Terms of Service

1. Who we are

• Supplier: Jacobus Pretorius t/a Margin Mate (sole proprietor)
• Physical address: 22A Marais Street, Lydenburg, Mpumalanga, 1120
• Email: info@marginmate.co.za · Phone: 067 011 3108
• Website: https://www.marginmate.co.za

2. The service

MarginMate lets you record ingredients and their prices, build recipes, work out costs and selling prices, plan production and prepare quotes. Features differ by plan; the current plans and prices are shown on our website and in the app under Settings › Plan & billing. We may improve, change or remove features over time. If we remove a feature you rely on in a way that materially reduces the service you pay for, you may cancel and we will refund the unused part of the month.

3. Your account and your team

• The person who registers a business is its owner and is responsible for everyone they invite to it, and for keeping sign-in details safe.
• Give us accurate details and keep them up to date. Tell us straight away at info@marginmate.co.za if you think your account has been misused.
• You must be 18 or older and able to enter into this agreement for the business.

4. Free trial

A new business gets a free 14-day trial with the features of the Business plan. No card is needed. At the end of the trial you can choose a paid plan; if you don't, your data stays readable but you can't change it until you subscribe.

5. Subscriptions and payment

• Paid plans are monthly subscriptions (currently Starter R149 and Business R299 per month), charged in advance through our payment provider, Paystack. We do not see or store your card details.
• Your subscription renews every month until you cancel. Each payment covers one month of service.
• You can instead pay for a year upfront (currently Starter R1 490 and Business R2 990 per year) by card. A year does not renew automatically: we remind you by email before it ends. If you pay for a year while a trial, month or earlier year is still running, the new year starts when that period ends. If you move up to Business during a paid year, Business applies straight away.
• We will give you at least 30 days' notice by email before a price change takes effect. You may cancel before then.
• If a payment fails we will try again and let you know. After 7 days without payment your account becomes read-only until the payment is made.
• Tax invoices for your payments are available from Paystack and on request.

6. Cancelling

You can cancel at any time in Settings › Plan & billing, or by emailing us. Cancellation takes effect at the end of the month you have paid for, and we do not refund part-months except where the law requires it. A year paid upfront simply ends on its end date; we do not refund unused months except where the law requires it. There is no fixed term and no cancellation fee. After cancelling, your data stays readable for at least 12 months so you can export it; you can ask us to delete it sooner (see our Privacy Policy).

7. Your data

Your recipes, ingredients, prices, plans, quotes and other business information remain yours. You give us permission to store and process them only to provide, secure and support the service. We do not sell your data or show it to other businesses. While your account exists, the business owner can download all of the business's data (ingredients, recipes and their ingredient lines, price history and quotes) as CSV files at any time under Settings › Account, on every plan and also after a subscription has ended. Recipe sheets can be downloaded as PDF on every plan. Summary reports in CSV are part of the Business plan.

8. Calculations are a tool, not advice

MarginMate calculates costs and prices from the information you enter. The results are only as accurate as that information. Typical pack sizes, cup and spoon weights, yields and VAT settings in our standard ingredient list are starting points — check them against what you buy. You remain responsible for your prices, your tax and VAT treatment, and for food safety, shelf life, allergen and labelling decisions. MarginMate is not accounting, tax or legal advice.

9. AI reading of invoices and recipe cards

When you use invoice scanning or recipe import, the file you upload is sent to our AI provider to be read and is not stored by us afterwards. What was read is shown to you for checking before anything is saved. AI can misread figures — always check the result. Only upload documents you are entitled to share, and avoid uploading personal information that isn't needed.

10. Acceptable use

Don't use MarginMate to break the law, to infringe anyone's rights, to try to access another business's data, to probe or overload the service, or to resell it without our written agreement. We may suspend an account that does, after warning you where it is reasonable to do so.

11. Availability and support

We work to keep MarginMate available and your data safe, and to fix problems quickly, but we can't promise uninterrupted service — the internet, our hosting providers and scheduled maintenance can cause interruptions. Support is by email at info@marginmate.co.za on business days.

12. Limits on our responsibility

To the extent the law allows, we are not responsible for losses that come from information entered into MarginMate being wrong, from decisions made using its results, or for indirect or consequential losses such as lost profit. Our total responsibility to you in any 12 months is limited to the subscription fees you paid us in that period. Nothing in these terms limits rights you have under the Consumer Protection Act or other law that cannot be limited by agreement, or our responsibility for gross negligence or deliberate wrongdoing.

13. Changes to these terms

We may update these terms. For material changes we will give you at least 30 days' notice by email or in the app; if you don't agree you may cancel before they take effect. The version and date are shown at the top of this page.

14. Law and disputes

These terms are governed by the law of the Republic of South Africa. Please contact us first so we can try to resolve any problem. If we can't, either of us may approach a competent South African court, and you consent to the jurisdiction of the Magistrate's Court for claims within its limits.

15. Contact

Jacobus Pretorius t/a Margin Mate · info@marginmate.co.za · 22A Marais Street, Lydenburg, Mpumalanga, 1120