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Terms of Service

The plain terms our services run on — what we provide, how plans and billing work, what happens if you cancel or buy your site outright, and how our text messaging works. Written to be read, not to be survived.

Last updated August 18, 2026

The agreement

These Terms of Service govern your use of the websites, dashboards, portals and AI services provided by Black Slate Digital ("we", "us", "our"), including this website, the client dashboard and client portal, the websites we build and host for our clients, and the AI add-ons we run on them.

By buying a plan from us, using our dashboard or portal, or using a website or AI service we host, you agree to these terms. If you do not agree with them, do not use the services.

If you signed a separate written agreement or a buyout handoff document with us, and anything in it conflicts with these terms, that document governs for the subject it covers.

What we provide

We design, build, host and maintain websites for local businesses, and we run optional AI services on top of them. Depending on what you buy, that can include:

  • A custom website built from your real business information, on a plan or bought outright.
  • Hosting, managed SSL certificates, automated health checks and maintenance.
  • A dashboard where the calls, forms and messages your site produces are collected.
  • AI add-ons: the AI chatbot, online booking, instant quotes and calculators, and the AI receptionist that answers your phone.

We make no claim of a guaranteed uptime percentage, a guaranteed response time, or any particular ranking, traffic, call volume or revenue result. What we do commit to is stated plainly on this page and nowhere else.

Free demos

We often build a finished demo website before anyone has paid us anything. A demo is free, carries no obligation, and stays entirely ours: we may take it down, change it or let its link expire at any time. Nothing in a demo transfers to you unless and until you buy a plan or buy the site outright.

Plans, billing and payment

Month-to-month

Every monthly plan is month-to-month. There are no term contracts, no lock-in and no cancellation fee, and there is no setup fee. Plans are billed monthly in advance and renew automatically until you cancel.

  • List monthly rates are $99/mo (Basic), $149/mo (Standard) and $249/mo (Premium).
  • Founding-client rates — $79/mo, $119/mo and $199/mo by plan — are limited to our first 10 clients and are locked for life for as long as that subscription stays active. If the subscription lapses, the founding rate goes with it.
  • Prefer to pay yearly? Ten months buys twelve on any plan — that is two months free.

Payments

Payments are processed by Stripe. We do not collect, see or store your full card number — card details are entered on Stripe's own hosted checkout and held by Stripe. Prices are in US dollars and exclude any taxes that may apply. If a payment fails, Stripe will retry it; if it keeps failing, we may pause or take down the service until the balance is settled.

Add-ons

The AI add-ons are platform-hosted services we run for you, so they are billed monthly for as long as they are switched on — including on a website you have bought outright. You can switch an add-on off at any time, and billing for it stops at the end of that billing period.

The AI receptionist is the one add-on with usage on top of its monthly price. AI Receptionist includes 100 talk minutes a month, or roughly 40 to 50 calls. AI Receptionist Pro includes 300 talk minutes a month, calendar booking, and after-hours emergency routing. Talk time past your allowance is billed at $0.40/min on your next invoice. Minutes are talk time only: ringing and voicemail do not count, and no call is ever cut off part-way through.

Price changes

We may change our list prices. If a change affects a plan you are already on, we will tell you at least 30 days before it takes effect, and you are free to cancel before then. Founding rates are exempt: they do not change while the subscription stays active.

Cancellation

You can cancel a monthly plan at any time by telling us — email, phone or text is enough. When you cancel:

  • Your content, your photos and your domain are yours. You keep everything you brought us, and the domain leaves with you.
  • Your site stays up through the end of the period you have already paid for, and then comes down.
  • On a rental, the site's code and design stay with us. That is the difference between renting a site and buying one outright.
  • You can switch to buying the site outright at any time, including instead of cancelling.

Monthly fees already paid are not refunded, because the service for that period has been delivered. We do not charge a cancellation fee and we never hold a domain hostage — if you ask us to transfer your domain to you, we transfer it in full, in writing, whatever else is going on.

We may suspend or end service ourselves for non-payment, or for a breach of the acceptable-use section below. Where we can, we will tell you first and give you a chance to put it right.

Ownership and intellectual property

What is always yours

Your business name, your logo, your photographs, your copy, your customer information and your domain are yours, before, during and after our work together. You give us permission to use them for the purpose of building, hosting, maintaining and promoting your website while you are our client, and to show your finished site as an example of our work unless you ask us not to.

On a monthly plan

While you rent, we license the website to you for the term you are paying for. The underlying code, the theme, the design system and the platform that serves it remain ours.

If you buy the site outright

Buying a site outright starts at $2,500 and is quoted per project. When you buy it, you own it fully — the code, the content and the design of that site are yours, and we hand it over with a written handoff document recording exactly what you own and how the transfer works. Hosting and maintenance stay available afterwards, month-to-month, with no lock-in.

Buying a site does not transfer ownership of our platform, our dashboard, our theme library, our AI services, or any third-party software or font a site depends on. The AI add-ons in particular are services we host and run, not files that ship with the site, which is why they continue to bill monthly on a site you own.

Your responsibilities

By using our services, you confirm that:

  • The business information you give us — services, licences, service areas, hours, prices, credentials — is true and current. We build from your real information, so its accuracy is on you.
  • You own, or have permission to use, every photo, logo, review, name and piece of text you give us to publish.
  • You will keep your dashboard and portal sign-in credentials to yourself, and tell us promptly if you think someone else has them.
  • You will handle the leads and customer information your site collects lawfully, including the messages and contact details of the people who reach out to you through it.
  • Where an AI service answers on your behalf, you remain responsible for what your business does with what it captures — see section 10.

You agree to cover us for any claim, loss or cost that comes out of content you gave us to publish, or out of your own unlawful use of the services.

Acceptable use

You may not use our services, or ask us to build or host anything, to:

  • Break the law, or advertise or sell anything illegal where it is being offered.
  • Publish content that is fraudulent, deceptive, defamatory, obscene, or that infringes someone else's copyright, trademark or privacy.
  • Post fake reviews, invented testimonials, fabricated credentials or licences you do not hold. We do not build them and we will not host them.
  • Send unsolicited bulk email or text messages, or message anyone who has opted out.
  • Attack, overload, probe or reverse-engineer our platform, or use it to distribute malware or to mine credentials.
  • Resell, sublicense or white-label our platform or AI services as your own without a written agreement with us.

We may remove content or suspend a service that breaks this section, and for anything serious we may do so immediately.

Domains, hosting and third-party services

Where we register or manage a domain on your behalf, it is registered for you and transfers to you on request, in full, at any time.

Our services run on infrastructure and tools operated by other companies — hosting, database, payments, AI, telephony, calendar and mapping providers among them. They are listed by name in our Privacy Policy. Their availability and their own terms are outside our control, and an outage at one of them can interrupt a service we provide. We choose them carefully and we will tell you what happened, but we are not responsible for their failures.

Text messaging (SMS) terms

Some of our services send text messages. This section applies to every message we send, whether we send it as Black Slate Digital or on behalf of a client business whose website or phone line we operate.

No mobile information will be shared with third parties or affiliates for marketing or promotional purposes. We do not sell, rent, lease or share mobile phone numbers or SMS opt-in information with third parties or affiliates for their own marketing or promotional purposes. Consent to receive text messages is never shared with anyone for marketing, and is used only to deliver the messages you asked for.

What we send, and who consents

  • Replies and follow-ups on behalf of a client business. If you submit a contact, quote or booking form on a website we operate, or call a business line our AI receptionist answers, and you give your mobile number, you consent to be texted back about that enquiry by that business. That is the only reason your number is used.
  • Account and service messages to our own clients. Billing notices, new-lead alerts, demo links, appointment details and support replies, sent to the mobile number a client gave us.
  • Occasional promotional messages to our own clients and prospects who gave us their number and agreed to hear from us — offers, new services, and demo follow-ups.

Consent to receive marketing text messages is never a condition of buying anything from us, and you can use every other part of our service without it.

Frequency, rates, opt-out and help

  • Message frequency varies and depends on your activity — how many enquiries you send or receive, and what you have signed up for.
  • Message and data rates may apply. Your mobile carrier's normal charges are yours to pay; we do not charge you for receiving our texts.
  • To opt out, reply STOP to any message. You will receive one confirmation that you have been unsubscribed, and then no further messages from that number. You can also email or call us and we will do it for you.
  • For help, reply HELP to any message, or contact us at (385) 519-0030 or Phil_Beasley@Black-Slate-Digital.com.
  • Carriers are not liable for delayed or undelivered messages. Delivery depends on your carrier and your device, and we cannot guarantee that any message arrives.
  • Supported carriers may change. Not all handsets or plans support every message type.

How the phone numbers behind these messages are stored and protected is described in the Text messaging section of our Privacy Policy.

AI services and their limits

Our chatbot, instant quotes, booking assistant and AI receptionist are automated software. They are good, and they are not people. You should assume that:

  • An AI answer can be wrong, incomplete or out of date. Anything a chatbot or receptionist says about price, availability or scope is an estimate and an enquiry, never a binding quote or a confirmed appointment, unless a human at the business confirms it.
  • The AI works from the knowledge you give us about your business. If that information is wrong, the AI will be wrong with it.
  • Our AI never claims to be a person. If a caller asks the receptionist directly whether they are speaking to a human, it answers honestly.
  • Nothing our AI produces is legal, medical, financial or other professional advice, and it must not be used as a substitute for it.
  • Calls answered by the AI receptionist open with an audible notice that the call may be recorded, and are transcribed and summarised so the business has a record of the enquiry. Audio stays with our voice provider; we keep the transcript and the summary. As the business the calls are for, you remain responsible for complying with call-recording law where you operate.

Disclaimers and limitation of liability

We take real care with this work, but the services are provided "as is" and "as available", without warranties of any kind, express or implied, including any implied warranty of merchantability, fitness for a particular purpose or non-infringement. We do not warrant that the services will be uninterrupted, error-free, or that they will produce any particular business result.

To the fullest extent the law allows, Black Slate Digital is not liable for indirect, incidental, special, consequential or punitive damages, or for lost profits, lost revenue, lost business or lost data, however caused.

To the fullest extent the law allows, our total liability to you for any claim arising out of or relating to the services is limited to the amount you actually paid us in the twelve months before the event that gave rise to the claim.

Nothing in these terms excludes any liability that cannot lawfully be excluded. Some jurisdictions do not allow certain exclusions, so parts of this section may not apply to you.

Changes to these terms

We may update these terms as the business changes. The revision date at the top of this page always shows the current version, and the current version is always published here at black-slate-digital.com/terms. If a change materially affects what you pay or what you get, we will tell our clients directly rather than relying on you to notice. Continuing to use the services after a change means you accept the updated terms.

This version is dated August 18, 2026.

Governing law

These terms are governed by the laws of the State of Utah, United States, without regard to its conflict-of-law rules. Any dispute arising out of or relating to these terms or the services will be brought exclusively in the state or federal courts located in Utah, and you and we each consent to the personal jurisdiction of those courts.

If any part of these terms is found unenforceable, the rest stays in force. Our not enforcing a term on one occasion is not a waiver of it.

How to reach us

Black Slate Digital is a website design, hosting and maintenance business operated by Phil Beasley in Layton, Utah, United States. Questions about this document, or any request about your information, should go to:

We answer every request ourselves — there is no ticket queue and no third-party support desk between you and the person who runs the business.