01Our approach
This policy applies to subscriptions to the receptionists.io platform, purchased through our Merchant of Record, Dodo Payments. It forms part of our Terms of Service.
We would rather have a customer who is happy to stay than money from one who wants to leave. So the policy is short: there is a real free trial before you pay, cancelling is instant and free, and where a charge was not fair we give the money back.
02The free trial is the guarantee
Every new customer on Starter, Growth or Scale gets 14 days free on the plan they choose. A payment method is required to start, because your agent is provisioned with a live telephone number on day one, but no subscription fee is charged during the trial. Usage beyond the plan allowance during the trial is billed at the overage rate at the end of the trial (section 7). The Managed plan has no trial.
- Cancel at any point before the trial ends and you are never charged a subscription fee.
- If you do not cancel, the subscription converts on day 15 at the plan price shown at checkout, and renews monthly after that.
- The date of your first charge is shown as your renewal date in Settings → Billing from the day the trial starts, so it is never a surprise.
Because you can test the Service fully and at no cost before paying, the trial is the primary way we make sure nobody pays for something that does not work for them.
03How to cancel
Two ways, both of which take under a minute:
- In the dashboard — go to Settings, then Billing, then Cancel subscription, then confirm. The cancellation is recorded immediately and takes effect at the end of your current period (for a trial, the end of the trial), as described in section 4.
- By email — write to hello@receptionists.io from the email address on your account and ask us to cancel. We action it within one business day and backdate it to the date you asked, so a renewal that lands while we are processing your request is refunded in full.
There is no cancellation fee, no minimum term, no notice period and no retention call. We will never require you to telephone us to cancel something you bought online.
04What happens when you cancel
- Your subscription stays active until the end of the billing period you have already paid for. You keep full access until then, so nothing stops mid-month.
- You are not charged again. Auto-renewal is switched off.
- You keep everything the Service produced for you — every appointment it booked, every lead it captured, every contact record. Export it from the dashboard before your access ends.
- After your access ends you can still request a data export for 30 days, free of charge, by emailing us.
- Un-forward your telephone number at your carrier whenever you like. Your number is yours; forwarding is a setting you control.
- You can change your mind before the period ends and resume the subscription without losing your configuration.
05Refunds we always give
In these situations we issue a full refund, and you do not need to argue for it:
- Duplicate or double charge. Refunded in full as soon as we confirm it.
- You were charged after cancelling. Refunded in full.
- Billing error on our side. Charged for the wrong plan, the wrong amount, the wrong number of seats, or usage that was metered incorrectly — we refund the difference.
- Unauthorised charge. If someone used your payment method without permission, tell us and we will refund and secure the account.
- Sustained service failure on our side. If a fault we are responsible for prevented the Service from answering your calls for a material part of a billing period, we refund that period on a pro-rata basis, or extend your subscription by the equivalent time, whichever you prefer.
- A change we made that materially harms you. If we remove or materially degrade a central feature of your plan, you may cancel and receive a pro-rata refund of the unused portion of the current period.
There is no time limit on refunds for a billing error we made. Tell us whenever you find it.
06Our 7-day goodwill refund
Sometimes the trial ends, the first invoice lands and life has moved on — you got busy, you never finished onboarding, the fit is not right.
If you ask within 7 days of your first paid charge, we will refund that first month in full, as a courtesy. You do not have to explain why. Usage charges already incurred are not included, for the reason in section 7.
This applies to your first paid charge only, once per business. Beyond that first week, subscription fees for a period already begun are not refundable as a matter of course, because you had a full free trial and you can cancel at any time before a renewal. We will always look at genuine hardship or unusual circumstances individually — email us and ask.
07Usage and overage charges
Charges for call minutes and messages beyond your plan allowance are for usage that has already been delivered: calls we answered, and messages that carriers charged us to send. They are not refundable, except where they result from a metering or billing error, from a fault on our side, or from unauthorised access to your account.
To make sure overage is never a shock, your current usage is visible in the dashboard at all times. If an unusual spike surprises you, contact us — if it came from something outside normal use of your account, we will investigate and credit it where that is the fair outcome.
08Downgrades and upgrades
- To change plans, email us and we make the change for you.
- Upgrades take effect as soon as we switch you. You are charged a prorated amount for the remainder of the current period, and the full new price from the next renewal.
- Downgrades take effect at your next renewal, so you keep the features you have already paid for until then. Downgrading does not generate a refund of the current period.
- Where a lower plan has smaller limits — fewer agents, numbers, seats or knowledge base articles — you may need to reduce your usage to fit before the downgrade takes effect. We will tell you what needs to change.
09Refunds we cannot give
So the boundaries are clear rather than discovered later, we do not normally refund:
- subscription fees for a period that has already been used, beyond the 7-day goodwill window in section 6;
- usage and overage charges for calls answered and messages delivered (section 7);
- partial months following a cancellation, because access continues to the end of the period you paid for;
- periods during which the Service was unavailable because of something outside our reasonable control, such as a carrier outage or your own call-forwarding configuration;
- charges on an account suspended or terminated for breach of our Terms of Service, in particular the telephone and messaging compliance obligations;
- business outcomes. We do not guarantee a number of bookings, leads or revenue, and a result falling short of your expectations is not by itself a refundable event.
These are our general rules, not an absolute bar. If your situation is genuinely unusual, write to us and a person will read it.
10How to request a refund
Email hello@receptionists.io from the address on your account and include:
- your business name and the email on the account;
- the invoice number or the date and amount of the charge;
- one line on what happened.
We acknowledge every request within 1 business day and decide within 5 business days. If we cannot refund, we will tell you plainly why, and what we can do instead. You may ask us to reconsider and a second person will look at it.
11How refunds are paid
- Refunds are issued by Dodo Payments, our Merchant of Record, back to the original payment method. We cannot refund to a different card or account.
- Once approved, the refund is submitted the same or next business day. It typically appears in 5–10 business days, depending on your bank or card issuer.
- Taxes collected on a refunded charge are refunded with it.
- Currency conversion differences and any fee your own bank charges are outside our control.
- You can find every invoice, and manage your payment method, in Settings → Billing in your dashboard.
12Failed payments and reactivation
If a renewal payment fails, Dodo Payments retries it and emails you. Your phone keeps being answered for 3 days after the end of the paid period, so it does not go unanswered because a card expired; the dashboard is locked until the payment goes through.
If payment is still outstanding after the retry period, we may suspend the Service. Your data and configuration are preserved. Settle the balance and everything comes straight back on, with the same number and the same agent. If an account stays suspended and unpaid for 60 days we may close it and release the telephone number, after emailing you first.
13Chargebacks
If something looks wrong on your statement, please email us before you dispute it with your bank. We can almost always resolve it faster than a chargeback, which takes weeks and locks the funds for both of us.
A chargeback filed without contacting us first may result in the account being suspended while the dispute is investigated, and we may recover amounts properly owed, including chargeback fees. If the disputed charge turns out to be our error, we will apologise and cover the cost — the rule is there for fraud and for disputes raised in bad faith, not for honest confusion.
14Your statutory rights
Nothing in this policy limits any right you have under consumer protection or other legislation that cannot be limited by agreement, including under United States state law and Canadian federal and provincial law. Where such a law gives you a stronger remedy than this policy, that law applies.
The Service is supplied for business use, and consumer protection statutes may not apply to a business purchase in your jurisdiction. We have written this policy to be fair either way.
15Contact
Receptionists.io
Rue de Mateur, Sousse 2100, Tunisia
hello@receptionists.io
For invoices, receipts, tax documents and payment methods, you can also contact Dodo Payments directly at dodopayments.com.