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Terms of Service

Last updated: June 13, 2026

1. Agreement to These Terms

These Terms of Service ("Terms") are a binding agreement between you and Umbel ("Umbel", "we", "us") governing your access to and use of the Umbel website, applications, and services (together, the "Service"). By creating an account or using the Service, you agree to these Terms and to our Privacy Policy. If you do not agree, you may not use the Service.

If you use the Service on behalf of an organisation (for example, under a team plan), you confirm that you are authorised to bind that organisation to these Terms, and "you" includes that organisation.

2. Eligibility

You must be at least 18 years old, or the age of majority in your jurisdiction, and capable of entering into a legally binding agreement to use the Service. By using the Service, you represent that you meet these requirements.

3. The Service

Umbel lets you create and share digital business cards, including through public profile pages, QR codes, NFC products, and digital wallet passes. Depending on your plan, the Service may also include card analytics, contact management (including AI-assisted scanning of paper business cards), team management tools, and related features.

We may add, change, or remove features of the Service at any time. Where a change materially reduces the core functionality of a paid plan, we will use reasonable efforts to notify you in advance.

4. Your Account

  • You must provide accurate, complete, and current information when creating your account, and keep it up to date.
  • You are responsible for safeguarding your login credentials and for all activity that occurs under your account.
  • You must notify us promptly at andrew@umbel.me if you suspect unauthorised access to your account.
  • You may not share, sell, or transfer your account to anyone else without our written consent.

5. Your Content

The Service allows you to upload, store, and share information such as text, images, links, and contact details ("Content"). You retain ownership of your Content. You are solely responsible for your Content, including its accuracy, legality, and your right to share it.

By submitting Content, you grant Umbel a worldwide, non-exclusive, royalty-free licence to host, store, reproduce, adapt (for technical purposes such as resizing images), and display your Content solely as needed to operate, provide, and improve the Service. This licence ends when your Content is deleted from the Service, except for copies in routine backups, which are deleted on a rolling basis.

We do not pre-screen Content, but we may remove or refuse Content that we reasonably believe violates these Terms or applicable law.

6. Public Profiles

The core purpose of a digital business card is to be shared. Information you add to your card or public profile is, by design, accessible to anyone who has your profile link, scans your QR code, or taps your NFC product, and may be indexed by search engines. Do not add information to your card that you are not willing to make public. You control what appears on your card and can edit or remove it at any time.

7. Other People's Information

The Service lets you collect and store contact details of other people — for example, by scanning a paper business card or receiving details that someone shares with you through your profile. When you do this, you act as the responsible party for that information, and you must:

  • Only collect and store information that was lawfully provided or made available to you.
  • Use it in a way the person would reasonably expect (for example, professional follow-up), and comply with applicable data protection and anti-spam laws, including POPIA.
  • Delete it if the person asks you to.

8. Acceptable Use

You agree not to misuse the Service. In particular, you must not:

  • Impersonate any person or organisation, or misrepresent your affiliation with one.
  • Upload Content that is unlawful, defamatory, infringing, deceptive, or that violates anyone's privacy or intellectual property rights.
  • Use the Service to send spam or unsolicited communications.
  • Upload malicious code, or attempt to probe, breach, or circumvent any security or authentication measures.
  • Interfere with or disrupt the Service, or impose an unreasonable load on our infrastructure.
  • Resell, sublicense, or white-label the Service without our written consent.
  • Circumvent plan limits or use the Service to build a competing product.

9. Anti-Scraping Policy

You are strictly prohibited from using any automated systems or software (including scrapers, bots, spiders, or crawlers) to access the Service or extract data from it — including data from public profiles — for any purpose, without our express written permission. This includes harvesting profile data to build databases, train machine-learning models, or send unsolicited communications. Unauthorised scraping is a material breach of these Terms and may result in suspension, termination, and legal action.

10. Plans, Billing, and Renewal

  • We offer free and paid subscription plans. Current pricing and plan features are described on our pricing page. Prices are shown in South African Rand unless stated otherwise, and include VAT where applicable.
  • Payments are processed by our payment partner, Polar, acting as merchant of record. Your purchase is also subject to Polar's own terms, and we never receive or store your full card details.
  • Subscriptions renew automatically at the end of each billing cycle (monthly or yearly, as selected) until cancelled. You authorise recurring charges to your payment method until you cancel.
  • We may change our prices. Price changes take effect at your next renewal, and for increases we will give you at least 30 days' notice so you can cancel first.
  • For team plans, the account holder is responsible for all fees for seats or cards in the team, as adjusted when members are added or removed.
  • If a payment fails, we may retry it and may downgrade or suspend paid features until payment is received.

11. Cancellation and Refunds

You may cancel your subscription at any time from your billing settings in the dashboard, or by emailing andrew@umbel.me. Cancellation takes effect at the end of the current billing cycle: you keep paid features until then, and you will not be charged again.

Except as required by applicable law, fees are non-refundable, and we do not provide refunds or credits for partial billing periods, unused features, or downgrades. Nothing in these Terms excludes any non-waivable rights you may have under the Consumer Protection Act, the Electronic Communications and Transactions Act, or other applicable consumer law.

12. Umbel's Intellectual Property

The Service — including its software, design, logos, and trademarks — is owned by Umbel or its licensors and is protected by intellectual property laws. Except for your own Content, we grant you only a limited, non-exclusive, non-transferable, revocable licence to use the Service in accordance with these Terms. You may not copy, modify, distribute, reverse-engineer, or create derivative works of the Service except as permitted by law.

13. Third-Party Services

The Service integrates with third-party services — for example payment processing, sign-in with Google, digital wallet passes, and AI providers used for business card scanning. Your use of those services may be subject to their own terms and privacy policies, and we are not responsible for third-party services we do not control. Links on user profiles lead to external content that we do not endorse or control.

14. Suspension and Termination

You may stop using the Service and delete your account at any time from your account settings. We may suspend or terminate your access to the Service, with notice where reasonably practicable, if you materially breach these Terms, if required by law, or if your use poses a risk to the Service or to others. Where the breach is capable of remedy, we will use reasonable efforts to give you an opportunity to remedy it first.

On termination, your right to use the Service ends and your Content will be deleted in accordance with our Privacy Policy. Sections of these Terms that by their nature should survive termination (including ownership, disclaimers, limitation of liability, and indemnity) survive.

15. Disclaimers

The Service is provided on an "as is" and "as available" basis. To the maximum extent permitted by law, we disclaim all warranties, whether express, implied, or statutory, including 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, or that analytics data will be complete or accurate.

AI-assisted features (such as business card scanning) generate results automatically and may be inaccurate or incomplete. You are responsible for reviewing AI-generated output before relying on it.

16. Limitation of Liability

To the maximum extent permitted by law, Umbel will not be liable for any indirect, incidental, special, consequential, or punitive damages, or for any loss of profits, revenue, data, goodwill, or business opportunities, arising out of or related to your use of (or inability to use) the Service, even if we have been advised of the possibility of such damages.

To the maximum extent permitted by law, our total aggregate liability for all claims arising out of or relating to the Service or these Terms is limited to the greater of (a) the amount you paid us for the Service in the 12 months before the event giving rise to the claim, and (b) R1,000. Nothing in these Terms excludes or limits liability that cannot be excluded or limited under applicable law.

17. Indemnity

To the extent permitted by law, you agree to indemnify and hold Umbel harmless from any claims, damages, and reasonable costs (including legal fees) arising from your Content, your misuse of the Service, your violation of these Terms, or your violation of any law or third-party right — including claims by people whose personal information you collected or stored using the Service.

18. Changes to These Terms

We may update these Terms from time to time. If we make material changes, we will notify you — for example by email or a notice in the Service — at least 14 days before the changes take effect, except where changes are required by law or relate to new features. Your continued use of the Service after changes take effect constitutes acceptance of the updated Terms. If you do not agree, you must stop using the Service and may cancel your subscription.

19. Governing Law and Disputes

These Terms are governed by the laws of the Republic of South Africa, without regard to conflict of law principles. You agree that the courts of South Africa have jurisdiction over any dispute arising from these Terms or the Service, provided that nothing prevents either party from seeking interdictory or injunctive relief in any competent court, and consumers retain any rights to bring claims in their local jurisdiction where the law provides for this.

20. General

  • Entire agreement. These Terms and the Privacy Policy are the entire agreement between you and Umbel regarding the Service.
  • Severability. If any provision is found unenforceable, the rest of the Terms remain in effect.
  • No waiver. Our failure to enforce a provision is not a waiver of our right to do so later.
  • Assignment. You may not assign these Terms without our consent. We may assign them in connection with a merger, acquisition, or sale of assets, with notice to you.
  • Force majeure. We are not liable for delays or failures caused by events beyond our reasonable control.

21. Contact

Questions about these Terms? Contact us at andrew@umbel.me.

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