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Terms of Service

Last updated: October 7, 2026

These Terms of Service (the “Terms”) are a binding agreement between you and MakeHay (“MakeHay,” “we,” “us,” or “our”), a sole proprietorship operated in the State of Vermont, USA. They govern your access to and use of the MakeHay website, application, and related services (together, the “Service”).

1. Acceptance of these Terms

By creating an account, clicking to accept, or using the Service, you agree to these Terms. If you use the Service on behalf of a business, you represent that you have authority to bind that business, and “you” refers to both you and the business. If you do not agree to these Terms, do not use the Service.

2. The Service

MakeHay is a customer relationship management (CRM) platform for service businesses that quote, schedule, and invoice work — including, but not limited to, trades such as line striping, sealcoating, paving, and landscaping, and session-based businesses. The Service includes tools for managing customers and job sites, preparing quotes and contracts, collecting electronic signatures, scheduling visits, invoicing, collecting online payments, a customer-facing portal (messages, documents, session updates, billing), lead-capture request forms you may embed on your own website, and sending business email such as quotes, invoices, payment reminders, review requests, and portal notifications. We may add, change, or remove features from time to time.

3. Accounts and eligibility

To create and maintain an account, you must:

  • be at least 18 years old;
  • use the Service for business purposes, not personal or household purposes;
  • provide accurate registration information and keep it current; and
  • keep your login credentials confidential. You are responsible for all activity that occurs under your account, and you should notify us promptly at support@makehay.io if you suspect unauthorized use.

At this time, each account supports one company. If you operate multiple companies, you will need a separate account for each.

4. Plans, billing, and cancellation

MakeHay offers one plan: Free ($0). There is no subscription and nothing to cancel. Optional paid add-ons (for example, No MakeHay branding, Texting, and Website) are clearly labeled, opt-in, and priced on our pricing page before you enable them, billed monthly or yearly through Stripe. If you enable a paid add-on:

  • Cancellation. You may cancel a paid add-on at any time. Cancellation takes effect at the end of your current billing period; you keep paid features until then.
  • No prorated refunds. We do not provide refunds or credits for partial billing periods, including when you cancel an add-on mid-period.
  • Price changes. We may change add-on prices with at least 30 days’ notice by email or in the app. Continued use of a paid add-on after the new price takes effect constitutes acceptance of the new price.

4a. Hosted websites

The Website add-on gives your business a website that MakeHay builds and hosts from the information in your account and your answers to MakeHay’s questionnaire. These terms apply to it.

  • Your content. The words, photos, logo and business details on the site are yours. You confirm you have the right to use everything you give MakeHay, including photos of people and property, and you grant MakeHay a license to display and host them for the purpose of running the site. Text MakeHay’s drafting tools suggest is a suggestion drawn from the information you gave: you are responsible for what you publish, and nothing publishes without a person pressing Publish.
  • MakeHay’s layouts. The page designs, section layouts, themes and code are MakeHay’s. You can change words, photos, colors and fonts within them. The site may show a “Website by MakeHay” line unless the No MakeHay branding add-on is on.
  • Addresses and domains. Until your own domain is connected, the site lives at an address under a domain MakeHay owns, which MakeHay assigns and may change or retire; it is not yours to keep. When your own domain goes live, the MakeHay address forwards to it for 30 days and is then retired. A domain you connect stays yours. A domain MakeHay registers for you is registered in your name on MakeHay’s registrar account, for names whose yearly price is under the limit stated in the app. MakeHay pays its first year of registration. From the second year the domain renews at the registrar’s yearly price, which MakeHay charges to the payment method on your MakeHay account about a month before the renewal date and emails you a receipt for. If the charge fails and is not paid three days before the renewal date, MakeHay switches renewal off and the domain expires at the end of its term under the registrar’s rules. MakeHay will hand you the domain’s transfer code on request.
  • When the add-on ends. The site stays online for 14 days after your add-on lapses, then goes offline. Four weeks after it lapses, your domain is released from MakeHay’s hosting, and a domain MakeHay registered stops renewing. MakeHay keeps the site’s content for at least 30 days after it goes offline (ask and MakeHay will export it) and may delete it after that. Turning the add-on back on while it is kept restores the site.
  • What MakeHay can take down. MakeHay may take a site offline, with or without notice, if it is unlawful, infringes someone’s rights, impersonates another business, carries content MakeHay reasonably considers harmful or deceptive, or puts the Service at risk. MakeHay will tell you why.
  • Reviews and other third-party content. Testimonials you add are your content. If reviews from your Google Business Profile are shown on the site, they are Google’s content, displayed under Google’s terms and refreshed from Google; MakeHay does not edit them.
  • Visitors. Requests sent through your site’s contact form are your customers’ data under section 7 of these terms. MakeHay’s privacy policy describes what the site records about visitors.

5. Platform fee on online payments

When your customers pay you online through the Service, MakeHay charges a platform fee of 1.5% of each payment processed through your connected Stripe account. This fee is deducted automatically from your proceeds before payout and applies regardless of any add-on you enable, in addition to Stripe’s own processing fees. The platform fee is also disclosed on our pricing page. Payments you record manually (for example, cash or checks collected in person) do not incur a platform fee.

6. Payment processing and disclaimers

Online payments are processed by Stripe through Stripe Connect. To accept online payments, you must create and maintain your own Stripe account and agree to Stripe’s applicable terms, including the Stripe Connected Account Agreement. Stripe’s terms govern payment processing; MakeHay does not hold, control, or transmit your funds.

MakeHay is a software provider only. We are not a party to any contract, quote, invoice, or transaction between you and your customers, and we do not guarantee that your customers will pay you. Refunds, disputes, and chargebacks are matters between you, your customer, and Stripe. We may surface information in the app to help you respond to a dispute, but we have no obligation to resolve disputes on your behalf.

Saved payment methods (autopay). Your customers may save a card or bank account and authorize you to charge it after each completed visit of a recurring service. The card or bank details are stored by Stripe on your connected Stripe account; MakeHay stores only the type, brand, last four digits, expiry, and a record of the authorization (its wording and version, the time, and the network address and browser it was given from). You are responsible for charging only the per-visit price your customer agreed to, plus any tax and fees shown on the invoice; for sending a receipt for every charge, which the Service does on your behalf; and for honoring a customer’s request to stop, which the customer can also do at any time from their client portal. Charges made this way are initiated by you, not the customer, and are subject to card network and bank rules for such charges. We may suspend saved payment methods on your account if we believe they are being used contrary to these Terms.

7. Your customer data and responsibility

You use the Service to store information about your customers, such as names, email addresses, phone numbers, property addresses, and job records (“Customer Data”). As between you and MakeHay, you own your Customer Data.

You are responsible for your Customer Data. You represent and warrant that you have the legal right to collect, store, and use it, and to direct us to contact those customers on your behalf, in compliance with applicable law. MakeHay processes Customer Data only to provide and improve the Service and does not sell it. You grant us the limited license needed to host, process, transmit, and display Customer Data for those purposes.

8. Acceptable use

You agree not to:

  • use the Service for any unlawful purpose or in violation of any applicable law or regulation;
  • send spam or any unsolicited commercial messages through the Service;
  • interfere with or disrupt the Service, probe or circumvent its security, or access it by any means other than the interfaces we provide;
  • reverse engineer, decompile, or attempt to extract the source code of the Service, except where that restriction is prohibited by law; or
  • resell, sublicense, or provide the Service to third parties as a service bureau.

9. Email sent on your behalf

The Service sends email on your behalf, such as quotes, invoices, payment reminders, review requests, visit reminders, customer messages, session updates, document and signature requests, and request-form confirmations. Automated reminders, follow-ups, review requests, and customer messages include an opt-out link, and we honor opt-outs; you must not attempt to circumvent them. You are responsible for the content of messages sent at your direction and must not use the Service to send unlawful, deceptive, or unsolicited email. You agree to comply with applicable email and marketing laws, including the CAN-SPAM Act where it applies.

9b. Text messages sent on your behalf

With the Texting add-on, the Service sends text messages (SMS) on your behalf from a MakeHay toll-free number: a quote is ready, an invoice was sent or is due, a visit is scheduled, a review request, and the autopay set-up link. A customer receives texts only after they tick the texting box on your request form themselves, or after you record their consent (the box when you add a customer, or the OK to text switch on their page), which you may do only when they have agreed to receive texts about their job from your business. No box is ever ticked in advance. Every text identifies your business, says it was sent via MakeHay, and tells the recipient they can reply STOP to opt out; replying HELP returns help. We honor STOP for every business on the Service at once and you must not attempt to circumvent it. Message frequency varies with the work you do for that customer; message and data rates may apply. You are responsible for the consent you record and for complying with applicable laws on text messaging, including the TCPA where it applies.

9a. Electronic signatures

The Service lets you request electronic signatures on documents you upload. MakeHay records the signer’s name (typed or drawn), email address, consent and signing timestamps, IP address, and browser, together with a cryptographic fingerprint of the document, and produces a signed PDF with an audit trail. You are responsible for the content of documents you send for signature and for determining whether an electronic signature is sufficient for your purpose under applicable law (including ESIGN and UETA in the US).

10. Service availability

We work to keep MakeHay fast and reliable, but the Service is provided on an “as is” and “as available” basis. We do not offer an uptime service-level agreement (SLA) at this time. The Service may be temporarily unavailable for maintenance, updates, or reasons beyond our control.

11. Intellectual property

MakeHay and its licensors own all right, title, and interest in the Service, including its software, design, and branding. Subject to these Terms, we grant you a limited, non-exclusive, non-transferable right to use the Service for your business while your account is active. These Terms do not transfer any MakeHay intellectual property to you. If you send us feedback or suggestions, we may use them without restriction or obligation to you. Your Customer Data remains yours, as described in Section 7.

12. Termination

You may stop using the Service at any time and ask us to close your account by emailing us (Section 17). We may suspend or terminate your account if you violate these Terms, if required by law, or if we discontinue the Service; where practical, we will give you notice first. Before your data is deleted, you may request an export of your Customer Data by contacting support@makehay.io. After account closure, we may delete your data following a reasonable retention period, except where the law requires us to keep it. Sections that by their nature should survive termination (including Sections 7, 11, 13, 14, and 15) will survive.

13. Disclaimers and limitation of liability

TO THE FULLEST EXTENT PERMITTED BY LAW, THE SERVICE IS PROVIDED “AS IS” WITHOUT WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, WHETHER EXPRESS, IMPLIED, OR STATUTORY, INCLUDING IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE, AND NON-INFRINGEMENT. WE DO NOT WARRANT THAT THE SERVICE WILL BE UNINTERRUPTED, ERROR-FREE, OR SECURE.

TO THE FULLEST EXTENT PERMITTED BY LAW, MAKEHAY WILL NOT BE LIABLE FOR ANY INDIRECT, INCIDENTAL, SPECIAL, CONSEQUENTIAL, OR PUNITIVE DAMAGES, OR FOR LOST PROFITS, REVENUE, DATA, OR GOODWILL, ARISING OUT OF OR RELATED TO THE SERVICE OR THESE TERMS. MAKEHAY’S TOTAL LIABILITY FOR ALL CLAIMS ARISING OUT OF OR RELATED TO THE SERVICE OR THESE TERMS WILL NOT EXCEED THE AMOUNTS YOU PAID TO MAKEHAY IN THE TWELVE (12) MONTHS BEFORE THE EVENT GIVING RISE TO THE CLAIM. SOME JURISDICTIONS DO NOT ALLOW CERTAIN LIMITATIONS, SO PARTS OF THIS SECTION MAY NOT APPLY TO YOU.

13a. Partner program

MakeHay runs a partner program for people and organizations that send businesses to the Service. These terms apply to anyone accepted into it.

  • What you earn. A share of the revenue MakeHay actually collects from each business attributed to you: the platform fee on its online payments and the amounts it pays for add-ons. The share, the number of months it runs from the business’s signup, and the minimum payout are stated on your partner page. We may change them for new activity with 30 days’ notice by email.
  • Attribution. A business is attributed to you when it creates its account from your partner link or enters your code at sign-up. Each business is attributed once, to one referrer. Businesses you own, work at, or control are never attributed to you.
  • Statements and payment. Statements close monthly for the previous month. Balances at or above the minimum are paid by transfer to a Stripe account you set up through the Service; smaller balances carry forward. You must accept Stripe’s Connected Account Agreement to be paid. Refunds, chargebacks and reversed payments reduce the share earned on them, on the next statement if needed.
  • Your status. You are an independent contractor, not an employee, agent or representative of MakeHay, and you are responsible for your own taxes. Stripe issues tax forms where required.
  • What you may not do. Refer yourself; bid on MakeHay brand terms in paid search or run pages or domains that pass as MakeHay; send unsolicited email or text messages; make claims about the Service that this site doesn’t make; or use any method that attributes a business to you without that business choosing to use your link or code.
  • Ending it. Either side may end the partnership at any time. Balances earned before that are paid on the usual schedule, except balances earned by breaking these terms, which are forfeited.

14. Indemnification

You agree to indemnify, defend, and hold harmless MakeHay and its owner from and against any claims, damages, liabilities, costs, and expenses (including reasonable attorneys’ fees) arising out of or related to your Customer Data, your use of the Service, your violation of these Terms, or your violation of any law or the rights of a third party, including your customers.

15. Governing law

These Terms are governed by the laws of the State of Vermont, USA, without regard to its conflict-of-laws rules. Any dispute arising out of or relating to these Terms or the Service will be brought exclusively in the state or federal courts located in Vermont, and you consent to their jurisdiction.

16. Changes to these Terms

We may update these Terms from time to time. If we make material changes, we will notify you by email or in the app before the changes take effect. The “Last updated” date above reflects the most recent revision. Your continued use of the Service after changes take effect constitutes acceptance of the updated Terms.

17. Contact

Questions about these Terms? Email us at support@makehay.io.