Terms of Service

Welcome to bernard. These Terms of Service ("Terms") are a legal agreement between you and bernard, a service operated by Bernard Moves Ltd, a company registered in England and Wales (company no. 17343403) ("bernard", "we", "us" or "our"). They govern your access to and use of the bernard websites, applications and services (together, the "Service"). Please read them carefully. By creating an account or using the Service, you agree to these Terms. If you do not agree, do not use the Service.

1. The Service

bernard helps makers, groups, small businesses and organisations in two ways:

• The Move - we copy your existing website (for example from WordPress or Squarespace) onto hosting we provide, optimised for search and performance.
• Your home - once moved in, bernard is your ongoing base for your portfolio, customer relationships and selling.

We may add, change or remove features at any time. We may also set reasonable limits on use of the Service.

2. Eligibility and your account

You must be at least 18 years old and able to form a binding contract to use the Service. You are responsible for everything that happens under your account and for keeping your login credentials secure. Tell us promptly at [email protected] if you believe your account has been compromised.

You may sign in with an email and password, a one-time email code, or a third-party provider such as Google. If you sign in through Google, you authorise us to receive certain information from your Google account as described in our Privacy Policy.

3. Your content

"Your Content" means everything you upload, import, create or store through the Service - including your website, images, text, products, course material and the contact records of your own audience.

• You own Your Content. These Terms do not transfer ownership to us.
• You grant us a licence to host, store, copy, display, adapt (for example resize images or reformat pages) and transmit Your Content only as needed to operate, secure and improve the Service and to provide it to you and the audiences you choose.
• You are responsible for Your Content and you warrant that you own or hold all rights, licences and permissions necessary to use it and to move it onto bernard - including any third-party fonts, images, video, plugins or embedded material carried over from a Moved site. In particular, when you ask us to Move an existing website, you confirm you own or are authorised to copy and host that website and everything on it.

4. The contacts you manage

bernard lets you manage your own audience (fans, buyers, students) as contact records. When you upload or collect personal data about other people, you are the controller of that data and you are responsible for having a lawful basis to hold and use it, for honouring their privacy rights, and for sending only communications they are entitled to receive. We process that data on your behalf as described in our Privacy Policy.

Sending email to your contacts

If you use bernard to send customer email, you remain the sender and controller. You must have lawful permission to send each marketing message, identify yourself accurately, follow the laws that apply to your recipients, and use the unsubscribe facilities we provide. You must not bypass a suppression or unsubscribe request.

You must never use purchased, rented, scraped or appended lists, or send deceptive, unlawful or harmful email. The acceptable-use rules below apply to message content as well as websites. We may suppress an address, pause, throttle or stop customer email, apply sending caps and gradual ramps, or terminate the email service where we reasonably believe recipients, bernard or our providers are at risk. These controls are part of the Service and we are not liable for messages they leave unsent.

We process contact data on your behalf to deliver messages and keep operational events such as delivery, delay, bounce, complaint, rejection and unsubscribe so you and we can operate the service safely. Individual open and click tracking is not part of the service. You may not use bernard to circumvent these limits.

5. Acceptable use

You agree not to use the Service to store, host, publish, send or link to any content that is unlawful or that you have no right to use. In particular, you must not upload, host or distribute:

• child sexual abuse material, or any content that sexually exploits or endangers minors;
• content that promotes, incites or facilitates terrorism, violent extremism, or serious violence;
• content that infringes anyone’s intellectual-property rights (including pirated or counterfeit material) or that is defamatory or breaches anyone’s privacy;
• malware, viruses, or anything designed to harm, disrupt or gain unauthorised access to any system or data; or
• content that is otherwise illegal, or unlawful in any jurisdiction where the content is hosted or made available.

You also agree not to:

• send spam or unsolicited messages, or use the Service to harass anyone;
• attempt to gain unauthorised access to the Service, probe or test its security, or disrupt it;
• reverse-engineer, resell or misuse the Service except as these Terms allow; or
• use the Service to build a competing product.

We may immediately and without prior notice suspend, disable, remove or take down any content, site or account that we reasonably believe breaches these Terms, infringes anyone’s rights, is unlawful, or puts the Service, us or others at risk. Where practical we will tell you afterwards, but we are not obliged to give notice before doing so.

6. Plans, billing and cancellation

Some features require a paid subscription. Where they do:

• Fees, billing frequency and what’s included are shown at the point of purchase. Payments are handled by our payment processor (Stripe); by subscribing you also agree to their terms.
• Subscriptions renew automatically each period until cancelled. You can cancel at any time and your plan will run until the end of the period you’ve paid for.
• We may change prices on reasonable notice; changes take effect at your next renewal.

Changing your mind: our 30-day no-quibble money-back guarantee

• You have 30 days to change your mind about your first payment for a plan. If you cancel within 30 days of that payment, we will refund it in full, with no quibble. Email [email protected]. There is no form to fill in and you do not need to give a reason.
• The Move is included free and stays free. If you take the 30-day refund we do not bill you for the move we already did.
• This applies to your first payment for a plan, not to renewals. Renewal payments are not refundable, but you can cancel any time before one, and we will email you before we charge you again.
• Cancelling does not cut you off. Your plan runs to the end of the period you have already paid for. After that your site stops being published, and you can take your content with you.
• Add-ons and any domain name bought through us are charged separately and are not covered by the 30-day guarantee, because we pay for those on your behalf as soon as you order them.

Your legal cancellation rights

If you are a consumer in the UK or the EU, you have a legal right to cancel this contract within 14 days, starting the day after the day the contract is made, and to receive a refund. You do not have to give a reason. To cancel, tell us clearly: an email to [email protected] is enough.

Our 30-day guarantee above is longer and more generous than this legal right, and does not replace it. You can rely on whichever helps you more. Nothing in these Terms affects your statutory rights.

Because we start work on your Move straight away so that you can see your new site quickly, you are asking us to begin the service during the cancellation period. That does not take away either the 14-day right or our 30-day guarantee.

7. Our intellectual property

The Service itself - including the bernard name, logo, software, design and content we provide (but not Your Content) - belongs to us or our licensors and is protected by intellectual-property laws. We grant you a limited, non-exclusive, non-transferable right to use the Service while these Terms are in force.

8. Third-party services

The Service relies on third parties (for example for hosting, email, payments and AI features) and may link to or interoperate with other services. We are not responsible for third-party services, and your use of them may be governed by their own terms.

9. Bernard’s workshop

bernard includes an AI assistant ("Bernard’s workshop") that lets you make changes to your site by describing them in plain language.

• You bring your own AI. To use it you connect your own AI provider - Claude (Anthropic), ChatGPT (OpenAI) or Gemini (Google) - using an API key or, for Claude, a subscription token. We store that credential encrypted and use it only to carry out your requests. You confirm you are entitled to use the credential you connect and to use it for this purpose, and that doing so complies with that provider’s own terms. Where you connect a personal AI subscription rather than an API key, that provider may restrict or withdraw subscription-based access at any time; if it stops working you can switch to an API key.
• Your conversations are Your Content. The messages you send to the assistant, the responses it produces and the edits it proposes are stored as part of your account and are treated as Your Content under Section 3. We use them to provide the feature and keep an editable history, and - in aggregated or de-identified form - to improve bernard’s AI editing. We do not sell them, and we do not use the content of your site or conversations to serve any customer other than you except as such aggregated or de-identified insights. How we handle this data is described in our Privacy Policy.
• Nothing goes live until you approve it. The assistant only ever stages changes as a draft; you remain responsible for reviewing them and they are published only when you choose to publish. AI can make mistakes - review before you publish.
• Your own AI provider also processes your requests. When you use the assistant, your prompts and site content are sent to the AI provider whose credential you connected, and your use of that provider is also governed by their terms and privacy policy.

10. Selling through bernard (shops and courses)

bernard can include a shop that lets you sell products, courses and other items to your customers ("your sales"). Where you use it:

• You are the seller. Every sale is a contract between you and your buyer. bernard is not a party to that contract, is not the merchant of record, and never holds your sales money.
• Your own payment account. Sales are paid directly into your own Stripe account, which you set up and control. Your use of Stripe is governed by Stripe’s own terms (including the Stripe Connected Account Agreement), and Stripe - not bernard - holds and pays out your money.
• Your responsibilities. You are responsible for your products and how you describe them; for delivering what you sell; for handling refunds, disputes and chargebacks; for any taxes on your sales; and for complying with the law and with Stripe’s restricted-business rules
  • do not sell anything those rules prohibit.
• Your losses are yours. Any refund, chargeback, fine, penalty, reserve, negative balance or other loss arising from your sales is your responsibility, not ours. If Stripe or anyone else recovers such an amount from us because of your sales, you will reimburse us in full on demand, and the indemnity in Section 13 applies to your sales accordingly.
• We can pause selling. We may suspend or limit the shop on your site where we reasonably believe your sales breach these Terms or the law, create risk for buyers, us or Stripe, or where Stripe requires it. Where practical we will tell you.

11. Disclaimers

The Service is provided "as is" and "as available". To the fullest extent permitted by law, we disclaim all warranties, whether express or implied, including fitness for a particular purpose and that the Service will be uninterrupted, error-free or secure. You are responsible for keeping your own copies of Your Content.

12. Limitation of liability

Nothing in these Terms limits liability that cannot be limited by law (such as for death or personal injury caused by negligence, or for fraud). Subject to that, to the fullest extent permitted by law:

• we are not liable for indirect, incidental, special or consequential loss, or for loss of profits, revenue, goodwill or data; and
• our total liability arising out of or relating to the Service is limited to the greater of (a) the amounts you paid us in the 12 months before the event giving rise to the claim, or (b) £100.

13. Indemnity

You agree to indemnify, defend and hold us harmless from and against any and all claims, demands, liabilities, losses, damages, fines, penalties, chargebacks, and costs and expenses (including reasonable legal fees and any charges we incur from third parties) arising out of or relating to Your Content, the website you asked us to Move, your use of the Service, or your breach of these Terms, our acceptable use rules, applicable law, or anyone else’s rights.

14. Suspension and termination

You may stop using the Service and close your account at any time. We may suspend or terminate your access if you breach these Terms or if we reasonably need to protect the Service or others. When your account ends, your right to use the Service stops and we may delete Your Content after a reasonable period, subject to our Privacy Policy and any legal obligations.

15. Changes to these Terms

We may update these Terms from time to time. If we make material changes, we will take reasonable steps to let you know (for example by email or an in-product notice). Material changes require a fresh explicit acceptance before a feature that depends on them becomes available. Other changes take effect when posted.

16. Governing law

These Terms are governed by the laws of England and Wales, and the courts of England and Wales have exclusive jurisdiction, except where mandatory local consumer-protection law gives you other rights.

17. Contact us

Questions about these Terms? Email us at [email protected].