Terms of services

1. The Service

Business Reviews helps small businesses collect customer reviews, make it easy for customers to post a review on Google, give customers a private channel to send feedback directly to you, and display approved reviews on your website through an embeddable widget and a hosted reviews page. Specific features depend on your subscription plan.

We may add, change, or remove features over time. We will try to give reasonable notice of material changes, but we are not obligated to maintain any particular feature.

2. Eligibility and account registration

To use the Service you must be at least 18 years old, be using it for a lawful business purpose, and have the authority to enter into these Terms on behalf of the business you represent.

You are responsible for the information you provide and for keeping your account credentials secure. You are responsible for all activity that occurs under your account. Notify us promptly at [email protected] if you suspect unauthorized use.

3. Free trial

We offer a 14-day free trial. No credit card is required to start it. At the end of the trial, you may choose to subscribe to a paid plan to continue using paid features. If you do not subscribe, your access to paid features will end, and your account and its data may be suspended or removed as described in Section 12.

We may change or discontinue trial offers at any time. One trial per business.

4. Subscriptions, billing, and cancellation

Plans and pricing. Paid access is sold as a recurring monthly subscription. Current plans and prices are shown on our pricing page. We may change prices on a going-forward basis; any change to your recurring price will not take effect until your next billing period, and we will give you reasonable advance notice.

Payment processing. Payments are processed by our third-party payment processor, Stripe. By subscribing, you authorize us, through Stripe, to charge your payment method on a recurring basis. You agree to Stripe's terms in addition to these Terms. We do not store your full card details.

Automatic renewal. Subscriptions renew automatically each billing period until cancelled. You authorize recurring charges until you cancel.

Plan changes. Upgrades take effect immediately, with charges prorated or applied as described at checkout. Downgrades take effect at the end of your current billing period; you keep your current plan's features until then.

Cancellation. You may cancel at any time from your account or by contacting [email protected]. Cancellation stops future renewals. Your paid access continues until the end of the period you have already paid for, after which paid features stop. When paid access ends, your reviews widget and public reviews page may stop displaying and certain account features may be limited or suspended.

Refunds. Except where required by law, payments are non-refundable and we do not provide refunds or credits for partial billing periods, unused time, or features not used. Our 14-day free trial lets you evaluate the Service before you pay.

Taxes. Prices are exclusive of taxes unless stated otherwise. You are responsible for any applicable sales, use, VAT, or similar taxes.

5. Your responsibilities and acceptable use

You are responsible for how you use the Service and for your compliance with all laws and platform policies that apply to collecting and displaying customer reviews. In particular, you agree that:

• You will comply with the U.S. Federal Trade Commission's rules on consumer reviews and testimonials (including the Rule on the Use of Consumer Reviews and Testimonials), and with the review and content policies of Google and any other platform where your reviews are posted or displayed.
• You will not offer or provide payment, discounts, gifts, or any other incentive in exchange for a review, and you will not condition any incentive on a review being positive.
• You will not use the Service to suppress, filter, hide, gate, or discourage reviews based on how positive or negative they are, or to selectively route customers toward or away from posting publicly based on their rating or sentiment. Every customer must be free to leave an honest public review and to send you private feedback; the choice is always the customer's.
• You will not submit, solicit, or display fake, fraudulent, misleading, or non-genuine reviews, or reviews you know to be false.
• You are responsible for the accuracy of your business profile, including your Google Place ID, and for the content you choose to approve and display on your website and public reviews page.
• You will obtain any consents required to collect and display reviewers' names, photos, and other information, and to send the messages you send through or as a result of the Service.

You also agree not to: use the Service for any unlawful, infringing, deceptive, harassing, or harmful purpose; upload malware or attempt to breach, probe, or disrupt the Service or its security; scrape or access the Service by automated means except through any API we expressly provide; resell or sublicense the Service without our consent; or misrepresent your identity or authority.

We are a tool you operate. We do not write, edit, endorse, or vouch for any review, and we are not responsible for your compliance with the laws and policies above. You are.

6. Reviews and customer content

Your customers ("reviewers") may submit reviews, ratings, names, photos, and feedback through the Service ("Customer Content"). As between you and us, Customer Content belongs to the reviewer and to you to the extent you have rights to it; we do not claim ownership of it.

You grant us a worldwide, non-exclusive, royalty-free license to host, store, process, reproduce, and display Customer Content and your business content solely to operate, provide, secure, and improve the Service for you, and as needed to comply with law. This license ends when the content is deleted from the Service, except for backups retained for a commercially reasonable period and any content we must retain by law.

You are solely responsible for the Customer Content you collect, approve, and publish, including ensuring you have the rights and consents to display it. We may remove content that we reasonably believe violates these Terms or the law.

7. The widget and the "Powered by" badge

We grant you a limited, non-exclusive, non-transferable, revocable license to embed our review widget and place the provided snippet on websites you own or control, for the purpose of displaying your approved reviews. You will not modify the widget code except as we document, and you will not use it to display content other than your own approved reviews.

On plans that include a "Powered by Business Reviews" badge, you agree to keep that badge visible and unaltered. Removing or hiding the badge is only permitted on plans where badge removal is an included feature.

8. Intellectual property

The Service, including its software, design, branding, logos, and content we create, is owned by us and our licensors and is protected by intellectual property laws. These Terms grant you a limited right to use the Service and do not transfer any ownership to you. You will not copy, modify, reverse engineer, or create derivative works of the Service except as expressly permitted.

If you send us feedback or suggestions, you grant us the right to use them without restriction or obligation to you.

9. Privacy and data

Our handling of personal information is described in our Privacy Policy, which is incorporated into these Terms. When you use the Service to collect reviewer information, you act as the controller of that information and we act as a processor acting on your instructions. If you require a data processing agreement, contact us at [email protected]. You are responsible for providing any privacy notices and obtaining any consents your customers are entitled to.

10. Third-party services

The Service relies on and integrates with third parties, including Stripe (payments) and Google (review links and profiles). Your use of those services is governed by their terms and policies, and their availability is outside our control. We are not responsible for third-party services, their changes, or their downtime. Google does not permit pre-filling the rating or text of a review, which is a constraint of Google's platform, not a defect in the Service.

11. SMS messaging terms

By providing your phone number and opting in, you agree to receive SMS text messages from Business Reviews (businessreviews.app) related to: (1) one-time account verification codes, sent when you request them, and (2) if you separately opt in, account-activity notifications such as new review alerts. Message frequency varies. Message and data rates may apply. You may opt out of recurring account-activity messages anytime by replying STOP or updating your notification preferences in Account Settings. Reply HELP for help. No mobile information is shared with third parties for promotional or marketing purposes. Carriers are not liable for delayed or undelivered messages. See our Privacy Policy for details.

12. Suspension and termination

You may stop using the Service and cancel at any time (Section 4). We may suspend or terminate your access if you breach these Terms, fail to pay, use the Service in a way that creates legal or security risk, or as required by law. We will try to give notice where practical.

On termination, your right to use the Service ends, and your widget and public reviews page may stop displaying. We may delete your account and data after a reasonable period, except where we must retain it by law. Sections that by their nature should survive termination (including ownership, disclaimers, limitations of liability, indemnification, and governing law) will survive.

13. Disclaimers

The Service is provided "as is" and "as available," without warranties of any kind, whether express, implied, or statutory, including any implied warranties of merchantability, fitness for a particular purpose, title, and non-infringement, to the fullest extent permitted by law.

We do not warrant that the Service will be uninterrupted, error-free, or secure, or that it will produce any particular result. We make no guarantee about the number of reviews you will receive, your search rankings, your reputation, or any business outcome. Whether your customers post reviews, and what they say, is up to them.

14. Limitation of liability

To the fullest extent permitted by law, we will not be liable for any indirect, incidental, special, consequential, exemplary, or punitive damages, or for lost profits, revenue, data, goodwill, or business opportunities, arising out of or relating to the Service or these Terms, even if we have been advised of the possibility of such damages.

To the fullest extent permitted by law, our total liability for all claims arising out of or relating to the Service or these Terms will not exceed the greater of (a) the total amount you paid us for the Service in the 12 months before the event giving rise to the claim, or (b) one hundred U.S. dollars (US$100). Some jurisdictions do not allow certain limitations, so some of these may not apply to you.

15. Indemnification

You agree to defend, indemnify, and hold harmless SATE LLC and its officers, employees, and agents from any claims, damages, liabilities, and expenses (including reasonable legal fees) arising out of or relating to: your use of the Service; the Customer Content and reviews you collect, approve, or display; your business, products, or services; your violation of these Terms or any law; and your failure to comply with the FTC consumer-review rules, Google's policies, or any other platform's policies.

16. Changes to these Terms

We may update these Terms from time to time. If we make material changes, we will update the "Last updated" date and, where reasonable, notify you. Changes take effect when posted (or on a stated effective date). Your continued use of the Service after changes take effect means you accept the updated Terms.

17. Governing law and disputes

These Terms are governed by the laws of the State of Illinois, without regard to its conflict-of-laws rules. You and we agree that any dispute arising out of or relating to these Terms or the Service will be brought exclusively in the state or federal courts located in Cook County, Illinois, and you consent to the personal jurisdiction of those courts.

18. Miscellaneous

These Terms, together with the Privacy Policy and any plan-specific terms, are the entire agreement between you and us regarding the Service. If any provision is found unenforceable, the rest remain in effect. Our failure to enforce a provision is not a waiver. You may not assign these Terms without our consent; we may assign them in connection with a merger, acquisition, or sale of assets. Neither party is liable for delays or failures caused by events beyond its reasonable control. Notices to you may be sent to the email associated with your account.

19. Contact

Questions about these Terms? Contact us at [email protected], SATE LLC, 1117 Scanlon Dr., Wheeling, IL 60090.