Service policies

Service and responsibilities

SMSFlow hosts an isolated Whatomate workspace with the purchased user, WhatsApp number and media allowances. Customer branding is included. Customers control their own Meta assets, domain/DNS, content and permitted messaging audiences, and are responsible for authorized use, audience permissions and secure credentials. SMSFlow may suspend harmful or unauthorized use, with review available through support.

Meta approval, WhatsApp policies and message charges are separate from the hosting subscription. Whatomate remains AGPL software with its license notices and corresponding source available at the public SMSFlow Whatomate fork.

Trials and monthly payments

• The free trial lasts 14 days, requires no card and does not automatically become paid. You explicitly choose a paid plan and authorize recurring monthly card billing to upgrade the same workspace.
• Starter R499, Growth R999 and Scale R1,999 per month include VAT. Meta/WhatsApp usage charges are separate. You see and accept the selected plan's exact price and allowances before purchase. Accepted plan terms are stored separately from these policies.
• Verified successful payments create downloadable invoices and invoice emails to the current verified account owner and optional additional billing email.
• Active authorized paid subscriptions renew automatically. Cancellation prevents future renewal and takes effect at the end of the current paid period. Plan changes take effect on the next applicable paid period; there is no automatic mid-period proration.
• Failed or pending payments do not grant a paid period or create a paid invoice. Use the portal's recovery flow; SMSFlow reviews uncertain charges before retrying. Support reviews refund requests, duplicate captures and billing disputes. No automatic refund promise is made and applicable customer rights are not excluded.
• Sandbox checkouts and invoices are test-only. Production payments remain disabled until merchant and acceptance gates are completed.

Support, maintenance and capacity

Staffed support is Monday to Friday, 08:00–17:00 South African time, excluding South African public holidays, at support@smsflow.co.za. There is no guaranteed response time or 24-hour staffed support promise. Automated alerts outside these hours do not imply an engineer is on call. Urgent escalation arrangements must be agreed separately.

Pilot plans use a shared single host with separately isolated workspaces. Capacity admission is bounded and expansion is manual. These tiers include no high-availability, uninterrupted-service or fixed recovery-time SLA.

Consistent daily backups involve maintenance beginning around 02:15 South African time. Duration depends on data size and network throughput. Planned major work will be communicated where practical; recovery work may be urgent.

Privacy, data access, retention and deletion

The portal stores account identity, billing membership, subscription and payment references, invoice records, policy acceptance, and instance/domain configuration to operate the service. Card numbers and security codes are entered at the payment provider's hosted checkout, not collected by this portal. Bootstrap credentials are protected; change your instance password after first sign-in.

Workspace databases, files and configuration are hosted in Azure South Africa North. Encrypted recovery copies use regional LRS storage, which does not protect against regional loss. Meta, Mailgun, Peach and DNS processing have separate service boundaries; South African hosting does not imply that all external processors operate only in South Africa.

SMSFlow accesses a workspace for authorized assistance, operations and incident handling. Privileged access is restricted and auditable. Customer administrators manage agent access; SMSFlow maintains protected support access.

Trial expiry, suspension and cancellation retain workspace data. Deleting a login does not delete retained workspace or financial records. Retained storage counts toward capacity until offboarding.

Retention, export and deletion requests are support-led. SMSFlow verifies the request and records an agreed scope and completion date. This release promises no automatic deletion schedule. If SMSFlow proposes ending retention, the owner receives an export/deletion notice before cleanup.

Required financial and operational records are handled separately from workspace deletion. Live-data deletion does not immediately remove historical encrypted recovery points: daily backup retention is 35 days, with the separately configured 14-day soft-delete/version policy. Recovery and export are reviewed before execution. Restoring an older backup must not silently restart cancelled billing, resend historical invoices or undo a recorded deletion request.

Policy changes and contact

SMSFlow's supplier details appear on your billing invoice. These policies apply to managed Whatomate hosting, separately from SMSFlow's SMS services. Material policy revisions require renewed acceptance; previous versions and acceptance evidence remain retained. Plan and recurring-payment consent remain separate. Contact support@smsflow.co.za for service, privacy and billing requests.