1. Definitions

In these Terms, the following words have the meanings assigned to them:

• "Service" means the DealerCostPro web application, Progressive Web App (PWA), and all related features accessible at dealercostpro.com.
• "We", "us", "our" means DealerCostPro and its operators.
• "You", "user" means any person or entity that creates an account or uses the Service.
• "Account data" means all vehicles, expenses, documents, supplier records, and other information you enter into the Service.
• "Subscription" means a paid plan that provides ongoing access to the Service beyond the free trial period.
• "Trial" means the free 14-day access period provided upon signup.
• "Challenge" means the 14-Day Profit Challenge promotional onboarding path, which provides full unrestricted access during the trial period.

2. Account Registration and Eligibility

2.1 Eligibility

You must be at least 18 years old and legally capable of entering into binding contracts to use DealerCostPro. The Service is intended for use by individuals operating, managing, or employed by motor vehicle dealerships in South Africa. Personal use or use outside the motor trade is permitted but the Service is designed and optimised for dealership operations.

2.2 Account creation

You may create an account using:

• Your email address and a password you create
• Google Sign-In (which links your Google account to DealerCostPro)
• A magic link sent to your email address (for challenge signups)

You are responsible for maintaining the confidentiality of your login credentials and for all activity that occurs under your account. You must notify us immediately at support@dealercostpro.com if you suspect unauthorised access to your account.

2.3 Accurate information

You agree to provide accurate, current, and complete information when creating your account and to keep that information updated. Providing false information, impersonating another person, or creating accounts for fraudulent purposes is prohibited and may result in immediate account termination.

2.4 One account per dealership

The Core and Trial plans are intended for use by a single user. The Pro plan supports multiple users within the same dealership. Creating multiple accounts to circumvent trial limitations or plan restrictions is prohibited.

3. Free Trial and the 14-Day Challenge

3.1 Trial terms

Upon signup, you receive a free 14-day trial. During the trial you may access the Service according to the limitations of your trial path:

• Standard trial: Limited to 3 vehicles. Documents, expense tracking, and the profit dashboard are available within that limit.
• 14-Day Challenge trial: Unlimited vehicles and full access to all features for 14 days. The challenge path is triggered when you sign up via the /challenge page.

3.2 Trial expiry

When your trial expires, your account enters read-only mode. You can view data you have already entered but cannot add new vehicles, expenses, or generate new documents until you upgrade to a paid plan. Your data is retained for 30 days after trial expiry. After 30 days without upgrading, your account and all associated data will be permanently deleted.

3.3 No obligation

You are under no obligation to continue to a paid subscription after your trial. No credit card is required to start a trial.

4. Paid Subscriptions

4.1 Plans and pricing

Plan	Price	Users	Key features
Core	R349/month	1	Up to 15 vehicles, basic tracking, documents
Pro	R499/month	Multi-user	Unlimited vehicles, full dashboard, all features
Enterprise	R899/month	Multi-user	Multi-branch, API access, priority support

Prices are in South African Rand (ZAR) and inclusive of VAT where applicable. Pricing is subject to change with 30 days' notice to active subscribers.

4.2 Billing

Subscriptions are billed monthly in advance. Payment is processed by PayFast (Pty) Ltd. By subscribing, you authorise us to charge your selected payment method on a recurring monthly basis. You are responsible for ensuring your payment method remains valid and has sufficient funds.

4.3 Failed payments

If a payment fails, we will notify you by email and attempt to process the payment again after 3 business days. If payment cannot be collected within 7 days of the due date, your account will revert to read-only mode until payment is received. Access is restored automatically once payment is successful.

4.4 Cancellation

You may cancel your subscription at any time from within the application (Settings → Subscription → Cancel). Cancellation takes effect at the end of the current billing period. You retain access to the Service until the end of the period you have paid for. We do not provide refunds for partial months.

4.5 Refunds

We do not offer refunds on subscription fees except where required by South African consumer protection law. If you believe you have been charged in error, contact us at support@dealercostpro.com within 14 days of the charge and we will investigate.

5. Acceptable Use

5.1 Permitted use

DealerCostPro is provided for lawful business use in connection with the operation of a motor vehicle dealership. You may use the Service to track vehicle inventory, manage expenses, calculate profit margins, generate legal documents, and analyse business performance.

5.2 Prohibited use

You must not use the Service to:

• Engage in or facilitate any unlawful activity, including tax evasion, fraud, money laundering, or the sale of stolen vehicles
• Enter false, misleading, or fabricated vehicle, customer, or transaction data
• Generate documents for transactions that did not occur
• Attempt to access another user's account data or circumvent data segregation controls
• Reverse engineer, decompile, or attempt to extract source code from the Service
• Use automated scripts, bots, or scrapers to access the Service
• Resell, sublicence, or commercially redistribute access to the Service without our written consent
• Overload or deliberately disrupt the Service or its infrastructure
• Upload malicious code, viruses, or harmful content

6. Your Data and Content

6.1 Ownership

You retain full ownership of all data you enter into DealerCostPro, including vehicle records, expense data, customer information, and generated documents. We do not claim any intellectual property rights over your account data.

6.2 Licence to us

By using the Service, you grant us a limited, non-exclusive licence to store, process, and display your account data solely for the purpose of providing the Service to you. We do not use your individual business data for any other purpose. We may use aggregated, anonymised data (with no individual user or dealership identifiable) to improve the Service and for internal analytics.

6.3 Data export

You may request an export of your account data at any time by contacting support@dealercostpro.com. We will provide your data in CSV or JSON format within 10 business days of your request.

6.4 Accuracy of data

The profit calculations, dashboards, and reports generated by DealerCostPro are based entirely on the data you enter. We do not verify the accuracy of data you input. The Service is a tool to help you organise and analyse information you provide — it does not constitute financial, accounting, or tax advice. You should independently verify all figures and consult a qualified accountant for tax and financial reporting purposes.

7. Intellectual Property

The DealerCostPro application, its design, code, trademarks, logos, and all content we create (excluding your account data) are our intellectual property or licensed to us. You may not copy, reproduce, modify, or distribute any part of the Service without our prior written consent. This includes our marketing materials, challenge page content, email templates, and dashboard designs.

8. Availability and Service Levels

We aim to keep DealerCostPro available 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, but we do not guarantee uninterrupted access. Downtime may occur due to maintenance, updates, infrastructure issues, or circumstances outside our control. We will endeavour to perform scheduled maintenance during off-peak hours (between 00:00 and 05:00 SAST) and to provide advance notice where possible.

We do not offer a formal Service Level Agreement (SLA) on the Core or Pro plans. Enterprise customers may negotiate SLA terms separately.

9. Limitation of Liability

To the maximum extent permitted by South African law:

• DealerCostPro is provided "as is" and "as available" without warranties of any kind, express or implied.
• We do not warrant that the Service will be error-free, uninterrupted, or suitable for any particular purpose.
• We are not liable for any loss of profit, loss of data, loss of business, or indirect, incidental, or consequential damages arising from your use of the Service, even if we have been advised of the possibility of such damages.
• Our total liability to you for any claim arising from or related to the Service is limited to the total amount you paid us in the 3 months immediately preceding the event giving rise to the claim.

Nothing in these Terms limits our liability for fraud, death, personal injury caused by our negligence, or any other liability that cannot be excluded by law.

10. Indemnification

You agree to indemnify, defend, and hold harmless DealerCostPro and its operators from and against any claims, damages, losses, and expenses (including legal fees) arising from your use of the Service in violation of these Terms, your violation of any applicable law, or any data you enter into the Service that infringes the rights of a third party.

11. Third-Party Services

DealerCostPro integrates with or links to the following third-party services: PayFast (payments), Google (authentication), Resend (email), and Meta (advertising measurement). Your use of these services is subject to their respective terms and privacy policies. We are not responsible for the practices, availability, or content of third-party services.

12. Termination

12.1 Termination by you

You may close your account at any time by contacting support@dealercostpro.com. On account closure, your data is retained for 30 days in case you change your mind, then permanently deleted.

12.2 Termination by us

We may suspend or terminate your account immediately if you breach these Terms, engage in prohibited use, fail to make payment after reasonable notice, or if we are required to do so by law. In cases of non-payment or minor breaches, we will provide written notice and a reasonable opportunity to remedy the breach before terminating. In cases of serious breach (fraud, illegal use, or security threats), we may terminate without prior notice.

12.3 Effect of termination

On termination, your right to access the Service ends immediately. We will make your account data available for export for 30 days following termination, after which it will be permanently deleted. Clauses 6.1, 7, 9, 10, and 14 survive termination.

13. Changes to These Terms

We may update these Terms from time to time to reflect changes in the Service, applicable law, or our business. We will notify you of material changes by email at least 30 days before they take effect. Your continued use of the Service after the effective date of updated Terms constitutes your acceptance of the changes. If you do not agree to updated Terms, you must stop using the Service and cancel your subscription before the effective date.

14. Governing Law and Disputes

These Terms are governed by and construed in accordance with the laws of the Republic of South Africa. Any dispute arising from these Terms or your use of the Service will be subject to the exclusive jurisdiction of the South African courts. Before initiating legal proceedings, we encourage you to contact us at support@dealercostpro.com to resolve the dispute informally — we aim to respond to all complaints within 5 business days.

15. Consumer Protection Act Compliance

If you are a consumer as defined in the Consumer Protection Act 68 of 2008, you retain all rights afforded to you under that Act, and nothing in these Terms limits or excludes those rights. This includes your right to:

• Receive services that are reasonably suitable for the purpose for which they are generally intended
• Receive full disclosure of all terms, conditions, and charges
• Cancel a fixed-term agreement with 20 business days' notice (monthly subscriptions are not fixed-term agreements and may be cancelled at any time)

16. Electronic Communications

By creating an account, you consent to receive electronic communications from us including transactional emails (login links, payment confirmations, account notices), service emails (trial reminders, feature updates), and marketing emails. You may opt out of marketing emails at any time using the unsubscribe link in any email or by emailing support@dealercostpro.com. Transactional and account-related emails cannot be opted out of while your account is active, as they are necessary for the provision of the Service. All electronic agreements, notices, and communications satisfy any legal requirement that such communications be in writing.

17. Entire Agreement

These Terms of Service, together with our Privacy Policy, constitute the entire agreement between you and DealerCostPro regarding the Service and supersede all prior agreements, understandings, and representations. If any provision of these Terms is found to be unenforceable, the remaining provisions will continue in full force and effect.

18. Contact