Terms of Service

**Last Updated: May 2026**

Welcome to WaveBit! These Terms of Service ("Terms") constitute a legally binding agreement between you (referred to as the "Client", "User", "Developer", "you", or "your") and WaveBit ("we", "us", "our", or "WaveBit"), a provider of web engineering, custom software solutions, automated workflows, and developer API services based in the Republic of South Africa.

Please read these Terms carefully. By accessing our website ([wavebit.dev](https://wavebit.dev)), submitting inquiries, purchasing development packages, subscribing to our services, or utilizing our active developer APIs, you accept and agree to be bound by these Terms in full. If you do not agree with any part of these Terms, you must immediately cease all use of our website, custom applications, and API networks.

## 1. SCOPE OF SERVICES
WaveBit provides custom software architecture, high-performance web development, business automation workflows, hosting, and developer API endpoints (including Maps, Cities, Currencies, Holidays, and Localization). All services, custom platforms, and custom software delivered to you are governed by these Terms and any separate, formal Service Agreements executed in writing.

## 2. WEBSITES, DEVELOPMENTS, AND PROPERTY TRANSFER
Our commercial billing structures include Once-Off payments and Monthly Subscriptions, which carry distinct ownership and intellectual property (IP) transition protocols:

**A. Once-Off Development Projects**
*   **Ownership Transition:** Full ownership of custom website files, databases, codebases, and assets transfers to the Client immediately upon final project sign-off and receipt of 100% of the agreed project fee.
*   **Future Maintenance:** Ongoing support, updates, or maintenance requests requested after final sign-off are billed at our standard hourly rate (currently R350.00 per hour, unless otherwise agreed in writing).

**B. Subscription Packages (12-Month Contracts)**
*   **Contractual Term:** Subscription packages (e.g., Starter One-Page, Professional Business, E-Commerce Store) are subject to an initial minimum term of twelve (12) consecutive months from the date of sign-up.
*   **Service Allocations:** Subscriptions include monthly hosting, server databases, security updates, and a dedicated monthly maintenance window (ranging from 30 minutes to 2 hours depending on the tier). Monthly allocated maintenance hours do not roll over or accumulate.
*   **Ownership Transition:** Full ownership of the website files, design, and databases transfers to the Client ONLY upon successful completion of the full 12-month contract period. Upon transition, Clients may downgrade to a hosting-only tier (currently R200.00 to R350.00 per month depending on the database requirements).

## 3. CANCELLATION, DEFAULT, SUSPENSION, AND DATA DELETION
In compliance with the South African Consumer Protection Act, No. 68 of 2008 ("CPA"), our termination and default policy is structured to protect both parties:

**A. Natural Persons and Sole Proprietorships**
*   **Early Cancellation Rights:** In accordance with Section 14 of the CPA, if you are a natural person or a sole proprietor, you may cancel your 12-month subscription agreement at any time by providing WaveBit with twenty (20) business days' written notice via email (info@wavebit.dev).
*   **Reasonable Cancellation Penalty (The Buyout Rule):** Because our subscription packages subsidize significant upfront design, software engineering, custom configuration, and deployment costs, early termination prior to the completion of the 12-month term is subject to a reasonable cancellation penalty under Section 14(3)(b)(i) of the CPA. 
*   **Buyout Fee:** The cancellation penalty (or "Buyout Fee") is calculated as equivalent to the remaining monthly subscription balance for the duration of the 12-month term.
*   **Forfeiture of Work:** If you choose to terminate your subscription early without paying the Buyout Fee, your services will be suspended immediately and you will completely forfeit any right, title, license, or claim to the design, website files, database structures, templates, or source code. These assets remain the exclusive intellectual property of WaveBit.
*   **Ownership Release:** Ownership of the website files and transfer permissions will only be released to the Client early upon receipt of the full payment of the Buyout Fee.

**B. Juristic Persons (Companies, CCs, Trusts, Partnerships)**
*   **Exclusion from CPA Section 14:** In accordance with South African law, corporate entities and juristic persons do not have a statutory right to early termination for convenience under Section 14 of the CPA. 
*   Juristic persons are bound to the full 12-month term. Early termination for convenience will require the immediate payment of the remaining 12-month contract balance as an exit fee, failing which WaveBit reserves the right to pursue full legal remedies for breach of contract.

**C. Payment Defaults and Suspension of Host (The 5-Day Suspension / 30-Day Deletion Rule)**
*   We rely on timely monthly payments to fund external hosting services and cloud infrastructure. If a subscription payment is missed or fails, a grace period of five (5) business days from the invoice due date is applied.
*   On the sixth (6th) business day of default, WaveBit reserves the right to suspend all hosting, take the website offline, block database connection pools, and revoke associated API keys immediately. We accept no liability for any loss of business, drop in Google/SEO rankings, or corrupted API integrations resulting from such suspension.
*   If the default is not cured by paying all outstanding balances in full within thirty (30) calendar days from the original invoice due date, WaveBit reserves the right to permanently delete all site files, databases, and source code from our servers. We are not responsible for maintaining backup copies of any deleted content post-termination.

## 4. API DEVELOPER TERMS AND ACCEPTABLE USE POLICY (AUP)
WaveBit licenses developer API access key credentials (e.g., maps, currencies, cities, holidays, and localization) under the following strict acceptable use terms. Any violation will result in the immediate and permanent revocation of your API keys.

**A. Administrative Access and Controls**
*   API keys are provisioned, assigned specific validation scopes, and managed solely via WaveBit's administrative portal. Clients do not have self-service key generation rights.
*   You are solely responsible for keeping your API key confidential and secure. You agree to notify us immediately of any unauthorized use or security compromise of your key.

**B. Prohibited Activities**
API keys and access grants must not be used to engage in, facilitate, or promote any of the following restricted behaviors:
*   **Database Harvesting and Scraping:** You are strictly prohibited from copying, extraction, bulk downloading, or scraping database content from our endpoints (including the World Cities, Holidays, or Localization tables) to build competing datasets, databases, or public directories.
*   **Bypassing Rate Limits:** You must not attempt to bypass, circumvent, or manipulate the rate limits associated with your assigned key. This includes generating parallel high-volume queries from multiple nodes to bypass hourly/daily rate thresholds.
*   **Reselling Access:** You are strictly prohibited from reselling, sub-licensing, renting, leasing, redistributing, or otherwise exposing our raw API endpoints, data feeds, or API keys directly to third parties without explicit, prior written authorization from WaveBit.
*   **Infrastructure Abuse:** Generating excessive, repetitive, or malicious request load designed to degrade API response speeds, trigger system crashes, or launch Denial of Service (DoS) attacks is strictly prohibited.

**C. Financial Advisory and Arbitrage Exclusions (Non-FSP Disclaimer)**
*   WaveBit is not a financial services provider under the Financial Advisory and Intermediary Services Act, No. 37 of 2002 ("FAIS Act").
*   All exchange rates and conversion results provided via our Currency API are strictly for informational and administrative purposes. You are strictly prohibited from utilizing our Currency API for live algorithmic trading, high-frequency currency arbitrage, or making critical investment decisions. We do not warrant the absolute real-time accuracy of these exchange rates and accept no liability for financial or trading losses.

**D. Suspension and Revocation**
WaveBit reserves the right, at our sole discretion, to temporarily suspend or permanently revoke any API key immediately and without notice if we detect usage patterns that indicate abuse, scraping, security hazards, rate-limit circumvention, or non-payment of subscription fees.

## 5. SERVICE LEVEL AGREEMENT (SLA) AND UPTIME GUARANTEE
We pride ourselves on the performance of our web infrastructure. While our actual system monitoring typically reflects an average uptime of 99.7%, we formally guarantee a service uptime of ninety-nine percent (99.0%) under normal operational circumstances.

**A. SLA Exclusions**
Our 99% uptime guarantee explicitly excludes any service interruptions, slow loading speeds, or downtime caused by:
*   **Planned Maintenance:** Pre-scheduled maintenance windows broadcast or logged in our administrative Downtime Manager.
*   **Upstream Infrastructure Failures:** Outages, lag, or service terminations originating from third-party networks, host providers, API processors, or upstream data providers (including Radar.io, Resend, Cloudflare, Azure, SQL Server host networks, or national power grid load-shedding).
*   **Global Network Failures:** Core internet routing failures, international undersea cable faults, or localized DNS propagation delays outside WaveBit's direct control.
*   **Force Majeure:** Severe weather, acts of God, strikes, civil unrest, war, cyber warfare, government directives, or critical cyberattacks (zero-day exploits, hardware router vulnerabilities) that bypass standard industry firewalls.
*   **Client Actions:** Outages caused by client-side DNS configuration errors, invalid custom domain records, or non-compliant client software integrations.

**B. Sole and Exclusive Remedy**
If we fail to meet our 99% uptime guarantee during a given billing cycle, your sole and exclusive remedy will be a pro-rata billing credit applied to your next monthly hosting or subscription invoice. We will not be liable for any financial losses, business interruptions, missed sales, drops in Google ranking, or operational damages resulting from unexpected server downtime or API outages.

## 6. CUSTOM SOFTWARE WARRANTY, BUGS, AND BACKUPS
When contracting WaveBit to develop custom software, back-office tools, or operational workflows (e.g., using automated pipelines or custom code):

**A. Development Testing and Client Sign-off**
*   WaveBit warrants that custom software will function substantially as defined in the mutually signed technical specifications document for a period of thirty (30) days post-deployment.
*   The Client is solely responsible for performing comprehensive User Acceptance Testing (UAT) in a staging environment prior to requesting production deployment. Once sign-off is completed, the software is deemed accepted "as-is."

**B. Bug Resolution and System Dependency Exclusions**
*   No software code is completely free of errors or "bugs." WaveBit does not warrant that custom software will operate uninterrupted or error-free. 
*   We are not responsible for software failures resulting from external environmental changes, including updates to third-party APIs (e.g., changes to external database schemas, auth mechanisms, or endpoint deprecations), operating system updates, or hosting server modifications.

**C. Backup and Data Loss Indemnity**
*   WaveBit does not provide off-site backup vaulting for Client data or transactional history processed by custom software unless explicitly contracted under a dedicated managed backup SLA.
*   The Client maintains sole responsibility for executing regular, automated, off-site backups of their entire database and files. Under no circumstances shall WaveBit be liable for any corrupted databases, lost files, leaked data, or system downtime resulting from a technical software bug or storage volume failure.

## 7. INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY AND SUB-LICENSING OF THIRD-PARTY LIBRARIES
**A. Ownership of WaveBit Code Frameworks**
Unless otherwise stated, WaveBit and/or its licensors own all intellectual property rights for all material on our website and all default custom frameworks, software tools, administrative console engines, API database schemas, and code scripts. 

You are granted a limited, non-exclusive, revocable, and non-transferable license to access our services, website, and APIs in accordance with these Terms. You may not copy, reverse-engineer, modify, or redistribute our core code frameworks or system structures.

**B. Open-Source and Third-Party Dependencies**
*   Our custom websites and platforms utilize standard open-source libraries, packages (e.g., NuGet, NPM packages), and external frameworks to ensure modern performance.
*   These components are licensed under their respective open-source licenses (e.g., MIT, Apache 2.0). WaveBit makes no warranties regarding the perpetual compatibility, security, or license terms of these third-party dependencies, and we exclude all liability for intellectual property disputes arising from third-party open-source libraries.

**C. Submissions and Feedback Ownership**
By submitting suggestions, feedback, feature requests, or endpoint recommendations to WaveBit, you grant us an irrevocable, perpetual, royalty-free, worldwide, sub-licensable license to use, implement, and commercialize such feedback without restriction or obligation of compensation to you.

## 8. LIMITATION OF LIABILITY
To the maximum extent permitted by South African law (including the Consumer Protection Act and the Electronic Communications and Transactions Act, No. 25 of 2002 ("ECTA")), WaveBit, its directors, officers, employees, and subcontractors shall not be liable to you or any third party for any direct, indirect, incidental, special, consequential, or punitive damages. This includes, without limitation, loss of business, profits, revenue, data, goodwill, or other intangible losses arising out of or in connection with:
*   Your use of or inability to use our website, custom platforms, or APIs.
*   Any unexpected downtime, system outages, data corruption, or network disruptions.
*   Unauthorized access to or alteration of your transmissions, contact data, or API key usage.
*   The results, accuracy, or formatting of data retrieved via our developer endpoints.
*   Your execution of administrative commands (such as utilizing the "Restart Server" feature, project cascading deletion, or API key revocations).

Our cumulative liability for any claim arising out of these Terms or our services, whether in contract, delict, or otherwise, shall never exceed the total fees paid by you to WaveBit in the three (3) months preceding the event giving rise to the claim.

## 9. INDEMNIFICATION
You agree to indemnify, defend, and hold harmless WaveBit and its affiliates, officers, directors, employees, and agents from and against any and all claims, liabilities, damages, losses, costs, expenses, and fees (including reasonable legal fees) arising from:
*   Your use of our website, custom code, or developer APIs.
*   Your violation of these Terms or the integrated Acceptable Use Policy.
*   Your infringement of any intellectual property, privacy, or data protection rights of any third party.
*   Any unauthorized actions performed using your assigned API key credentials.

## 10. GOVERNING LAW AND JURISDICTION
These Terms, our Privacy Policy, and all contractual relations between WaveBit and its Clients shall be governed by, and construed in accordance with, the laws of the Republic of South Africa. 

You agree to submit to the exclusive jurisdiction of the High Court of South Africa (Gauteng Local Division or similar competent South African division) to resolve any legal disputes or litigation arising out of these Terms.

## 11. ELECTRONIC COMMUNICATIONS AND STATUTORY DISCLOSURES (ECTA SECTION 43)
In terms of Section 43 of the Electronic Communications and Transactions Act, No. 25 of 2002, our statutory website disclosures are as follows:
*   **Full Name:** WaveBit
*   **Primary Contact Email:** info@wavebit.dev
*   **Main Website:** [wavebit.dev](https://wavebit.dev)
*   **Core Services:** Web engineering, custom software development, API endpoints, business automation.

## 12. CHANGES TO TERMS
WaveBit reserves the right to revise, update, or replace these Terms of Service at any time. Any changes will be published directly to this page, and the "Last Updated" date at the top of this document will be modified. By continuing to access our website or utilize our web services after updates are published, you agree to be bound by the revised Terms.

## 13. CONTACT INFORMATION
For any questions, clarifications, legal notices, or inquiries regarding these Terms of Service, please contact us at:

**Email:** info@wavebit.dev

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