If you are selling products or services online, you may wish to specify the methods of payment that you accept, including your use of third-party payment providers if any (PayPal, Stripe, etc), and your payment terms.
Similarly, if you operate based on a subscription method, you should set out when payment will be taken and at what frequency.
Your customers should be able to refer to your terms to understand how they will be charged if they choose to cancel their subscription and when they will stop being able to access your website or services i.e. will it be immediately upon cancellation or will they have access until the end of the month.
If you offer a free trial period, you need to be clear with your users as to what happens at the end of that timeframe.
Will their credit card automatically be charged unless they cancel prior to the end date, and will it continue to be charged monthly unless they terminate their subscription? Will they still have access to what they have created during the trial period if they choose not to subscribe to your product or will their data be erased?
Writing this down in black and white can prevent bad surprises and, in the event that a customer is unhappy, you will be able to refer them to the terms and conditions that they accepted (provided of course that you diligently made sure that they were aware of them).
If you, from time to time, link to other websites, you may wish to include a clause that lets your users know that this does not imply that you are endorsing all content on the third party’s website and that you are not responsible for whatever happens when your users choose to follow a link and leave your website.
They should be considering the respective terms and privacy policies of these external websites.
The beauty of the Internet is that it is far-reaching and accessible to people located across the globe. On the other hand, this can create a world of issues when disputes arise and need to be settled in court.
For that reason, you may wish to elect a governing law and a dispute resolution process. If your business is located in the state of California, you may wish to specify that any dispute that arises out of these terms and conditions or use of the website will be governed by the laws of that State.
You may also wish to subject all disputes to arbitration instead of going in front of the courts, in which case your users need to know so that they can make an informed decision before they start using your website or your product.
Any good policy should make it easy for users to contact the website or mobile application owner. Include your email and business address, as well as a contact form if you have one, and invite your users to contact you should they have any questions or concerns.
Drafting terms and conditions is not a one-time thing. You will need to review these regularly to make sure that you keep up with any changes in your business or products offered as well as with applicable legislation.
Let your users know how they will be made aware of these changes. You could for example mention that you will update the date at the top of your T&Cs page in the case of minor changes but notify your users via email or a pop-up in your mobile app should there be any significant modifications.
If you want to spend more time on your business and less time drafting terms and conditions, use our terms and conditions generator. It will help you generate comprehensive T&Cs to protect your business, products, and services.
Terms and conditions should be hosted on a standalone page of your website to make the information digestible for your users. It should link to your privacy policy to ensure that your website visitors know that it exists and applies, as well as to any other policies or guidelines that you have.
As a general rule, terms and conditions are made accessible through a hyperlink displayed in the website footer. This is good practice as it makes it easily accessible to website visitors and visible before they start navigating your website.