomes read-only.
  • If a payment fails, you keep access while Paystack retries the charge per its normal retry schedule; continued failure ends the subscription and the school becomes read-only until payment succeeds.
  • Refunds follow our Refund and Cancellation Policy, including a 30-day money-back guarantee on the yearly plan.

5. Your data, and what you're allowed to record

  • You retain ownership of all data you enter into the Service — the children's, families', and financial records are your school's, not ours. See the Privacy Policy for how we handle it.
  • You must have a lawful basis (e.g., your own enrolment agreement with families) for recording personal information about children and parents/guardians in the Service, and must comply with applicable data protection law (including POPIA, if your school operates in South Africa) in how you collect and use that information.
  • Don't use the Service to store information you're not legally permitted to hold, or for any child/family without the appropriate basis to process their data.
  • You're responsible for controlling who at your school has access, and at what role/permission level.

6. Our responsibilities

  • We'll use reasonable technical and organizational measures to keep the Service secure and your data available, as described in SECURITY.md/PRIVACY_POLICY.md.
  • We'll aim for [FILL IN if you want to commit to an uptime target — many early-stage products deliberately don't commit to a formal SLA yet; if you don't, don't imply one either].
  • We'll notify you of a security incident affecting your data as described in the Privacy Policy.

7. Service availability and changes

  • We may modify, add to, or remove features of the Service over time; we won't unreasonably degrade the core functionality your school is paying for without notice.
  • We may need to take the Service down temporarily for maintenance; where practical we'll do this at low-usage times and/or give notice.
  • [FILL IN if you plan to offer any uptime commitment or credits — most early-stage single-region deployments don't, and shouldn't promise one they can't back up operationally.]

8. Limitation of liability

[This section carries real legal weight and should be drafted by a lawyer familiar with South African consumer/contract law (and the Consumer Protection Act's limits on what can be excluded, if it applies to your customer relationships) rather than copied from a template. A typical structure liability clauses use — decide the actual numbers/scope with counsel, don't just fill in a number here:]

  • To the maximum extent permitted by law, our total liability to you arising from or related to the Service is limited to the amount you paid us in the [FILL IN, e.g. "12 months"] before the claim arose.
  • We are not liable for indirect, incidental, or consequential damages (e.g. lost revenue, lost data beyond what a reasonable backup process would recover) arising from use of the Service.
  • Nothing in these Terms excludes liability that cannot be excluded under applicable law (for example, liability for gross negligence or willful misconduct, where South African law does not permit exclusion).

9. Termination

  • You may cancel your subscription at any time from the Billing page in Settings; see Section 4 for what happens to access and billing.
  • We may suspend or terminate an account for material breach of these Terms (e.g. non-payment after a reasonable cure period, fraudulent use, or using the Service to store data you're not permitted to hold), with notice where practical.
  • On termination, your school's data stays available for export for 90 days, after which it is permanently deleted. This matches "How long we keep it" in the Privacy Policy; if one of the two is ever changed, change both.

10. Governing law

These Terms are governed by the laws of [FILL IN — likely South Africa, given your first customers, but confirm with counsel especially if you ever serve schools in other countries], and disputes will be resolved in the courts of [FILL IN JURISDICTION].

11. Changes to these Terms

We'll update the "Last updated" date when these Terms change, and [DECIDE: notice period/method for material changes — e.g. email to Admins 30 days before changes take effect].

12. Contact

Straight Glow, trading as Crechely (reg. no. 2018/360632/07) support@crechely.co.za 31 Kretchmer, Bela Bela, Limpopo, 0480