Terms of Service

About us. Kelpie is owned and operated by Kelpie HQ Pty Ltd (ACN 698 837 295) ("Kelpie", "we", "us", or "our"). Our contact details are at the end of these Terms.

What Kelpie is. Kelpie is a software platform (a "vertical SaaS" product) — an end-to-end business operating system built for small Australian call-out trade businesses, including sole traders and teams of roughly 1 to 15 people working in plumbing, electrical, HVAC, painting, landscaping, pest control and similar trades. Kelpie helps you with quoting, scheduling, jobs, payments, invoicing, timesheets and customer management.

Accepting these Terms. By doing any of the following, you accept these Terms and agree to be bound by them:

1. clicking "I agree" (or similar) when you sign up;
2. creating an account or starting a free trial; or
3. accessing or using the Service in any way.

Who is agreeing. If you are using Kelpie on behalf of a business or other organisation (for example, your trade business or company), you confirm that you have authority to bind that business to these Terms, and "you" means both you personally and that business.

Effective date. These Terms take effect on 8 June 2026, and apply from the date you first accept them. We may update these Terms from time to time — see section 15.

You must be 18+. You must be at least 18 years old and able to enter into a legally binding contract to use Kelpie.

Accurate information. When you register, you must provide accurate, current and complete information, and keep it up to date. This includes your business details, ABN, GST status and contact details, which Kelpie uses to help format documents like tax invoices.

Account security. You are responsible for keeping your login credentials confidential and for all activity that happens under your Account, whether or not you authorised it. You must:

1. keep your password secure and not share it;
2. ensure anyone you allow to use your Account (for example, team members) complies with these Terms; and
3. notify us promptly at [email protected] if you suspect any unauthorised access to or use of your Account.

One business per Account. Each Account is intended for a single trade business. You may add team members within the limits of your plan.

We may refuse or close accounts. We may refuse to register, or may suspend or close, an Account where we reasonably believe these Terms have been breached or where required by law (see section 14).

Free trial. We may offer a free trial of the Service. The trial gives you access to some or all features for a limited time. We may change or withdraw trial offers at any time. At the end of the trial, you will need a paid Subscription to keep using the Service, and your Account may be limited or deactivated if you do not subscribe.

Paid Subscriptions. After any free trial, access to the Service requires a paid Subscription. We offer:

1. a monthly Subscription, billed each month; and
2. an annual Subscription, billed once each year (usually at a discount).

The plans, features and prices available are shown on our website or in the Service at the time you subscribe.

Billing through Stripe. Subscription fees are billed and processed through Stripe. By subscribing, you authorise us (via Stripe) to charge your nominated payment method for the applicable fees, including on each renewal, until you cancel. You must keep a valid payment method on file.

Auto-renewal. IMPORTANT: SUBSCRIPTIONS RENEW AUTOMATICALLY. Unless you cancel before the end of your current billing period, your Subscription will automatically renew for another period of the same length (monthly renews monthly; annual renews annually), and your payment method will be charged the then-current fee for that period.

Taxes. Fees are stated inclusive or exclusive of GST as shown at checkout. You are responsible for any taxes that apply to your purchase, other than taxes on our income.

Failed payments. If a payment fails, we may retry it, and we may suspend or limit your access to the Service until payment is received. You remain responsible for fees owing for periods in which you had access.

Price changes. We may change our Subscription prices from time to time. If we increase the price of your plan, we will give you reasonable advance notice (at least 30 days) by email or in the Service. Price changes take effect from your next renewal after the notice period. If you don't agree to a price change, you can cancel before it takes effect (see section 5).

You can cancel anytime. You may cancel your Subscription at any time through your Account settings, or by contacting us at [email protected].

When cancellation takes effect. When you cancel, your Subscription will continue until the end of the period you have already paid for, and will then not renew. You keep access to the paid features until the end of that period.

Your ACL rights are not affected. Nothing in this section limits any right you have to a refund or remedy under the Consumer Guarantees in the ACL. If the Service fails to meet a Consumer Guarantee, you may be entitled to a remedy under the law, and section 13 explains how that works.

General. You must use the Service lawfully, honestly, and only for your legitimate business purposes. You are responsible for everything done through your Account.

You must not. You must not (and must not allow anyone else to):

1. use the Service to break any law, or to infringe anyone's rights (including privacy or Intellectual Property Rights);
2. upload or send anything unlawful, misleading, defamatory, harassing, or that contains malware or harmful code;
3. collect, store or use End-Customer data in breach of privacy laws or without the necessary consents (see section 8);
4. attempt to gain unauthorised access to the Service, other accounts, or our systems, or interfere with or disrupt the Service;
5. copy, modify, reverse engineer, decompile, or attempt to extract the source code of the Service, except to the extent the law expressly allows;
6. resell, sublicense, rent or otherwise commercially exploit the Service or make it available to third parties outside your own business, except as we permit;
7. use the Service to send spam or unsolicited communications in breach of the Spam Act 2003 (Cth) or similar laws;
8. use automated means (scraping, bots) to access the Service in a way that is not permitted or that places an unreasonable load on our systems; or
9. use the Service to facilitate fraudulent or sham transactions through the payment features.

Consequences. If you breach this section, we may suspend or terminate your access (see section 14), and you may be responsible for any loss or liability that results.

We own Kelpie. Kelpie HQ Pty Ltd (and our licensors) owns all Intellectual Property Rights in the Service — including the Kelpie platform, software, source code, design, branding, "Kelpie" name and logos, and all related documentation. Nothing in these Terms transfers any of that to you.

Your licence to use Kelpie. We grant you a limited, non-exclusive, non-transferable, revocable licence to access and use the Service for your own business purposes during your Subscription, in accordance with these Terms.

Feedback. If you give us feedback, suggestions or ideas about the Service, we may use them freely to improve Kelpie without any obligation to you.

Your data stays yours. We do not claim ownership of your Customer Data — see section 8.

You own your Customer Data. As between you and us, you own all Customer Data. You are responsible for your Customer Data and for how you collect, use and share it.

Licence you grant to us. To run the Service for you, you grant Kelpie a worldwide, non-exclusive, royalty-free licence to host, store, copy, process, transmit, display and back up your Customer Data, solely as needed to provide, maintain, secure and support the Service (and as otherwise permitted by these Terms and our Privacy Policy). This licence ends when your Customer Data is deleted in accordance with section 14, except for backups kept for a limited period and any records we must keep by law.

Your responsibility for your data and End-Customers. You are responsible for:

1. the accuracy, quality and legality of your Customer Data;
2. having the right to enter and use the Customer Data (including any personal information about your End-Customers and team members);
3. complying with the Privacy Act 1988 (Cth) and the Australian Privacy Principles (where they apply to you), and obtaining any consents you need from your End-Customers to enter their details into Kelpie and to contact, quote, invoice or collect payment from them; and
4. your relationship and dealings with your End-Customers, including the work you do for them and any agreements you have with them.

We are not responsible for your End-Customer relationships. Kelpie gives you tools to manage your End-Customers, but we are not a party to any agreement between you and your End-Customers, and we are not responsible for those relationships or for the work you provide.

Privacy. Our handling of personal information is described in our Privacy Policy, which forms part of these Terms.

How payments work in Kelpie. Kelpie includes features that let you request and collect payments from your End-Customers — for example, by sending an invoice or payment link. These payments are processed by Stripe, not by Kelpie.

Your Stripe account and Stripe's terms. To use the payment features, you must have or create a Stripe account and accept Stripe's terms. Your use of Stripe is governed by Stripe's own agreements (including the Stripe Services Agreement and Connected Account Agreement). Stripe — not Kelpie — is responsible for payment processing, settlement, payouts, KYC/identity checks, and compliance with payment card and financial services rules.

Disputes and chargebacks. Any dispute, chargeback or refund between you and an End-Customer is a matter between you, your End-Customer and (where relevant) Stripe. You are responsible for resolving these, including any amounts, reversals or fees. Kelpie has no obligation to mediate, fund or resolve them, although we may pass on information to help you.

Refunds to End-Customers. If you choose to refund an End-Customer, that is your decision and your responsibility, processed through Stripe. Kelpie does not control or fund those refunds.

Integrations. The Service may rely on or connect with third-party services (such as Stripe for payments, accounting software like Xero and QuickBooks, and other integrations, hosting, email or mapping providers). These are provided by third parties, not by Kelpie.

Their terms apply. Your use of any third-party service is governed by that third party's own terms and privacy policies. You are responsible for reviewing and complying with them. To the extent permitted by law, Kelpie is not responsible for third-party services, their availability, or anything they do or fail to do.

Changes to integrations. Third parties may change, limit or discontinue their services. If that affects Kelpie, we'll do our best to adapt, but we're not responsible for the third party's decisions.

Accounting software you connect. Kelpie lets you connect accounting software such as Xero and QuickBooks Online (provided by Intuit) so your invoices and related records can sync to your books. If you choose to connect it, you authorise Kelpie to exchange the relevant data with that software, as described in our Privacy Policy. Your use of that software is governed by the provider's own terms and privacy policy (for example, Intuit's and Xero's), you remain responsible for the accounting and tax records you keep in it, and you can disconnect the integration at any time. To the maximum extent permitted by law, Kelpie is not responsible for the accounting software itself, for what the provider does with the data, or for the accuracy of records once they are in it.

IMPORTANT — KELPIE DOES NOT PROVIDE PROFESSIONAL ADVICE. Kelpie gives you tools for things like invoicing, GST handling, ABN fields, and tax-invoice formatting. These are software tools only.

Kelpie does not provide tax, accounting, bookkeeping, legal or financial advice, and nothing in the Service should be relied on as such advice.

You are responsible for compliance. You are solely responsible for:

1. the accuracy and completeness of the information you enter (including ABN, GST status, amounts and customer details);
2. whether your invoices, tax invoices and records meet your legal requirements (including Australian Taxation Office (ATO) and GST rules); and
3. your own tax, GST, ABN, record-keeping, business and legal obligations.

Get your own advice. You should obtain independent advice from a qualified accountant, tax agent or lawyer about your specific situation. The fact that Kelpie formats a document a certain way does not mean it is correct or compliant for your circumstances.

"As is" / "as available". To the maximum extent permitted by law (and subject always to the Consumer Guarantees — see section 13), the Service is provided on an "as is" and "as available" basis, without warranties of any kind.

No uptime guarantee / no SLA. We work hard to keep Kelpie running well, but we do not guarantee that the Service will be uninterrupted, error-free, or available at any particular time. There is no service level agreement (SLA) or uptime commitment. The Service may be unavailable due to maintenance, updates, technical issues, or events beyond our reasonable control.

Support. We provide support by email and chat on a best-effort basis during normal business hours. We don't guarantee response or resolution times.

Backups. While we take reasonable steps to back up data, you are responsible for keeping your own copies of important Customer Data (see sections 8 and 14).

Your rights under the ACL come first. Our goods and services come with guarantees that cannot be excluded under the ACL. NOTHING IN THESE TERMS EXCLUDES, RESTRICTS OR MODIFIES ANY CONSUMER GUARANTEE, RIGHT OR REMEDY THAT APPLIES TO YOU UNDER THE ACL OR ANY OTHER LAW WHERE IT WOULD BE UNLAWFUL TO DO SO. If any part of these Terms would have that effect, it does not apply to that extent.

For major failures. Where the Consumer Guarantees apply and there is a major failure with the Service, you may be entitled to cancel your Subscription and receive a refund for the unused portion, or compensation for any reduced value, and to compensation for other reasonably foreseeable loss or damage. For failures that don't amount to a major failure, you may be entitled to have the problem fixed within a reasonable time, and if it can't be, to cancel and receive a refund for the unused portion.

Limiting our liability where the law allows. Subject to section 13.1, and to the maximum extent permitted by law:

1. Where our liability arises from a failure to comply with a Consumer Guarantee (and the guarantee can be limited under the ACL), our liability is limited, at our option, to:
   1. re-supplying the Service (or the relevant part of it); or
   2. paying the cost of having the Service re-supplied.
2. We are not liable to you for any indirect, incidental, special or consequential loss, or for any loss of profits, revenue, anticipated savings, business, goodwill, opportunity, or loss or corruption of data, however it arises.
3. Our total aggregate liability to you for all claims arising out of or in connection with these Terms or the Service (whether in contract, tort (including negligence), under statute or otherwise) is limited to the total Subscription fees you actually paid to us for the Service in the 12 months immediately before the event giving rise to the liability.

Things we are not responsible for. To the maximum extent permitted by law, and subject to section 13.1, we are not liable for loss or damage to the extent it is caused by:

1. your breach of these Terms, or your negligence or misuse of the Service;
2. the accuracy, legality or completeness of your Customer Data, or your tax/GST/ABN/record-keeping or other compliance obligations (see section 11);
3. payment transactions between you and your End-Customers, including disputes, chargebacks, refunds, payouts and Stripe's acts or omissions (see section 9);
4. third-party services (see section 10);
5. Customer Data lost after the 30-day grace period, or after a deletion you requested (see section 14); or
6. events beyond our reasonable control.

Your indemnity to us. To the maximum extent permitted by law, you agree to indemnify and hold harmless Kelpie HQ Pty Ltd and its officers, employees and contractors from and against any claims, losses, liabilities, damages, costs and expenses (including reasonable legal costs) arising out of or in connection with:

1. your breach of these Terms;
2. your Customer Data, or your collection, use or sharing of it (including any breach of privacy laws or of an End-Customer's rights);
3. your dealings, work, agreements or disputes with your End-Customers; or
4. your use of the payment features, including disputes, chargebacks and refunds.

This indemnity is reduced to the extent the relevant claim was caused by our own breach of these Terms, negligence or wrongful act.

Fair allocation. You acknowledge that the pricing of the Service reflects the allocation of risk in this section, and that these limits are reasonable in the circumstances.

You can cancel anytime. You may cancel your Subscription and close your Account at any time (see section 5).

We can terminate or suspend. We may suspend or terminate your access to the Service, with or without notice, if:

1. you breach these Terms (including non-payment or prohibited conduct);
2. we reasonably believe it is necessary to protect the Service, other users, or any person; or
3. we are required to do so by law.

We may also terminate for convenience by giving you reasonable notice, in which case we will not charge you for periods after termination and (where required) will refund any pre-paid fees for the unused period.

What happens on cancellation or termination. When your Account is cancelled or terminated:

1. your right to access and use the Service ends;
2. your Account is deactivated; and
3. your Customer Data is retained in a recoverable state for a grace period of 30 days, during which you can log in to export your Customer Data.

Permanent deletion. After the 30-day grace period expires, we will permanently delete your Customer Data from our active systems. Residual copies may remain in routine backups for a limited period and will be overwritten in the ordinary course, and we may retain data where we are required or permitted to by law.

Earlier deletion on request. You may ask us to delete your Customer Data earlier than the end of the grace period by contacting [email protected]. If you do, the warning in section 14.4 applies — make sure you have exported everything you need first, because the deletion is permanent and cannot be reversed.

Fees on termination. Termination does not entitle you to a refund except as required by the ACL (see section 5) or where we terminate for convenience under section 14.2. Any fees you owe up to the date of termination remain payable.

Clauses that survive. Sections that by their nature should continue after termination will survive, including sections 7 (IP), 8 (Customer Data responsibilities), 11 (No professional advice), 13 (Liability and indemnity), 14 (this section), 16 (Governing law) and the definitions.

Changes to the Service. We're always improving Kelpie. We may add, change, limit or remove features from time to time. We'll try to avoid materially reducing the core functionality you rely on, but where we make significant changes we'll give you reasonable notice where practical.

Changes to these Terms. We may update these Terms from time to time — for example, to reflect changes to the Service, the law, or our business. If we make a material change, we will give you reasonable advance notice by email or in the Service before it takes effect.

Your choice. If you don't agree to an updated version of these Terms, you can cancel your Subscription before the changes take effect (see section 5). If you keep using the Service after the changes take effect, you accept the updated Terms.

Current version. The current version of these Terms is always available on our website. The "Effective date" at the top shows when this version took effect.

These Terms are governed by the laws of the State of Victoria, Australia.

You and Kelpie submit to the non-exclusive jurisdiction of the courts of Victoria, Australia and the courts that can hear appeals from them. This does not limit any rights you have to bring proceedings, or to access dispute resolution or consumer protection bodies, where the law allows.

Let's try to sort it out first. Before starting formal proceedings (and except where urgent relief is needed), please contact us so we can try to resolve any issue with you directly and in good faith.

Entire agreement. These Terms (together with any policies they refer to, such as our Privacy Policy) are the entire agreement between you and us about the Service, and replace any earlier understanding about it.

Severability. If any part of these Terms is found to be invalid or unenforceable, that part is read down or removed only to the extent necessary, and the rest of the Terms continue to apply.

No waiver. If we don't enforce a right under these Terms straight away, that doesn't mean we've given up that right.

Assignment. You may not transfer your rights or obligations under these Terms without our written consent. We may transfer ours (for example, as part of a sale or restructure of our business) where doing so doesn't materially reduce your rights.

No agency. Nothing in these Terms creates a partnership, joint venture, agency or employment relationship between you and us.