The deal, in plain words.

01What these terms cover

These terms apply to everything you buy from Nisse Intelligence Inc. — one-time builds (a website, an app, an automation), monthly programs (hosting and upkeep, social media, the Nisse Desk, process automation), hands-on retainer hours, and anything else described in a quote, proposal or Stripe checkout page from us.

You accept these terms when you do any of the following: tick "I agree" at checkout, pay an invoice or checkout link from us, sign a proposal or agreement that refers to them, or ask us to start work after we've sent them to you. Whichever comes first.

If documents disagree

Sometimes there's more than one document. In that case, the order is: a signed Nisse Program Agreement (including its Schedule A) first, then the proposal or quote you accepted, then the Stripe checkout page or invoice, then these terms. The more specific document wins over the more general one.

02What we're doing for you

The specific work is described in your proposal, quote or checkout page. Broadly, it falls into three kinds:

• Builds — a fixed-scope, fixed-price piece of work such as a website or an automation. What's included is what the proposal says. Anything outside that scope is a new job, and we'll give you a heads-up and a price before starting it.
• Programs — a monthly service list (for example: hosting and keeping your site current, social posts, answering enquiries through the Desk, monthly reporting). The list in your proposal is the promise.
• Retainer hours — some programs include a stated number of hands-on hours per month for requests that aren't on the service list. Hours don't roll over, aren't refundable, and bigger jobs get flagged and quoted first rather than quietly eating your hours.

Before a build or program goes live we'll usually run a short beta period (we tend to call it the soundcheck or dress rehearsal). Beta periods are free unless your proposal says otherwise, and the paid program starts on the go-live date in your proposal or, if none is stated, the date we tell you the work is live.

We'll tell you honestly when something isn't worth building or automating. That's part of the service, not a way out of it.

03Fees, tax and payment

Every price is in Canadian dollars and is before HST. HST (13% in Ontario, or the rate that applies where you are) is added as a separate line. If you're outside Canada, any taxes or duties on your side are yours to handle.

We bill through Stripe. By paying, you're agreeing to Stripe's own terms for the payment itself. We never see or store your full card number.

Builds

Builds are paid on the schedule in your proposal or checkout page. If nothing is stated, the full price is due before go-live. Once you've told us to proceed, the build price is owed whether or not you later decide to use what we built — see the refund section for the one exception.

Programs

Programs are billed monthly in advance, starting on the go-live date and then on the same day each month (or the last day of the month, if the month is shorter).

Late or failed payments

If a card payment fails, Stripe will retry it and email you. If we can't collect within 14 days we may pause the program — including hosting, the Desk and social posting — until it's sorted. We'll warn you before pausing anything. Unpaid amounts more than 30 days overdue accrue interest at 1.5% per month (19.56% per year). If we have to chase an unpaid invoice, reasonable collection costs are added to it.

Price changes

We can change a program's monthly price with at least 30 days' written notice. If you don't want the new price, cancel before it takes effect and you won't be charged it. A price we've agreed for an initial term stays fixed for that term.

04Monthly programs and auto-billing

When you subscribe to a program you're authorising Nisse Intelligence Inc. to charge the payment method you gave us for the monthly fee plus HST, on each billing date, plus any extra work you've approved in writing (email counts). You'll get a receipt from Stripe every time.

You can update your card, see past receipts and cancel through the link in any Stripe receipt or by emailing hello@heynisse.ca. If a card expires and you've given Stripe permission to use updated card details from your bank, we'll keep billing the updated card.

Initial terms. Most programs are month-to-month. Some — usually where we've done a build for free or at a discount in exchange for the program — carry an initial term (for example, six months). If yours does, it's stated in your proposal or agreement, and cancellation takes effect at the end of that term. After the initial term, it's month-to-month.

Switching programs. You can move to a bigger or smaller program on 30 days' notice. We'll prorate the difference from the next billing date.

05Refunds and the whoa guarantee

The whoa guarantee. Before you pay for a build, we show you the first working version. If it doesn't make you say "whoa" — if it isn't clearly what you asked for — you don't pay, and we part as friends. That's the guarantee, and it lives before payment. When you pay at checkout, you're confirming you've seen the work and want to proceed, so the guarantee has done its job.

After that, build payments aren't refundable. If you stop a build partway, you owe the price for the work completed up to that point, at the proportion the proposal implies (or, if it's silent, the proportion of the work done), and you get what's been built.

Program fees aren't refundable once a month has been billed, including if you cancel partway through a month — the program keeps running until the end of that period. Unused retainer hours aren't refunded or credited.

Two exceptions where we will refund: if we billed you by mistake, or if we can't deliver a program at all through our own fault. In those cases we refund the affected amount to the same card.

Chargebacks: please talk to us first. If you dispute a charge with your bank instead of contacting us, we'll provide the bank with your acceptance of these terms and the work delivered, and we may pause the program while it's resolved.

06Cancelling and ending things

You can cancel

Any month-to-month program, any time, by email or through Stripe. Cancellation takes effect at the end of the current billing period (or the end of the initial term, if you're still in one). No cancellation fee. We'd appreciate knowing why, but you don't owe us a reason.

We can end things too

On 30 days' notice for any reason. Immediately if payment is more than 30 days overdue, if you use the services for something illegal or harmful, if you ask us to do something that breaks the law or a platform's rules, or if working together has become abusive. If we end a program for our own convenience partway through a period, we refund the unused part of that month.

The hand-off

When a program ends, for 30 days afterwards we will: give you a copy of your website files and content; transfer any domain, hosting, email or platform account that's in your name or that we hold for you; and hand over logins. After that we may delete anything we still hold. Hosting we provide ends with the program, so if you want the site to stay up you'll need somewhere to put it — we'll point you there and help with the move within your remaining retainer hours, or quote it if it's bigger.

Sections on ownership, confidentiality, liability, indemnity and disputes keep applying after the agreement ends.

07What we need from you

The work goes fast when we have what we need. You agree to:

• Give us the content, images, logos, logins and access we ask for, reasonably promptly. Delays on your side move the timeline, not the price.
• Review things when we send them. If we've asked for approval and haven't heard back in 10 business days, we'll treat it as approved so the work doesn't stall — we'll always say so in the request.
• Make sure you have the right to use everything you give us — photos, text, logos, music, customer lists, other people's names. If a photographer, a franchise or a former web designer owns something, that's yours to sort out.
• Keep your own logins secure and tell us straight away if you think an account has been compromised.
• Follow the law and the rules of the platforms we use for you (Google, Meta, Stripe, your email provider and so on). If a platform suspends you for something you asked us to do, that's on you; if it's for something we did wrong, it's on us.
• Give us one main contact who can make decisions.

08Who owns what

You own the deliverables. When a build is paid in full, the website, app, designs, copy and content we made specifically for you belong to you, with no licence back to us needed. A build we did for free or at a discount counts as paid at go-live, as long as you've kept up your side of the program it was tied to (including any initial term).

Accounts are in your name. Domains, hosting, Google Business Profile, social accounts, Stripe, email — we set these up in your name (or transfer them to you) so you're never held hostage. We're the anti-Yellow-Pages on purpose.

We keep our tools. Anything we had before we met you or that we use across many clients — templates, code libraries, automations, prompts, workflows, the way we do things — stays ours. Where any of it is baked into your deliverable, you get a permanent, free licence to keep using it as part of that deliverable. You can't extract it and resell it as a product.

Your content stays yours. Everything you give us stays your property. You give us permission to use it only to do the work.

Portfolio. Unless you tell us in writing not to, we can name you as a client and show the work we did for you (screenshots, results, a short case study) on our site and in proposals. We'll never publish your private numbers, customer data or anything you've marked confidential, and we'll take something down promptly if you ask.

Third-party stuff. Fonts, stock elements, plug-ins, hosting platforms and software from other companies stay under their own licences. We'll only use ones that allow the use we're making of them.

09Working in your name: the Desk, social and email

Some programs have us acting on your behalf — answering enquiries, posting to your social accounts, sending emails and messages to your customers, updating your site, replying to reviews. For that work:

• We only do what you've allowed. The service list and any written instructions from you define what we can do without asking. Anything outside it — spending money, making offers, changing prices, deleting things, contacting the press, anything legal or financial — we'll ask first.
• You're responsible for what you approve. If you approve a post, a reply, an email or a change, you own it once it's out. We'll tell you before something goes live where the program says we will, and the Desk keeps an undo window on changes where it can.
• Marketing email and texts follow CASL. We'll only send commercial messages on your behalf to people you're entitled to contact under Canada's Anti-Spam Legislation, with an unsubscribe link and your identity on every message. Keeping your consent records in order is your job; we'll help you set it up.
• We can't promise how platforms behave. Google, Meta and the rest change their rules and algorithms whenever they like. We'll follow their rules and best practice; we can't guarantee reach, rankings, followers, reviews, leads or sales.
• We'll refuse some things. Fake reviews, misleading claims, content that infringes someone else's rights, or anything a platform forbids. We'll explain why and suggest something that works.

10Websites, hosting and third-party services

Hosting. Where a program includes hosting, we host your site on a reputable provider we choose and keep it running. We aim for it to be up all the time, but the internet has bad days; we don't guarantee uptime, and we're not responsible for outages at the provider, your domain registrar, or the network in between. We keep backups and will restore from the latest one if something goes wrong.

Domains. Your domain is registered in your name and renews on your card or ours as agreed. If it lapses because a renewal wasn't paid, we're not responsible for the fallout — but we'll warn you before it happens where we can.

Third-party services (Stripe, Google Workspace, Meta, booking systems, ticketing, accounting software, AI providers and so on) have their own terms, prices and privacy policies, and you're accepting those when you use them. Their fees are yours unless your proposal says otherwise. If one of them shuts down, changes its pricing or removes a feature, we'll find a reasonable alternative, and rebuilding around it is new work if it's substantial.

Legal pages and compliance. We'll include the standard pieces a site needs — privacy policy, accessibility basics, cookie notice where one's required, security headers — based on what you tell us about your business. You're responsible for confirming they're right for your industry (some fields have specific rules) and for keeping them accurate as your business changes. We're not lawyers, and nothing we build is legal advice.

11AI-assisted tools

We build and run things with AI-assisted tools — for writing, design, code, research, and for automations that operate while everyone's asleep. That's how we do good work at a small-business price. What it means for you:

• A person at Nisse is accountable for everything we deliver. AI drafts; we decide.
• Some of your content and data may be processed by AI providers to do the work. We use providers whose terms don't allow them to train on our clients' data, and we don't feed them more than the job needs. If you'd prefer certain information never touch an AI tool, tell us and we'll work around it.
• AI-generated output can be wrong. Anything that matters — a price, a legal claim, a date, a customer promise — you should check before it goes out, and our approval steps exist so you can.
• Automations act on rules you've agreed to. You can pause any automation by asking us, and we'll build in a stop switch wherever it makes sense.

12Privacy and confidentiality

Confidential. Each of us will keep the other's non-public business information confidential and use it only for the work — your numbers, customers, plans and logins; our pricing, methods and tools. This doesn't cover information that's already public, that we already had, or that the law requires us to disclose. It lasts for as long as we work together and three years after.

Personal information. We handle personal information under Canada's federal privacy law (PIPEDA) and any provincial law that applies. When we handle your customers' personal information on your behalf (enquiries, bookings, email lists), you're the one responsible for it and we're processing it for you: we'll use it only for the work, keep it reasonably secure, tell you promptly if we learn of a breach affecting it, and delete or return it when the program ends. You're responsible for having the right to collect it and for your own privacy policy.

Our own privacy policy — how we handle information about you — is on heynisse.ca.

Security. We use sensible measures: separate logins per client, two-factor authentication where platforms offer it, no sharing of passwords over insecure channels. No system is perfectly secure, and we don't promise that ours is.

13Fixes, support and what we don't promise

Builds: 30-day bug fix. If something we built doesn't work the way the proposal said, tell us within 30 days of go-live and we'll fix it at no charge. This covers things that are broken, not things you've changed your mind about; new features and changes of scope are quoted.

Programs: ongoing. While you're on a program that covers a site or automation, we keep it working — fixing bugs, applying updates, and repairing anything we can reasonably repair — as part of the monthly fee. Damage caused by someone else's changes, a third-party outage, or a platform change that requires a rebuild is new work.

Response times. We answer within one business day (Ottawa time). Urgent things — site down, payments failing — we treat as urgent. We're a small studio, not a 24-hour call centre, even though the systems we build for you run overnight.

What we don't promise. Apart from what's written in these terms and your proposal, the services are provided as they are. We don't guarantee particular results — visitors, rankings, followers, leads, revenue, time saved — because those depend on your business, your market and platforms we don't control. We don't guarantee the services will be uninterrupted or error-free. Any implied warranties that the law lets us exclude, we exclude.

14Limits on liability

To the extent the law allows, neither of us is liable to the other for indirect or consequential losses — lost profits, lost revenue, lost data, lost business, damage to reputation — however they arise, even if we were told they were possible. This cap and exclusion don't apply to anything the law won't let us limit, to either side's fraud, to death or personal injury caused by negligence, to a breach of the confidentiality section, or to your obligation to pay what you owe.

Practically: we carry risk in proportion to what you pay us. A $400-a-month program can't carry a $400,000 problem, and we'd rather say that plainly here than in court.

Any claim must be started within one year of when you knew, or should have known, about the problem.

15Things you agree to cover us for

If someone brings a claim against us because of content or instructions you gave us — a photo you didn't have rights to, a claim about your product that wasn't true, an email list you weren't allowed to email, a customer's data you shouldn't have collected, or anything else that's your responsibility under these terms — you'll cover our reasonable costs, including legal fees, of dealing with it. We'll tell you promptly, let you run the defence if you want to, and not settle without asking you.

In the same way, if someone claims that something we created (not something you gave us) infringes their rights, we'll cover your reasonable costs of dealing with it, and we'll fix or replace the offending piece.

16Changes to these terms

We'll update these terms now and then. When we do, we'll post the new version here with a new effective date and email active clients at least 30 days before a change that affects a running program. If you keep paying after that date, you've accepted the new version. If you don't like a change, cancel before it takes effect. A signed agreement isn't changed by an update to this page.

17Disputes and governing law

Talk first. If something's gone wrong, email us and we'll try to fix it within 15 business days. Most things get sorted with one honest conversation.

Then mediate. If that doesn't work, either side can ask for mediation in Ottawa with a mediator we both agree on, costs split evenly.

Then the courts. These terms are governed by the laws of Ontario and the federal laws of Canada that apply there. The courts of Ontario, sitting in Ottawa, have exclusive jurisdiction, and each of us agrees to that. Either side can go straight to Small Claims Court for claims within its limit, or to court for an injunction to stop a breach of the ownership or confidentiality sections.

18The legal housekeeping

• Electronic agreement. Ticking "I agree", paying, or replying "go ahead" by email is a valid signature and binds you the same as ink. We keep a record of when and how you accepted.
• Whole agreement. These terms, your proposal or quote, any signed agreement and the checkout page together are the whole deal. Anything said in conversation that isn't in one of them doesn't count, in either direction.
• Independent businesses. We're a contractor, not your employee, partner or agent beyond the specific things you've authorised us to do in your name.
• Passing this on. You can't transfer your agreement with us to someone else without asking. We can transfer it to a company that buys or merges with Nisse, and we'll tell you if that happens. We may use trusted subcontractors and are responsible for their work.
• Things beyond our control. Neither of us is on the hook for delays caused by things like outages, natural disasters, strikes, government orders or a platform going down — but payment for work already done is still owed.
• If a piece is unenforceable, the rest still stands and the piece is read as narrowly as needed to be valid.
• Waiving something once isn't waiving it forever.
• Notices go by email: to us at hello@heynisse.ca, to you at the address on your Stripe account or proposal. They count as received the next business day.
• Language. These terms are in English. Les parties ont convenu que les présentes conditions soient rédigées en anglais.

Questions about any of this? hello@heynisse.ca. We'd rather explain it than have you guess.