Terms of Service

Ruka Group SmartChat Terms of Service

These terms are a binding agreement between Ruka (Pty) Ltd, registration number 2024/761584/07, of Studio 77, Studio Office Park, 5 Concourse Crescent, Lonehill, Sandton, Gauteng, 2191, and you, the customer. Ruka (Pty) Ltd operates the SmartChat service. By ticking the acceptance box at signup you agree to these terms. If you are accepting on behalf of a business, you confirm you are authorised to bind that business.

1. Definitions

• SmartChat is the conversational AI service that answers, books, and follows up on WhatsApp and the web, powered by our Echo engine.
• You or the customer is the business that holds a SmartChat account.
• Your data is the content, customer information, and messages you put into or generate through SmartChat.
• End user is a person who interacts with your business through SmartChat.

2. The service

We provide SmartChat as a subscription. We may improve, change, or remove features, and we will give reasonable notice of any change that materially reduces the service.

3. Your account

You are responsible for the accuracy of the information you give us, for keeping your login secure, and for everything done under your account.

4. Fees, billing, and VAT

• Plans start at R249 per month and are billed monthly in advance.
• All prices are stated exclusive of 15% VAT. VAT is added at checkout and shown on every invoice.
• You can change tier or cancel before your next billing date. Changes take effect from the next cycle.
• We may change prices on 30 days' notice. If you do not accept a price change you may cancel before it takes effect.
• Fees already paid are not refundable except where the law requires.

5. Intellectual property

• We own SmartChat, the Echo engine, the software, and all related intellectual property. Nothing in these terms transfers any of that to you.
• You own your data. You grant us a limited licence to process your data only to provide and support the service.
• You may not copy, reverse engineer, resell, or build a competing product from SmartChat.

6. Acceptable use

Your use of SmartChat is governed by our Acceptable Use Policy, which forms part of these terms. In short, you must get consent before you message people, honour every opt-out, and never send spam or harmful content.

7. Data protection

We process personal information under our Privacy Policy and our Data Processing Agreement, both of which form part of these terms. For data you put through SmartChat, you are the Responsible Party and we are the Operator.

8. Service availability

We aim for high availability but we do not promise uninterrupted service. Where we offer a service-level commitment for a specific plan, it is set out in that plan and any remedy is a service credit, not a cash refund.

9. Limitation of liability

• SmartChat is provided as is and as available. We do not guarantee any commercial result.
• To the fullest extent the law allows, our total liability to you in any 12-month period is limited to the fees you paid us in the 12 months before the claim.
• We are not liable for indirect or consequential loss, including lost profit, lost business, or loss caused by your own breach of the Acceptable Use Policy.
• Nothing in this clause limits liability that cannot be limited by law.

10. Indemnity

You indemnify Ruka (Pty) Ltd against any claim, penalty, fine, or platform action that arises from your use of SmartChat in breach of these terms or the Acceptable Use Policy, including messaging people without consent.

11. Suspension and termination

• You may cancel at any time before your next billing date.
• We may suspend or terminate your account for breach, for non-payment, or where your conduct threatens our platform, our WhatsApp access, or other users. Where the risk is serious, suspension may be immediate.
• On termination, your right to use SmartChat ends. We handle your data on exit as set out in the Privacy Policy.

12. Exit and data

On termination you may export your data in a common format for 30 days. After that we delete it within 90 days, unless the law requires us to keep it longer.

13. Governing law

• These terms are governed by South African law and the courts of South Africa have jurisdiction.
• We do not yet serve customers in the European Union. When we begin to, those customers will also receive the protections of the GDPR, and nothing in these terms will remove a right they have under EU law.

14. General

• If any clause is found invalid, the rest stays in force.
• We may transfer these terms to a group company or successor. You may not transfer your account without our consent.
• We may update these terms. For material changes we will ask you to accept the new version. These terms are the whole agreement between us on this subject.
• Events beyond our reasonable control, such as outages at WhatsApp or our cloud provider, are not our breach.

Questions: legal@ruka.africa.