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Service Agreement

Last updated: July 25, 2026 (rev 2)

This Service Agreement ("Agreement") is between Wharfline Technologies LLC, a Massachusetts limited liability company ("Wharfline", "I", "me", "my"), and the client identified at checkout. Throughout, "you" and "your" mean that client.

Your account details are recorded at checkout: your legal business name, your business address, the plan you selected, your monthly fee, and the effective date (the date you accept this Agreement and complete first payment).

1. What I provide

I build, run, and maintain an AI voice receptionist for your business. In concrete terms, the receptionist answers calls forwarded to it in a natural voice, according to the hours and rules we set during onboarding; opens every call by identifying your business and stating that the line is recorded; answers common questions about your business from the information you give me; captures caller details and qualifies leads; books appointments into the calendar you use, where that calendar is supported; routes or transfers calls to your team where we configure it to; records and transcribes calls and sends you a summary; and gives you a secure client dashboard where you can see each call, its outcome, and its transcript.

This is a fully managed service. I do the building, tuning, and monitoring. The specific features available depend on the plan you selected, described in Section 3.

Some plan descriptions on my website use everyday marketing language. This Agreement controls where it is more specific:

2. Acceptance, and when this becomes binding

You accept this Agreement by checking the terms box at checkout and completing your first payment. That payment is the moment this Agreement takes effect.

Submitting the onboarding intake form does not, by itself, create any obligation on either side. The intake form only gathers the information I need to build your receptionist. Until you have accepted these terms and paid, there is no contract, I owe you no build, and you owe me no fee.

When you complete checkout, my payment processor (Stripe) records your acceptance of this Agreement, including the version you agreed to and the date and time, and keeps that record with your payment.

3. Your plan and what is included

You are on the plan and monthly fee recorded at checkout. All plans are fully managed and include the ongoing maintenance described in Section 4.

4. What the monthly fee covers, and what it does not

Included in your monthly fee, at no extra charge: ongoing maintenance and monitoring of your receptionist; fixes when something stops working the way it was configured; tuning and prompt adjustments to keep the receptionist performing as configured, including normal adjustments as I review real calls; and AI model and platform upgrades as they become available, so your receptionist benefits from improvements without a separate charge.

In this Agreement, "repair" and "maintenance" mean restoring or keeping the service working as it was configured. They do not mean building something new.

Not included, and billable separately by written agreement before I start: new integrations beyond what we set up at launch; changes to the agreed scope of your receptionist; additional business locations, phone numbers, or receptionists; and rework caused by information you supplied that was wrong or incomplete, or by changes you ask for after we agreed the build. If something falls into the billable column, I will tell you and we will agree the work and its cost in writing before I do it. I will not bill you for new scope by surprise.

5. Build and go-live

I begin building when two things are both true: your onboarding intake is complete, and your first payment has been received. That is when the clock starts.

Most receptionists go live in about a week once the clock starts, though the exact time depends on the complexity of your setup. I will not commit to a specific go-live date until I have what I need from you.

If the build is delayed because I am waiting on information, access, decisions, or call-forwarding steps from you, the timeline extends by the length of that delay. Your billing is not paused while I wait on you (see Section 6).

6. Billing

Your first payment is due at checkout. It covers your first month of service, beginning on the date you pay. Your subscription then renews automatically each month on that same date until you cancel.

There is no setup fee and no separate onboarding charge. The monthly fee recorded at checkout is the whole cost of the service, apart from anything billable under Section 4 that we agree in writing before I start it.

Payments are handled by Stripe. You can view invoices and manage your payment method in the billing portal (Section 8). The recurring monthly charge, and the fact that it renews automatically until you cancel, are disclosed to you before you complete checkout, and cancellation is available to you at any time in the same billing portal.

7. Cancelling

You can cancel at any time, yourself, in the billing portal. There is no long-term contract and no cancellation notice period to serve.

When you cancel, your cancellation takes effect at the end of the current paid period. Your receptionist keeps running until then. I do not prorate a partial month, and I do not refund the remainder of a period you have already paid for. There is no immediate mid-period cancellation, and there is no self-service plan switching in the portal; if you want to change plans, contact me at support@wharfline.com.

8. Your portal access

You get two portals. The client dashboard (portal.wharfline.com) is where you see each call, its outcome, and its transcript; you can view your own account's call activity and cannot see any other business's data. The billing portal (Stripe) is where you update your payment method, view and download invoices, and cancel; as described in Section 7, cancellation there takes effect at period end with no proration, and it does not offer immediate cancellation or plan switching.

9. What I need from you

For the service to work, you agree to give me accurate, complete information about your business, your hours, your services, and your call-handling rules, and to keep it current; to respond in reasonable time when I need information, access, or a decision to build or fix your receptionist; to lawfully forward your own calls to the service; and to keep ownership of, and responsibility for, your own phone number and your own business information. You represent that you have the authority to enable call handling and call forwarding for your business.

What counts as an emergency. If your receptionist handles emergencies or after-hours urgency, then the emergency criteria you give me on the onboarding intake form, together with the escalation contact you name and the hours that contact is reachable, are the written record of what counts as an emergency for your business. I configure your receptionist to that record. If any of it changes, tell me and I will update it, and the updated intake record replaces the earlier one.

10. Call recording and consent (please read this carefully)

To provide the service, the receptionist records and transcribes calls. It opens every call by identifying your business and stating that the line is recorded, before any other handling. For example, my demonstration receptionist opens with: "Thanks for calling Coastal Air and Plumbing, this is John on a recorded line. How can I help you today?" Your receptionist will carry the same recorded-line notice at the start of every call. The only calls not recorded are those a caller ends before the receptionist answers.

Massachusetts and several other states require that all parties to a call be informed it is being recorded. The start-of-call notice is designed to inform your callers for that purpose.

I am responsible for configuring your receptionist to speak the recorded-line notice at the start of every call. You are responsible for your own compliance with the recording, notice, and consent laws that apply to you and to your callers, including where your callers are located in states with all-party consent laws, and for forwarding your calls to the service lawfully. Because you direct how and when your calls reach the service, you are responsible for making sure your use of it, and your own callers' notice where the law requires it, is lawful for your business. If you ever want to change or remove the recorded-line notice, I will not do it in a way that I believe would put the recording out of compliance.

11. No payment card details by voice

The receptionist is built never to collect payment card, bank, or other payment numbers by voice. If a caller starts to read one, the receptionist is instructed not to accept, repeat, or record it, and to tell the caller that payment is handled elsewhere. You agree not to configure or instruct the receptionist to collect payment card details by voice, and not to direct your callers to provide card numbers to it.

12. Businesses I cannot serve

Healthcare. I do not offer this service to healthcare businesses. I do not provide it to a HIPAA covered entity, or to a business associate of one, and I will not sign a business associate agreement. The receptionist is not built or configured to receive, process, or store protected health information, and it must not be used for that purpose.

What you are confirming. You warrant that you are not a HIPAA covered entity and not a business associate of one, and that you will not use the service to collect, process, or store protected health information.

If that turns out not to be true. If the warranty above proves untrue, I may suspend the service or end this Agreement, on notice to you.

13. Outbound calls

Outbound contact splits into two categories, and they are governed differently. Reaching a member of the public is restricted. Reaching your own people is part of delivering the service.

(a) Calls to your callers and other third parties. Your receptionist is built to answer calls coming in to your business. Where it places an outbound call to one of your callers, or to any other third party, it is limited to these three cases and no others: confirming an appointment; calling back a caller whose call was missed; and calling back a caller who asked to be called back.

Cold and unsolicited outbound calling is prohibited. That includes sales calls, marketing calls, and calls to anyone who has not contacted your business or asked to hear from it. This is not something the service does, and it is not something I will configure it to do. You agree not to direct me to place calls outside the three cases above.

The reason for this limit is that a federal law, the Telephone Consumer Protection Act, restricts automated and artificial-voice calls to people who have not agreed to receive them, and the consequences of breaking it land on the business whose calls they are. Keeping outbound to confirmations and requested callbacks keeps both of us clear of that.

(b) Contact with your own designated people. Reaching your own staff is a different thing, and it is permitted. Your receptionist may transfer a live caller to your team, and it may place a call or send a message to an escalation contact you have designated, at a number you supplied.

The people and numbers this covers are the ones recorded in your onboarding intake submission, which under Section 9 is the written record of your emergency criteria, your named escalation contact, and the hours that contact is reachable. If you have not named anyone there, there is nobody for me to escalate to.

This is delivery of the service to you, not solicitation of a stranger, so the limits in (a) do not apply to it. What separates the two is straightforward: you chose these people and gave me their numbers, so they have asked to hear from the service by being nominated for it. One of your callers has not.

14. Your data, and confidentiality

To run the service I process caller information (such as a caller's phone number, name, and the details they give on a call), call audio and transcripts, your business and configuration information, and your account and billing details. I use a set of service providers to run the service, such as the voice and AI platform, telephony, scheduling, data storage, email delivery, and hosting. The current list of these providers is kept in my Privacy Policy at wharfline.com/privacy, which forms part of how I handle information under this Agreement. I do not sell personal information.

Call Data, meaning call recordings and transcripts, is retained for twenty-four (24) months from the date of the call, unless we agree a different period in writing. It is deleted after that. I will also delete Call Data sooner if you ask me to, or after your account closes, unless a longer period is required to comply with law or to resolve a dispute. Account and billing records are kept as required by law.

Each of us will protect the other's non-public business information and use it only to perform or receive the service. When I handle your callers' information on your behalf, you are generally the controller of that information and I act as your service provider. This Agreement is consistent with my Privacy Policy; if the two ever conflict on how caller information is handled, the Privacy Policy controls for that question.

15. Warranties and disclaimers

I will perform the service with reasonable care and skill. Beyond that, the service is provided "as is". I do not warrant that the receptionist will be uninterrupted or error-free, that it will never mishear or misroute a call, or that it will produce any particular business result, number of bookings, or amount of revenue. The receptionist relies on third-party telephone and AI platforms that I do not control, and on the accuracy of the information you give me.

16. Limit on liability

To the fullest extent permitted by law, neither of us is liable to the other for indirect, incidental, special, or consequential damages, or for lost profits or lost revenue, arising out of or relating to this Agreement or the service.

To the fullest extent permitted by law, my total liability arising out of or relating to this Agreement or the service, for all claims combined, will not exceed the total fees you paid me in the twelve months before the event giving rise to the claim (or, if the service has been running for less than twelve months, the fees you have paid me to date).

Nothing in this Agreement limits or excludes any liability that cannot be limited or excluded under applicable law. In particular, this Section does not limit liability that Massachusetts law does not permit to be limited by contract, including liability for willful or knowing conduct under Massachusetts General Laws Chapter 93A.

17. Governing law

This Agreement is governed by the laws of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, without regard to its conflict-of-laws principles. This is consistent with the Terms of Service published at wharfline.com/terms.

18. Other terms

This Agreement, together with the Privacy Policy and the plan you selected at checkout, is the whole agreement between us about the service, and replaces any earlier proposal or discussion about pricing or scope that is inconsistent with it. I may update the terms that apply to new sign-ups; changes do not apply retroactively to the version you accepted at checkout, and a materially changed version applies to you only if you accept it. You may not assign this Agreement without my consent; I may assign it in connection with a sale or reorganization of my business, on notice to you. If any part of this Agreement is found unenforceable, the rest stays in effect.

By checking the terms box and completing payment at checkout, you agree to this Wharfline Service Agreement. Questions? Email support@wharfline.com.

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