Terms

Who we are

Rivendel is run by Rivendel Ltd, a company registered in England and Wales, at 86-90 Paul Street, London EC2A 4NE.

When these terms say “we”, “us” or “Rivendel”, they mean Rivendel Ltd. “You” means the person who signs up.

These terms are the agreement between you and us. You agree to them when you create an account. Our Privacy policy explains how we look after your information and your customers’ details.

You can reach us any time at team@rivendelapp.com.

What Rivendel does

Rivendel builds a business around your idea or skill, then runs it for you every day. For each business you get:

• A name, a logo and a look, chosen by you from three.
• A website at its own web address, with orders, payments or bookings.
• A business email, with routine questions answered for you.
• Your phone photos, edited for your shop and posts.
• Posts for Instagram, Facebook, TikTok and X.
• Work to get your business found on Google and named in AI answers.
• Email campaigns to past customers, and a review asked for after every order.
• New leads, found and contacted for you.
• Ads, run only with your yes, from your ad wallet.
• Chat with us, and an update every Monday with the numbers and what we’d do next.

Software does the routine work, and people at Rivendel check what matters. You can talk to a person any time.

We sell one thing: a business, built and run for you. We don’t sell courses, starter kits or stock, and you never recruit anyone.

Who can use Rivendel

• You must be 18 or over.
• You must use Rivendel for a business you run or are starting.
• You must give us accurate information, and keep it up to date.
• Each person can have one account. You can run more than one business from it, each with its own plan.
• If you sign up for a company or another organisation, you must be allowed to agree to these terms for it.

Your account

• Keep your password safe, and don’t share your account with anyone.
• If you think someone else has got into your account, tell us straight away at team@rivendelapp.com.
• You’re responsible for what happens in your account, unless it happened because we did something wrong.
• Keep your email address up to date. It’s where we send receipts and anything important about your account.

Plans and payment

Each business has its own plan, paid monthly in US dollars:

• Growth: $49.99 a month, plus 4% of sales. Up to 500 posts, emails and pages a month.
• Scale: $99.99 a month, plus 4% of sales. Up to 1,500 posts, emails and pages a month.
• House: $199 a month, plus 4% of sales. Up to 3,000 posts, emails and pages a month.

Every plan builds and runs the whole business. The difference is how much work we do each month.

There’s no setup fee. You pay for your first month when you start, then once a month on the same date. Your plan renews by itself each month until you cancel.

You can change plans whenever you like. The new price applies from your next payment.

Prices don’t include tax. Where we must charge tax, such as VAT or sales tax, we add it and show it before you pay.

If your card isn’t in US dollars, your bank may charge a fee for changing the money. That fee is between you and your bank.

We email you a receipt for every payment. If we change the price of your plan, we email you at least 30 days before, and you can cancel before it starts.

If a payment fails, we tell you and try again. If it’s still unpaid 14 days after it was due, we may pause the work on your business. After 30 days, we treat it as if you’d cancelled, and hand everything over as set out under Leaving.

Our 4% of sales

Customers pay through Stripe. We keep 4% of each sale and send the rest to your bank.

Website builders charge every month for tools, whether you sell or not. Our 4% pays for finding you customers: Google, AI answers, social posts, email, reviews and new leads. We earn more only when you sell more.

The 4% is taken from the price the customer pays, before Stripe’s own fees or after them, as shown in your account. Refunds you give a customer reduce the sale, and we return our 4% of it.

Ad money

Ad money is separate from your plan and from the 4%. You put it in your ad wallet, and you choose how much.

• We spend it only on ads for your business, and only ads you’ve said yes to.
• When your wallet is empty, ads stop and your team asks you before anything else is spent.
• You can add more, take some out or set it to nothing, any time.
• Ad money you don’t spend stays yours, and comes back to you when you stop.
• We don’t take a cut of your ad money.

Ads run on other companies’ services, such as Instagram, Facebook, TikTok and Google. They set the price of each ad and their own rules, and they can turn down or stop an ad. What they charge, including any tax they add, comes out of your ad money. You can see every amount we spend.

Ad money that’s already been spent can’t come back.

You’re in charge

Every kind of work sits in one of four groups, and you decide where the lines are:

• Done without asking: routine work that can be undone, such as answering routine questions, confirming orders, small website fixes and posts that follow your brand.
• Asks you first: anything that costs money, changes a price or a promise, or can’t be undone. You set the spending limit.
• Only from money you approved: ads spend only from your ad wallet.
• Never: deleting your website or customers, signing anything for you, changing your bank details or sharing customer details.

One switch pauses your team. Nothing new goes out, your website stays up and orders still come in to you.

Every email, post, order and change is recorded in Activity. You can stop work in progress and correct anything your team believes about your business.

Every Monday, your update shows the numbers, what’s working, what isn’t, and our advice. You decide to keep going, change course or close the business, and your decision stands.

What you own

Everything we make for your business is yours. That includes:

• The name and the logo.
• The web address, which we register in your name.
• The website, with its words and pictures.
• The posts, emails and ads.
• Your social media pages, which are set up in your name.
• Your customer list, and your customers’ details.

Whatever rights we have in these things, we give to you. If you need a signed document to prove that, for example to register a trade mark, ask us and we sign one. In some countries, things made with AI aren’t protected by copyright in the same way as things a person makes. That doesn’t change anything between us: they belong to you, not to us.

A few parts, like a font or a stock photo, belong to other people, who let us use them under a licence. You can keep using those parts in your business. Rivendel itself, the software and tools we use, stays ours.

Things you give us, such as photos of your work, stay yours. You let us use, copy, change and publish them only to run your business and keep Rivendel working and secure. We don’t use them to advertise Rivendel unless you say yes.

Before we suggest a name, we check that another business isn’t obviously using it. We can’t check every trade mark in every country. If the name matters a lot to you, check it before you register it. If there’s a problem, we change it.

Your customers’ details

When we run your business, we look after your customers’ details for you: their names, contact details, orders and messages, and those of anyone else who contacts your business. The law calls you the controller of those details, which means you decide what they’re used for. We’re the processor, which means we use them only on your behalf.

So we promise that:

• We use them only to run your business, as these terms and your instructions say. If the law ever makes us do something else, we tell you first, unless the law forbids it.
• If we think an instruction of yours breaks data protection law, we tell you.
• Everyone at Rivendel who sees them keeps them confidential, and we keep them secure.
• We only let other companies help where they make the same promises. Our Privacy policy lists them, and we tell you before we add a new one, so you can object.
• We help you answer a customer who asks to see, correct or delete their details.
• We tell you without delay if their details are lost or seen by someone who shouldn’t see them.
• When you leave, we give them to you and then delete them, as set out under Leaving.
• We give you the information you need to show that we keep these promises.

Some of the companies we use are outside the UK and the EU, for example in the US. Where your customers’ details go there, we use the protections the law requires.

Your part is to collect only what your business needs, and to tell your customers how you use their details. We put a privacy page on your website that does this, and you can ask us to change it.

What you do

We run the business. You do the parts only you can do:

• Make what you sell or do the job, and get it to your customers.
• Set your prices, your spending limit and your ad money.
• Answer the important messages, and make the calls in your Monday update. Most days that takes a few minutes, more on busy days.
• Handle refunds and complaints from your customers. You’re the seller, so your sales are between you and your customers.
• Get the licences, registrations and insurance your business needs, and follow the laws that apply to it, such as safety, food hygiene and tax rules.
• Tell us the truth about you, your business and what you sell, and give us only things you have the right to use.

Our business idea pages explain some of the rules for each kind of business, but they aren’t legal advice. Following those rules is up to you.

If you don’t answer a question, nothing breaks. Work that needs your yes waits, and everything else keeps running.

If someone makes a claim against us because of something you sold, or something you gave us that wasn’t yours to give, you cover our reasonable costs of dealing with it. This doesn’t apply where we caused the problem.

What we do

• We build your business and run it every day, with reasonable care and skill.
• We aim to have your shop ready the same day you tell us about it. Sometimes it takes longer, for example while a web address is set up.
• We ask you before anything in the “asks you first” group, and never do anything in the “never” group.
• We put on your website what the law asks a business website to show, such as your business details and a privacy page. If you sell to the public, we add your delivery, returns and refund rules, using what you tell us. Please check them, because you’re the seller.
• Where the law says people must be told they’re dealing with AI, we tell them.
• AI can make mistakes, even with a person checking. If we get something wrong, tell us, and we fix it.
• We try to keep Rivendel and your website running all the time. If they stop for a while, we fix it as fast as we can.

What we won’t build or run

We won’t build or run a business that involves:

• Anything illegal where you or your customers are.
• Anything unsafe, such as products that don’t meet safety rules.
• Misleading claims, fake reviews, or pretending to be another business.
• Other people’s work, names or photos used without permission.
• Hateful content, or anything that harasses or threatens people.
• Adult or sexual content, weapons, or gambling.
• Get-rich schemes, or schemes where people earn by signing up others.
• Regulated financial, legal or medical advice.
• Marketplaces, social apps, or anything too complex for us to run well.

If we can’t take on your idea, we tell you before you pay. If a business becomes one of these later, we stop running it, as set out under When we can pause or close an account.

No promise of results

We work hard to find you customers, but we can’t promise customers, sales or income. Nobody honestly can.

Most new businesses don’t work out. Your Monday update tells you plainly if yours isn’t working, so you can decide what to do.

The examples on our site, like Ana and Stem & Stone, are made up to show how Rivendel works. Their numbers aren’t a promise of what your business will do.

Other companies’ services

To run your business, we use services from other companies, including:

• AI providers, such as Anthropic, which makes Claude.
• Social media and ad services, such as Meta (Instagram and Facebook), TikTok, X and Google.
• Stripe, which takes payments.
• A registrar for your web address, and the companies that host your website and business email.

Each has its own rules, and those apply too. They can change their rules or prices, turn down an ad, remove a post or close an account. We don’t control them, but we stay responsible for our own work and for how the companies we choose handle your customers’ details.

Some accounts, like your social media pages, need to be in your own name. Where that’s so, we set them up with you and you give us access to run them.

Leaving

You can cancel your plan any time, from your account or by emailing us. There’s no contract, no tie-in and no notice period. If you run more than one business, you can cancel each one on its own.

Your plan runs to the end of the month you’ve paid for, then stops. We don’t refund part months, except where the law says we must or we haven’t given you what you paid for.

When your plan ends, you take everything with you. We:

• Give you full control of your web address, which is already in your name. From then on, its yearly fee is yours to pay.
• Give you a copy of your website, and keep it online for 30 days so you have time to move it.
• Leave your social media pages with you, with every post, and remove our access.
• Give you your customer list and their details, as a spreadsheet.
• Keep your business email working for 30 days, and give you a copy of its emails.
• Stop your ads, and send back unspent ad money within 14 days.

Closing is a normal call. If your Monday update says a business isn’t working and you agree, we close it carefully: your website goes offline on a date you pick, open orders are looked after, your plan stops, and you keep everything.

We keep a copy of everything for 90 days after your plan ends, in case you want to come back. Then we delete it, and copies in our backups are deleted within a further 90 days. We keep only records the law makes us keep, such as invoices for tax.

When we can pause or close an account

We can pause the work on a business, or close an account, if:

• A payment is still unpaid 14 days after it was due, and we’ve reminded you.
• The business turns out to be one we won’t build or run.
• You’ve given us false information about you or your business.
• You break these terms in a serious way, or keep breaking them after we’ve asked you to stop.
• You threaten or abuse the people who work at Rivendel.
• The law, a court or a regulator requires it.

A person at Rivendel always makes this decision, never software alone. Unless it’s urgent, we tell you first, say why, and give you a fair chance to put it right. If we pause a business for a late payment, your website stays up and nothing is deleted.

If we close an account, you still get everything listed under Leaving, including unspent ad money, unless the law stops us. If we close it for a reason that isn’t your fault, we also refund the part of the month you’ve paid for.

If we ever stop offering Rivendel, we tell you at least 60 days before, refund anything you’ve paid for that we won’t provide, and hand everything over.

Our responsibility and its limits

If we break these terms, or don’t work with reasonable care and skill, we’re responsible for loss you suffer that was foreseeable: obvious it could happen, or something we both knew might happen when you signed up.

We aren’t responsible for loss we couldn’t have foreseen; loss caused by something outside our reasonable control, such as a problem at a platform we use; loss caused by something you did or didn’t do; or lost profit, lost sales or lost business chances.

For each business, the most we’ll pay you in total is what you paid us for that business in the 12 months before the problem happened. If we ever spend ad money past your limit or on anything but your ads, we pay it back in full, on top of that.

Nothing in these terms limits our responsibility where the law doesn’t let us, such as for death or personal injury caused by negligence, or fraud. Some places don’t allow some of the limits above; where that’s so, they don’t apply to you.

Your rights as a consumer

If the law where you live treats you as a consumer, you keep every right it gives you. Nothing in these terms takes those rights away.

In the UK, for example, a service must be provided with reasonable care and skill. If it isn’t, you can ask us to put it right, or to give you some of your money back. Citizens Advice can tell you more.

If you’re a consumer in the UK or the EU, you can change your mind within 14 days of paying, without giving a reason. Because we start building straight away when you ask us to, we refund what you paid, less a fair amount for the work done by then. Unspent ad money comes back in full, within 14 days.

Changes to Rivendel and these terms

If we change these terms, or Rivendel itself, in a way that affects you, we email you at least 30 days before. If you don’t agree, you can cancel before the change starts.

Sometimes we may have to make a change sooner, for example because the law changes or to keep people safe. We still tell you as soon as we can.

Small changes that don’t affect you, like fixing a typo, can happen any time. The date at the top shows when these terms last changed.

A few other points

• These terms, your plan and our Privacy policy are the whole agreement between us. If you’re a consumer, what we tell you about Rivendel before you sign up counts as part of it too.
• If we sell Rivendel or move it to another company, we may pass these terms to that company. We’ll tell you, and your rights won’t get worse. If you’re not happy, you can cancel.
• You need our agreement to pass your account to someone else. If you sell your business, tell us and we’ll help move it to the new owner.
• If a court decides part of these terms can’t be used, the rest still applies.
• If we don’t enforce something straight away, we can still do it later.
• Only you and we have rights under these terms.

The law and the courts

The law of England and Wales applies to these terms, and the courts of England and Wales deal with any dispute.

If you’re a consumer, you also keep the protection of the law where you live, and you can take a claim to your own local courts.

If something goes wrong, please tell us first. Most problems are quicker to sort out by email, and we’ll do our best to put things right within 30 days.

Contact us

Email us at team@rivendelapp.com with any question about these terms. We aim to reply within 2 working days.

You can also write to us at 86-90 Paul Street, London EC2A 4NE.