Where this applies.

WHEN IT PAYS

Where the data is the point

Some organisations hold data that is the substance of what they do rather than a by-product of it: case files, patient records, drawings, evidence, research. For those, where the data physically sits and who else can technically reach it is not an IT question. It is the question.

A hosted service answers it with a policy document. An open deployment on a machine you control answers it with a machine you control, and the difference shows up the first time somebody asks you to prove it.

• Legal and professional practice, where privilege is a duty rather than a preference
• Health and social care, where the record follows a person for decades
• Research and engineering, where the working material is the intellectual property
• Public bodies and their suppliers, who have to answer for the estate in public

WHEN IT PAYS

Where per-user pricing has stopped working

Per-seat licensing is a fine model until the number of seats stops matching the value of the work. A charity with two hundred volunteers, a school with a thousand pupils, a manufacturer whose shop floor logs in twice a week — each of them pays for presence rather than use.

A server costs what a server costs. Ours is priced that way for the same reason: it is the honest shape of the underlying cost, and it means growing does not become a reason to move off.

• Education, where the population is large, seasonal and mostly idle
• Charities and membership organisations, where headcount is not budget
• Manufacturing and field operations, where most people are not at a desk
• Anyone whose seat count has grown faster than their revenue

WHEN IT PAYS

Where leaving has to stay possible

The cost of a platform is not its price. It is the price plus what it would take to leave, and the second figure is usually unknown until somebody tries.

Open protocols and open formats keep that figure knowable. It is why the exit is written into our terms rather than negotiated at the end, and why the handover is the deployment itself — database, file store and configuration — rather than an export.

• Regulated industries, where a supplier failure is an operational risk on a register
• Cross-border groups, where one jurisdiction changing its mind cannot be allowed to stop the others
• Anyone who has been through a migration and does not intend to be trapped again

WHEN IT DOES NOT

When you should not call us

Open infrastructure is a commitment to running something. Where nobody on your side is going to own that relationship, a hosted product is genuinely the better answer and we will say so rather than sell you the other thing.

• Where a mainstream hosted product already does the job and nothing about your data makes it a problem
• Where the deciding factor is the lowest possible price this quarter
• Where what is actually wanted is somebody to blame rather than somebody to fix it

We would rather lose the work than take it on those terms, and saying so here is cheaper for both of us than finding out in month three.

THE FIRST STEP

The same first piece of work, in any of these

Whichever situation above brought you here, the first engagement is the same and it is deliberately small: a reading of the estate as it really is, written up, with a recommendation that is allowed to be "stay where you are". It has to be cheap enough to commission before anyone is committed to an outcome, or it stops being an assessment and becomes a proposal.

Nothing about it obliges either side to go on afterwards, and the parts we would leave exactly where they are get named in it rather than left out of it.

The assessment

From 3 days at 110 EUR an hour, fixed against a written scope

Setup, if you go on

590 EUR once, invoiced before the work begins

The machine

From 39 EUR a month on hardware you hold, or from 69 EUR a month on ours

Never

A charge per person, in any sector, at any size

Tax

No VAT is added: we are not registered for it, so the figure shown is the whole figure.

• Every system in daily use, what it costs once the labour is counted, and when each contractual tie next comes up
• Where the data physically sits, in fact rather than in the terms, and who else can technically reach it
• Which obligations actually apply to you, separated from the ones assumed because a competitor mentions them
• Three-year cost both ways, a risk register in the order the risks would bite, and a scope and price for the next stage if there is to be one

The sizes page explains machine capacity, /pricing collects the figures, and the use cases page describes common engagements.

WHATEVER THE SECTOR

What is agreed in time

None of these periods moves with the sector, the size of the organisation or the size of the machine. Each names the clause it comes from, so it can be read in full before anything is signed.

Before anything starts

An order becomes a contract when we confirm it in writing, and anything said before that is an estimate. Setup begins once the first invoice is paid and you have provided what the deployment needs: a domain, access to the machine where it is yours, and any directory we are asked to join. Clause 4.

A support request, standard

2 in 30 days, answered within 2 working days, included with the machine. Working hours, Monday to Friday, excluding public holidays: a request sent on Friday evening is answered on the next working day.

A support request, priority

4 in 30 days, answered within 8 working hours, at 199 EUR a month. The same working hours. Anything past either allowance is charged at 110 EUR an hour.

An invoice

Payable within 14 days. Setup once before the work begins, maintenance monthly in advance, and work outside the agreed scope quoted before it starts and invoiced when it is done. Clause 5.

A price change

At least 30 days before it applies to you, and never to a month already invoiced. Clause 5.

A change to these documents

At least 30 days before a material change applies, and you may end the contract before it takes effect. The date a version came into force is printed on the document, with every earlier date listed under it. Clause 14.

Notice to stop

1 month in writing, either way. No reason is required and there is no exit fee of any kind. Clause 13.

A breach

Either side may end it at once where the other commits a material breach and has not fixed it within 14 days of being told. Clause 13.

Your data after you stop

Personal data we hold for you as processor is deleted within 30 days of termination, sooner if you ask, unless the law requires us to keep it. Clause 13.

Cancelling as a consumer

Where you ordered as an individual rather than as an organisation, 14 days from the day the contract is made, and the refund within 14 days of your telling us, less the value of any work you asked us to begin inside the window. Clauses 4 and 5a.

Start and delivery dates are agreed in the written scope before the first invoice. Support is counted in working hours under clause 6 of the terms.

WHATEVER THE SECTOR

If it does not suit

The section above this one says when you should not call us. This says what happens when you decide that for yourself, or when the work is not what was agreed.

If the answer is not to proceed

An assessment that ends in stay where you are is a finished piece of work, and the invoice is the same as one that ends in a build. That is the outcome we are paid for rather than the outcome we prefer, and it is why the assessment is priced small enough to commission before anyone is committed.

If the work is not what was agreed

Where you ordered as a consumer the Consumer Rights Act 2015 requires it to be carried out with reasonable care and skill and lets you require the work to be done again, or the price reduced; no contract can take that away and clause 5a says so. Where you ordered as an organisation, clause 12 limits our total liability in any twelve-month period to what you paid us in it, and nothing above that figure is promised.

If you want to leave

1 month's notice, either way, and the act of leaving costs nothing. You get the deployment as it stands — database, file store and configuration — rather than a farewell export, and access is withdrawn on request. Handover work is charged at 110 EUR an hour; leaving is not. Clause 13, and the leaving page in full.

If we would be the wrong supplier

Where a mainstream hosted product already does the job, nobody on your side will own the result, or the deciding factor is the lowest price this quarter, we would decline the work. We would rather lose it than find out in month three.

If something is broken

An outage is counted and never charged, on either support level. There is no availability promise behind that and clause 7 says so: what is promised is how quickly we answer, not that nothing will fail.

Every line above is in the terms of service, the data processing agreement or the leaving page, all three published in full before anyone is asked to sign anything. Where one of them changes it changes there first and here second, and the date it took effect is printed on the document.

In force

This document has been in force since 5 September 2026.