StarlingTek

Legal

Terms of service

Draft, pending review. This is a starting draft that a lawyer hasn't reviewed yet. Effective date: November 9, 2026.

These terms cover this website and the services StarlingTek provides. Paid work and hosting are also covered by the StarlingTek service agreement. If the two ever disagree, the service agreement wins for the paid work it covers.

1. Accepting these terms

These terms are an agreement between you and [[LEGAL_ENTITY_NAME]] ("StarlingTek", "we", "us"). By using this website, or by signing up for or paying for any of our services, you agree to them. If you're agreeing on behalf of a business or other organization, you confirm you're allowed to bind it, and "you" means that organization.

If you don't agree, please don't use the services.

2. Our services

We offer three things:

  • Custom design and build of websites, web apps, internal tools and automations, quoted per project.
  • Managed hosting on the StarlingTek platform, for systems we build and systems you bring to us.
  • Migration of an existing system onto StarlingTek.

What a given plan or project includes is set out in your written quote, your plan as listed on the Pricing page when you signed up, and the service agreement. We may improve or change how the platform works, as long as the change doesn't take away something your plan or quote includes.

3. Accounts and access

Some services come with access to a site status page, a code repository, or credentials for your system. You agree to:

  • give us accurate contact and billing details, and keep them up to date;
  • keep any passwords, keys and private links we give you to yourself and the people you choose to share them with;
  • tell us promptly if you think someone has gained access they shouldn't have.

You're responsible for what happens under the access you've been given, unless it happened because of something we did wrong.

4. Your content and who owns what

You own your code and content. The code we write for you (once paid for, as the service agreement explains), your site's content, your data, and anything you bring to us stay yours. We don't claim ownership of any of it.

We need a limited permission to do the work. You give us permission to copy, store, run, back up and display your code and content only as needed to provide the services to you. That permission ends when the services end, apart from backups that expire on their normal schedule.

StarlingTek owns its platform. The StarlingTek hosting platform, its control plane, admin panel, tooling and documentation, and our general know-how, stay ours. Using our services doesn't give you any rights to them beyond using them as part of the service.

Third-party and open-source software in your system stays under its own licence.

5. Acceptable use

You agree not to use our services, or let anyone else use them, to:

  • break the law, or help someone else break it;
  • host or send malware, phishing pages or spam;
  • infringe someone else's copyright, trademark, privacy or other rights;
  • host content that sexually exploits children, or that harasses, threatens or incites violence against anyone;
  • attack, probe or overload our servers, other customers' sites, or anyone else's systems;
  • try to get around the platform's security, or reach data that isn't yours;
  • run workloads that use far more than your plan allows (such as cryptocurrency mining) without agreeing it with us first.

If something breaks these rules, we'll usually contact you first and give you a chance to fix it. If it's serious or urgent, such as an active attack, illegal content or a risk to other customers, we may take the affected site or content offline straight away and then tell you why.

6. Payment and billing

  • Hosting is billed monthly in advance, or yearly if you choose a 12-month plan. Custom builds are billed as set out in your quote.
  • Invoices are due within [[INVOICE_DUE_DAYS]] days.
  • Domains are passed through at cost. Usage beyond your plan is billed at pass-through rates, and only after we've told you.
  • Prices don't include taxes. Where tax applies, we'll add it to the invoice.
  • If a payment is late, we'll remind you in writing first. We won't suspend a site for non-payment without at least [[SUSPENSION_NOTICE_DAYS]] days' written notice after that reminder, and we won't delete your data for non-payment without first offering you an export.
  • We'll give you at least [[PRICE_CHANGE_NOTICE_DAYS]] days' notice of a price change. You can cancel before it takes effect.

7. Ending the service and taking your data

You can cancel any time with 30 days' notice. Prepaid fees for whole months after the cancellation date are refunded.

We can end the service with [[PROVIDER_TERMINATION_NOTICE_DAYS]] days' notice, and we'll help you move your system somewhere else during that time. We can end it sooner if you seriously break these terms (for example, a serious acceptable-use problem, or payment that's still overdue after the notice above) and don't fix it after we've told you.

You get your data. On request, and when the service ends, we'll give you a full export of your code, content and databases within [[DATA_EXPORT_DAYS]] days. After we've delivered the export, we delete your data from our live systems within [[DATA_DELETION_DAYS]] days, and backup copies expire on their normal schedule.

Sections 4 and 8 to 12 still apply after the service ends.

8. Warranties disclaimer

We do the work carefully and professionally, and we'll fix things that are our fault. Apart from what the service agreement or your written quote expressly promises, the services are provided "as is" and "as available". To the extent the law allows, we don't make any other promises, express or implied, including that the services will be uninterrupted or error-free, or fit for a purpose we haven't agreed to in writing.

No hosting is immune to failure. Backups and monitoring reduce the risk; they don't remove it.

9. Limitation of liability

To the extent the law allows:

  • neither of us is liable to the other for indirect or consequential losses, such as lost profits, lost revenue or lost business opportunities;
  • our total liability for all claims relating to the services is limited to [[LIABILITY_CAP]].

These limits don't apply to liability that can't legally be limited, or to losses caused by gross negligence or deliberate misconduct.

10. Indemnity

If someone makes a claim against us because of your content, your code, or your use of the services in breach of these terms, you'll cover our reasonable costs of dealing with it, including reasonable legal fees. If someone makes a claim against you because the platform itself (not your code or content) infringes their rights, we'll do the same for you. Whoever is asking to be covered must tell the other promptly and let them handle the claim.

11. Changes to these terms

We may update these terms. When we do, we'll change the effective date at the top of this page. For a change that materially affects paying customers, we'll email you at least 30 days before it takes effect. If you don't agree with a change, you can cancel before it takes effect.

12. Governing law

These terms are governed by the laws of the State of [[GOVERNING_LAW_STATE]], without regard to its conflict-of-law rules. Before anyone goes to court, we'll both try in good faith to settle a disagreement by talking it through for at least 30 days.

If any part of these terms can't be enforced, the rest still applies. If we don't enforce a part straight away, we haven't given up the right to enforce it later.

13. Contact

Questions about these terms: [email protected].

Post: [[LEGAL_ENTITY_NAME]], [[MAILING_ADDRESS]].