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Service Agreement

Version 2026-09-21.16 · Last updated September 21, 2026

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:

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.

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

If your volume runs above your allowance, my first step is to talk to you about moving to a plan that fits. I also reserve the right to bill for calls above your monthly allowance at $1.50 per call. I will not charge overage without telling you in advance, and I will not apply it retroactively to a period that has already ended.

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.

Checkout comes first, and the onboarding intake form comes after it. The intake form gathers the information I need to build your receptionist; submitting it does not, by itself, create or change any obligation on either side. 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 that you accepted this Agreement and keeps that record with your payment, together with the date and time of the payment itself. Each checkout link also carries a marker naming the version of this Agreement it was set up for, and that marker is stored with the same record.

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

I want this line drawn clearly so there are no surprises.

Included in your monthly fee, at no extra 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:

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 call overage under Section 1 and anything billable under Section 4 that we agree in writing before I start it. Fees are stated exclusive of any sales, use or similar tax. I do not currently charge any such tax. If a tax authority later determines that one applies, I may add it to future invoices on notice to you under this Section, and I will not apply it to a billing period that has already closed.

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.

If a payment fails. If your account is unpaid 14 days after a failed payment, I may suspend the service on notice to you, and I will write to you at least three days before any suspension so you have the chance to put it right first. Suspension means your receptionist stops answering. Your call forwarding is set up on your own phone line rather than mine, so you would need to turn it off yourself for calls to ring where they did before. I will restore the service promptly once payment goes through. If the account is still unpaid 30 days after the failed payment, I may end this Agreement on notice to you. Suspending or ending the service does not cancel fees you already owe.

Changing your fee, your allowance, or the overage rate. I may change your monthly fee, your included call allowance, or the overage rate. I will give you at least 30 days' notice by email to the address on your account before any such change takes effect. A change takes effect on the first renewal date after that notice period ends, and never applies to a billing period that has already closed. If you do not want the change, you may cancel under Section 7 before it takes effect, and it will not be applied to you.

7. Cancelling, and your first-month guarantee

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. Except as provided by the first-month guarantee below, 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.

Your first month is guaranteed. If the receptionist is not right for your business, I will refund your first month's fee in full.

The window. It opens on your go-live date and closes at the earlier of two dates: 30 days after go-live, or 60 days after your first payment. Ask me inside that window and I refund your first month's fee in full. The second bound is there because the build does not start until your intake is complete, and Section 5 extends the timeline for as long as I am waiting on you. It stops the window staying open indefinitely. It cannot leave you without a guarantee, though: if I have not brought your receptionist live within 60 days of your first payment, you may cancel and take the full first-month refund at any time until I do.

What go-live means. Go-live is the date I send you written confirmation, by email from support@wharfline.com to the contact address on your account, that your receptionist is live on your number. That email is the record of the date.

Two conditions, both plain. The refund is of your first month only, and it does not apply to any later month. It is contingent on cancelling the service, so asking for the refund ends your subscription.

There is no partial version of this. The guarantee is a full refund of one month or it is nothing. Outside the window, and inside it for anything other than a full first-month refund, the ordinary rule above applies: I do not prorate a partial month and I do not refund part of a period.

8. Your portals

Your billing is handled through a secure portal run by Stripe, and I send you the link when your account is set up. In it you can:

As described in Section 7, cancelling there takes effect at the end of the period you have already paid for, with no proration, apart from the first-month guarantee in that Section. The portal does not offer immediate cancellation, it does not let you pause the service, and it does not let you switch plans. To change plans, contact me at support@wharfline.com.

Your client dashboard. Separately from billing, you get a secure client dashboard at portal.wharfline.com. It is where you see each call, its outcome, and its transcript. You can view your own account's call activity, and you cannot see any other business's data.

9. What I need from you

For the service to work, you agree to:

What counts as an emergency. If your receptionist handles emergencies or after-hours urgency, then your answers on the onboarding intake form are the written record of what counts as an emergency for your business: what counts as an emergency, what sounds urgent but is not, who should be contacted, that person's number and email address, the hours they are reachable, and what you want to happen if they do not pick up. If you tell me on that form that nothing your business does is an emergency, that answer is itself the record. 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.

You represent that you have the authority to enable call handling and call forwarding for your business.

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 their AI assistant, 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.

Allocation of responsibility. I represent to you that your receptionist is built to speak the recorded-line notice as the first thing said on every call, before it does anything else, and that I am responsible for configuring and keeping it that way. Whether the notice is in fact spoken on any particular call also depends on the voice platform that runs it and on the caller, who can talk over it, so what I represent is that the receptionist is built and kept that way to the extent that is within my reasonable control. Section 19 says what happens if that mechanism fails. 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. This keeps card data out of the service.

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 two cases and no others:

Your receptionist does not call back a caller simply because their call was missed. If you want missed calls returned, that is something a person on your team does, not something the assistant does for you.

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 two 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 treated differently from reaching a member of the public, and nothing in paragraph (a) restricts it. Your receptionist does not text or call your staff about a call. It sends one email, and only in the circumstance described below. It places a call to a number of yours in one circumstance only: to connect a caller to the transfer number you designated, during that caller's own call. It does not place outbound calls in any other circumstance.

The people and numbers this covers are the ones recorded in your onboarding intake submission, which under Section 9 is the written record described there. That record shapes how your receptionist is built and how it handles urgent calls. Be clear on what happens on the call itself: when a caller describes an urgent situation, the receptionist gives the relevant safety instruction where one applies. On a suspected gas leak it tells the caller to get out of the building and call their gas utility or 911, and then ends the call so they can do that. Otherwise it takes the caller’s address, name and callback number and tells them someone will be in touch, without promising a time. It does not transfer an urgent call, and it does not text or call anyone about it. It sends one email, at the moment it classifies the call as an emergency, to the emergency contact email address recorded in your onboarding intake submission. If no emergency contact address is recorded it goes to the contact address on your account instead, and if neither address is on file no email is sent and the failure is emailed to me instead, at the time it happens unless a recent failure has already emailed me, and it is listed for me in my daily operations summary either way. That email carries, where the caller gave them, the caller’s first name, their callback number, the address they gave, the receptionist’s summary of what they reported, the time of the call, and which category of emergency it was; anything the caller did not give is shown as not captured. It is sent once for that call. No response time is promised, to the caller or to you, and nobody is watching for it around the clock. Separately from all of that, where you have designated a transfer number, it transfers a call to that number when the caller asks to speak to a person; where you have not designated one, it takes a message instead. Apart from that transfer and that one email, it does not place a call or send a message to your escalation contact, during the call or after it. The call, its outcome, and its transcript are recorded in my systems.

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

What I process. 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.

Where it is processed. 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. My Data Processing Addendum at wharfline.com/data-processing also forms part of this Agreement; it sets out the commitments I make about caller information I process for you. I do not sell personal information.

Retention. Call Data means call recordings and transcripts. Two systems hold it, and they work differently, so I have set both out.

Call Data covers the part of a call your receptionist handles. Where a call is transferred to a number you designated, the recording and the transcript stop at the transfer. What is said after that is between your caller and the person who took the call, and it does not reach my systems or the voice platform's.

In my own systems, I keep the transcript of a call, the analysis of it, the written summary of it, the caller's number, and the link to its recording for twenty-four (24) months from the date of the call, unless we agree a different period in writing. After that they are deleted automatically on a monthly schedule.

The recording itself is stored by the voice platform I use to run the service, not by me. Your receptionist is configured so that platform deletes the recording twenty-four (24) months after the call, on the same schedule as my own systems, though the platform may retain copies where law or its own backup policies require. I do not hold a second copy.

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.

Who owns Call Data. You own your Call Data. I do not claim ownership of your call recordings, transcripts, or the caller details in them. I use Call Data only to deliver the service to you: running your receptionist, booking appointments, sending your call summaries, providing support, keeping the service secure, and fixing problems on your account. I do not use your Call Data to train models, to build or improve any product, or to serve any other client, and I do not sell it.

That promise covers what I do. As set out above, part of your Call Data sits with the voice platform that runs the service. That platform's own terms govern what it does with data passing through it, I do not control those terms, and I do not make promises on its behalf.

Confidentiality. 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, processing it to deliver the service. This Agreement is consistent with my Privacy Policy; if the two ever conflict on how caller information is handled, this Agreement and my Data Processing Addendum control between you and me, because they are the documents you accepted. The Privacy Policy tells your callers and the public how I handle information generally, and I keep it consistent with them.

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 a caller or record a detail wrongly, 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.

No service level commitment. I do not offer a service level agreement. There is no guaranteed uptime figure, no guaranteed response time to a support request, and no service credit if the receptionist is unavailable. Priority support on the Pro plan means your request is worked ahead of standard-plan requests, and nothing more. If the service is unavailable for a long period, your remedy is to cancel under Section 7.

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. Any dispute arising out of or relating to this Agreement will be brought only in the state or federal courts located in Massachusetts, and each of us consents to the jurisdiction of those courts.

18. Other terms

19. If someone else brings a claim

Sometimes a third party, meaning someone who is not you or me, brings a claim about the service. This Section says who covers what between us. It does not change what you and I owe each other directly, which is Sections 15 and 16.

What I cover. I will defend you against, and cover, a third-party claim that the recorded-line notice was not spoken at the start of a call because of how I built, configured, or maintained your receptionist. I will also cover a third-party claim that the service itself infringes someone's copyright, trademark, patent, or trade secret.

What you cover. You will defend me against, and cover, a third-party claim that arises from: recording your callers not being lawful for your business, your industry, or where you or your callers are, in circumstances where the recorded-line notice was spoken; the information or call-handling instructions you gave me, including anything inaccurate or unlawful in them; or what you did with a recording, a transcript, or caller information after it reached you.

The limits on the two recording claims. The two recording claims above, the one I cover and the one you cover, are bounded in the same two ways. In time: neither reaches a claim first notified to the other more than twenty-four months after the call it concerns, which is the period for which the transcript that would settle it still exists. At handoff: neither reaches what happens after your receptionist transfers a call to a number you designated, because the recording and the transcript stop at the transfer and the rest of that call is not something I run or record.

How this works, either way. Whoever wants cover must tell the other promptly once they know of the claim, let the other run the defence if they choose to, and not settle without the other's agreement. Cover means reasonable legal costs, plus damages or a settlement finally agreed or awarded.

The limits of this Section. This Section is about third-party claims for money. It does not, and cannot, make any recording lawful, and it does not shift responsibility for any criminal penalty, which is not something either of us can take on for the other. Section 16 applies to what I owe under this Section, except where the law does not permit that limit, and Section 16 already says which liabilities cannot be limited.

*By checking the terms box and completing payment at checkout, you agree to this Wharfline Service Agreement.*

By checking the terms box and completing payment at checkout, you agree to this Wharfline Service Agreement.

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