Terms of Service

1. Who we are and your agreement

Astride is a trading name of ISO Consultants U.K. Limited (“Astride”, “we”, “us” or “our”). “You” means the person or organisation entering the agreement, and includes its authorised users where the context requires.

These terms govern our website and the Astride services you order. Your order confirmation identifies the purchased service, price, billing period and any agreed special conditions. A separately agreed written contract takes priority where it expressly varies these terms; otherwise the order’s service and pricing details and these terms apply together. Mandatory consumer rights always take priority.

Astride is designed for business use. A “business customer” acts for purposes relating to its trade, business, craft or profession. A “consumer” is an individual acting wholly or mainly outside those purposes. Labelling an account “business” does not remove legal consumer rights if you qualify as a consumer. Section 6 explains those rights; terms expressly limited to business customers do not apply to consumers.

Account registration or service ordering must present the applicable terms for acceptance. Merely viewing the marketing website does not create a paid subscription. Our Privacy Policy explains data use; accepting these terms does not amount to consent to optional marketing or to all possible processing of personal information.

2. What Astride provides

Astride provides tools for website review, keyword research, content and image preparation, content review, supported publishing connections, reporting and monthly marketing planning. The functions available to you depend on your order, plan allowances, feature availability, permissions and connection setup.

Website audits are based on the pages and information successfully accessible at the time of the review. They may sample a site and do not certify every page, legal compliance, accessibility, security or suitability for a particular industry. Keyword volumes and similar metrics are estimates from their stated sources. Performance comparisons show observed changes; they do not prove what caused them.

We will provide the agreed service with reasonable care and skill. We do not promise a particular Google position, inclusion in ChatGPT or another AI service, traffic level, number of leads, sales, revenue or timeframe for growth. Search systems, competitors and customer decisions are outside our control. This qualification does not remove an express service commitment or a statutory remedy.

A one-off audit or report purchase covers the item described at checkout. It does not start a monthly subscription unless you separately choose and confirm one. Features described as proposed, in preview or requiring activation are not a promise of immediate availability; the confirmed order must identify what is included.

3. Accounts and authority

• You must be at least 18, provide accurate registration and billing details, and be authorised to enter the agreement. If acting for an organisation, you confirm your authority to bind it.
• Use the required account-verification steps, keep credentials secure and tell us promptly about suspected misuse. Do not share a named user’s credentials to evade seat limits.
• You must have permission to scan, manage or publish to the websites and accounts you connect. An agency must obtain its clients’ authority and ensure its users act within it.
• Workspace owners manage membership, billing and permissions. You are responsible for your authorised users’ compliance, but not for losses to the extent caused by our own breach or failure to take required care.

Keep your primary email and business details current so we can deliver notices and requested reports. Tell us about disputed account ownership; we may require proportionate evidence before changing access.

4. Orders, prices and payment

Before you confirm an order, we will show the service, price in pounds sterling (GBP), any applicable taxes, billing frequency and material restrictions. The payable total must be clear before payment; taxes or additional services must not be added through an undisclosed charge. We will not correct a pricing error by charging you a higher amount without your agreement.

A paid contract starts when we accept your order and confirm it electronically. A payment return screen alone is not evidence that payment has succeeded. We provide an order or billing confirmation in a form you can keep. If we cannot accept an order, we will explain and return any payment taken for that unaccepted order.

Payments are processed through Stripe. You authorise only the charge and, for subscriptions, the recurring billing disclosed and accepted at checkout. Your bank may require additional authentication. We do not require card details by email.

If a payment fails or is disputed, we will tell you where reasonably possible and may pause new paid work after the paid period expires. A pause does not create a new charge or erase your right to challenge an incorrect bill. Contact us promptly about a billing error; this does not restrict statutory payment or refund rights.

5. Subscriptions, allowances and cancellation

Unless your accepted order states otherwise, subscriptions are monthly and renew automatically for successive billing months until cancelled. There is no annual commitment for a monthly plan. The account billing screen and payment confirmation identify the renewal date and price.

Cancel through Services & plan → Manage subscription, or email the contact in section 1 before the next renewal. If the billing control is unavailable, a clear cancellation message is sufficient; include the account email and business so we can identify the subscription. We will confirm cancellation. Ordinary cancellation takes effect at the end of the current paid period, and no further renewal payment should be taken.

For business customers, unused time in a normally cancelled billing period is not refunded simply because you decide to stop using the service. This does not affect refunds for our breach, an incorrect charge, withdrawal of a paid service, or any applicable statutory right. Consumer cancellation is addressed separately below.

• Monthly allowances renew by the applicable billing period. Unused allowances do not roll over or convert to cash unless your order expressly says otherwise. No automatic paid top-up is authorised by using up an allowance.
• Writing, research, page-check and image allowances are distinct. A successfully delivered new writing version can use a credit even if you choose not to publish it. Manual review, editing, approval and export do not themselves use an additional writing credit.
• Image generation is charged against its allowance per provider attempt, including a failed or interrupted attempt, as described in the plan. Confirmed failed writing or research work releases its reservation; an uncertain provider outcome may stay reserved while investigated. Report an incorrect usage entry to us.
• Included scheduled articles, website limits, seats, shared Agency allowances and other plan-specific quantities are those described in your confirmed plan. Technical workload and security limits may also apply and must not be used to deprive you of the service reasonably described.
• An upgrade may involve a proportionate charge shown for approval before confirmation. Downgrades and ordinary cancellations take effect at the end of the paid period. Plan changes must accommodate your current users and websites, or you must reduce them.

We will give at least 30 days’ notice of a subscription price increase or material reduction in your paid plan, effective no earlier than a subsequent renewal after that notice. You may cancel before it takes effect. Disabling automation, disconnecting Google or signing out does not itself cancel billing; cancelling billing does not itself request deletion of your account.

6. Consumer cancellation and statutory rights

This section applies if you are a consumer. It preserves your rights under the Consumer Rights Act 2015 and the Consumer Contracts (Information, Cancellation and Additional Charges) Regulations 2013, together with any other mandatory law that applies.

Your initial cancellation period

For an online service contract, you normally have 14 days after the day the contract is made to cancel without giving a reason. Tell us by email or post before that period ends. Any clear statement is sufficient; the model form below is optional. Where required cancellation information was not properly provided, a longer statutory cancellation period may apply.

If you expressly ask us to start a service during that period and the required information was provided, we may charge a proportionate amount for the service actually supplied before cancellation. A service cancellation right is lost through full performance during that period only when the law’s express-consent and acknowledgement requirements have been met.

Different rules apply to digital content supplied without a physical medium, such as an immediately delivered downloadable report. The cancellation right is lost when supply starts only if you first expressly consent to immediate supply, acknowledge losing that right and receive the required confirmation. Merely accepting these general terms, logging in or buying a subscription is not that separate consent and acknowledgement.

Where a cancellation refund is due, we will make it without undue delay and within 14 days of being told of the cancellation, using the original payment method unless you expressly agree otherwise, without a refund fee. We will explain any lawful deduction.

If the service or digital content is faulty

Services must be provided with reasonable care and skill. Applicable digital content must meet statutory standards, including satisfactory quality, fitness for a particular purpose made known and accepted, and conformity with its description. Depending on the circumstances, remedies can include repeat performance, repair or replacement, a price reduction or refund. No “no refund” wording, liability cap or AI qualification in these terms removes those rights.

Optional cancellation form

You can find independent information about your rights through GOV.UK consumer protection guidance. Any additional mandatory cancellation or renewal rights in force for your contract also apply.

7. Connected services, approvals and automation

You decide which supported services to connect and which activities to enable. An authorised schedule can continue while you are signed out until paused, revoked or otherwise stopped by the service’s controls. You remain responsible for reviewing the enabled activities and their intended destinations.

Review generated copy, images, source claims, links, personal information and destination settings before approval. A draft is not a publication. Publication requires the permissions, approved version and supported connection described in the application. Authorising preparation does not, by itself, authorise every form of publication.

Third-party platforms may change APIs, permissions, availability, moderation rules and their own charges. Their terms apply to your relationship with them. We will take reasonable steps to address integration problems within our control, but cannot guarantee third-party approval or uninterrupted access. We remain responsible for our own contractual and statutory obligations.

Pausing or disconnecting normally prevents future authorised work; it may not reverse a request already sent or a completed publication. Check the recorded status. Keep suitable copies or backups of important website content before applying changes, and use the destination platform to remove already published material where necessary.

8. Acceptable use

You must not use Astride to:

• publish unlawful, defamatory, fraudulent, discriminatory or infringing material, impersonate another person, fabricate customer reviews or make misleading claims;
• send unsolicited messages unlawfully, misuse personal information or upload data you lack a lawful basis or authority to process;
• introduce malware, gain unauthorised access, bypass security or allowance controls, interfere with other users or scan restricted systems without permission;
• resell access, share credentials beyond your permitted users, or exploit another customer’s workspace;
• use the service in a way that breaches applicable law or the relevant connected platform’s rules.

Do not use Astride as the sole basis for legal, medical, financial, employment or other decisions requiring qualified professional judgement. Do not submit special-category or criminal-offence data without a separately agreed lawful and suitable processing arrangement.

9. Content, AI output and intellectual property

You or your licensors retain rights in the content you provide. You give us a limited permission to host, copy, process, adapt and transmit it as necessary to deliver your instructed services, including making an approved publication to your chosen destination. This permission does not authorise us to sell your content or use it for unrelated advertising.

As between you and Astride, to the extent we own transferable rights in output generated specifically for you, we assign those rights to you when the relevant service is paid for. Our software, templates, methods, brand and pre-existing material remain ours or our licensors’. We permit you to use embedded elements of that material as needed to use the delivered output for its intended purpose.

AI output may be inaccurate, incomplete, similar to someone else’s output, or unable to attract exclusive intellectual-property protection. We cannot assign rights belonging to a third party. You must check facts, originality, permissions, image suitability and any regulated claims before use. Source references and AI suggestions do not replace that review.

You may not copy or distribute the Astride software or brand except as permitted by law or our written agreement. Public examples and testimonials must not be presented as your own results. An Affiliate page illustration is not a binding commission agreement; any partner arrangement requires its own agreed terms.

10. Confidentiality and personal information

Each party must protect the other’s non-public business information received through the service, use it only for the agreement and disclose it only to people or suppliers who need it and owe suitable confidentiality duties. This does not restrict information already lawfully known, independently developed, lawfully received elsewhere or public without a breach.

Disclosure required by law is permitted, with advance notice where lawful and practical. Material you approve for public publication is not confidential once published. Our Privacy Policy describes our controller activities. The following section governs personal data processed on a business customer’s behalf.

11. Customer data-processing terms

Where UK GDPR applies and we process personal data solely for your instructed service, you are the controller and we are the processor. If you are a processor for your client, these provisions apply to our role as your sub-processor and you must have that controller’s authorisation. A separately agreed data-processing agreement takes priority over this section for the processing it covers.

Scope and instructions

The subject matter is the hosting, analysis, generation, review, reporting and authorised publication of customer content. Processing lasts for the service and the period needed to return or delete its data. Operations include collection, storage, retrieval, analysis, transformation, transmission and deletion. Data subjects may include your staff, contractors, customers, prospects, website contributors and reviewers. Data types may include names, business contact details, roles, website text, review text, supplied media, connection identifiers and reporting information. Special-category and criminal-offence data are outside the ordinary service scope.

Your order, saved instructions, enabled settings and authorised actions form your documented instructions. You are responsible for the lawful basis, necessary notices, permissions and accuracy of the customer data you supply. We will process only on documented instructions, including for international transfers, unless law requires otherwise; in that case we will inform you before processing unless prohibited. We will notify you if we believe an instruction infringes applicable data-protection law.

Our obligations

• Ensure authorised personnel are bound by confidentiality and apply security measures appropriate to risk, taking account of UK GDPR Article 32.
• Assist you, taking account of the processing and available information, with individual-rights requests, security duties, personal-data breaches, impact assessments and prior consultation obligations.
• Notify you without undue delay after becoming aware of a personal-data breach affecting customer data, provide available relevant information and cooperate on containment and the required response. We will not wait for every fact to be established before notifying you.
• Make information needed to demonstrate compliance available and allow and contribute to reasonable audits or inspections by you or an independent auditor you appoint. Reasonable notice, confidentiality and safeguards for other customers apply, without preventing statutory or regulator-required access.
• At the end of processing, return or delete customer data at your choice and delete existing copies unless law requires retention. Protected backup copies remain restricted pending their scheduled expiry; they must not be used for unrelated purposes. Ask for an export before closing the workspace, and contact us about records not available through the export controls.

Sub-processors and overseas processing

You give general written authorisation to the service providers identified in Privacy Policy section 7 to act as sub-processors only to the extent they process customer data for the instructed service. Independent-controller activities, such as a payment provider’s statutory checks, are separate.

We must impose equivalent data-protection obligations on sub-processors and remain responsible to you for their performance. Before adding or replacing a sub-processor for your customer data, we will give notice with enough information to assess the change and, normally, at least 30 days to raise a reasonable data-protection objection. We will work to resolve it. If no suitable solution is available, you may end the affected service before the change and receive a proportionate refund for unused prepaid service.

International transfers must meet the UK GDPR transfer requirements described in the Privacy Policy. These terms do not themselves substitute for a required international-transfer agreement or give a supplier unrestricted access to customer data.

12. Availability, changes and ending the service

We use reasonable care to keep the service available, but maintenance, faults or external events can cause interruption. Unless separately agreed, there is no guaranteed uptime percentage. Where practical, we will notify you of planned material downtime and provide updates on a significant problem.

We may make changes needed for security, law, compatibility or service improvement. For a material adverse change to an existing paid service or these contractual terms, we will normally give at least 30 days’ notice and an opportunity to end the affected service before it takes effect. If you have prepaid beyond that point, we will refund the unused affected period. Urgent legal or security changes may require shorter notice, but do not remove your applicable remedies. Changes do not retrospectively alter accrued rights.

We may restrict or suspend the affected activity where reasonably necessary to address a serious breach, a security threat, unlawful use or non-payment. We will explain the reason and allow a reasonable opportunity to remedy a remediable breach unless doing so would create a security risk, breach the law or be impractical in an emergency. Suspension must be proportionate.

Either party may end the affected agreement for a material breach that is not remedied within a reasonable written notice period. We may end or discontinue an ongoing service on at least 30 days’ notice. If we withdraw paid service other than because of your material breach, we will refund the unused prepaid period. Termination does not remove amounts properly due, accrued remedies, confidentiality, data-protection duties or provisions intended to continue.

Export important work before access ends. If access is restricted, contact us to arrange lawful retrieval. We will not withhold a statutory data right merely because of a billing dispute. Retention and deletion are addressed in the Privacy Policy and section 11.

13. Responsibility and liability

Nothing in these terms excludes or limits liability for death or personal injury caused by negligence, fraud or fraudulent misrepresentation, or any liability or statutory right that cannot lawfully be excluded or limited. Data subjects’ statutory rights and remedies are not displaced by a contractual limit between the parties.

Business customers

Subject to the paragraph above and to the extent lawful and reasonable, neither party is liable to the other for indirect or consequential loss, lost profits, lost revenue or lost business opportunities arising from this agreement. Our total contractual liability to a business customer for claims arising from the service is limited to the greater of £500 and the fees paid or payable for the affected services during the 12 months before the event giving rise to the claim.

That business limit does not reduce a refund expressly due under these terms, excuse payment of properly due fees, or override a higher liability commitment in a separately agreed written contract. Any limitation remains subject to applicable law, including the reasonableness requirements of the Unfair Contract Terms Act 1977. Each party should take reasonable steps to avoid or reduce loss.

Consumers

The business-customer exclusions and cap above do not apply to consumers. If we fail to comply with our agreement, we are responsible for loss or damage that is a foreseeable result of our breach or failure to use reasonable care and skill. Loss is foreseeable if it is obvious or both parties knew it might happen when contracting. We are not responsible for loss caused by your own breach, to that extent, or for an event genuinely outside our reasonable control where we take appropriate steps to minimise its effects and preserve your statutory rights.

14. Support and disputes

For support, cancellation or a complaint, email or write to the contact in section 1. Include enough information to identify the account and explain what happened; do not include passwords or full card details. We will investigate and seek a fair resolution. Data-protection complaints follow the process in our Privacy Policy.

If a consumer complaint cannot be resolved directly, we will provide any alternative-dispute-resolution information required by law, including whether we are obliged or willing to use the relevant scheme. These terms do not impose compulsory arbitration or prevent you seeking advice, using a regulator or bringing a court claim.

15. General terms and applicable law

The agreement is in English. Notices may be sent to your account email or to our contact address. A failure to enforce a right immediately is not a waiver. If a term is unenforceable, the remaining terms continue to the extent legally possible.

You may transfer an account or contract only with our agreement, which will not be unreasonably withheld. We may transfer our agreement as part of a legitimate business reorganisation or sale only if your rights and guarantees are not reduced; we will tell you about a material transfer and preserve applicable cancellation rights. Connected-service permissions and data-protection requirements still apply.

No person other than the parties has a contractual right to enforce these terms under the Contracts (Rights of Third Parties) Act 1999, without affecting rights an individual has under data-protection or other mandatory law. Nothing creates a partnership, employment or agency relationship.

English law governs this agreement. For business customers, the courts of England and Wales have exclusive jurisdiction. Consumers retain the protection of mandatory laws and access to courts that apply where they live; in particular, a consumer resident in Scotland or Northern Ireland may bring proceedings in their local courts. This clause does not deprive any consumer of non-excludable protection.