Version 2. This version supersedes the 10 May 2026 version with no material reduction in your rights. Material changes are listed at the bottom of this document.
These Terms of Service ("Terms") govern your access to and use of TradeJot ("the Service"), operated from South Africa. By using the Service, you agree to these Terms. If you do not agree, do not use the Service.
Definitions
- "Service" means the TradeJot invoicing and CRM platform delivered via WhatsApp.
- "Tenant" or "You" means the tradesperson or business using the Service.
- "End-client" or "Client" means a customer of a Tenant whose information is processed in the Service.
- "Staff" means an additional WhatsApp number added to a Premium Tenant's account.
- "POPIA" means the Protection of Personal Information Act 4 of 2013.
- "CPA" means the Consumer Protection Act 68 of 2008.
- "ECT Act" means the Electronic Communications and Transactions Act 25 of 2002.
- "Terms" means these Terms of Service.
1. The Service
TradeJot is a WhatsApp-based invoicing and client-management tool aimed at South African tradespeople ("tenants"). You message a TradeJot bot and it creates invoices, tracks payments, and manages your client list on your behalf.
The Service relies on the WhatsApp platform, which is operated by Meta Platforms, Inc. and is not affiliated with TradeJot. WhatsApp's own terms apply to your use of WhatsApp.
2. Eligibility and Account Onboarding
- You must be at least 18 years old and legally able to enter into contracts.
- You create an account by sending a message to the TradeJot WhatsApp number (for example, TradeJot Free or TradeJot Premium). Your first message initiates the onboarding process.
- How you accept these Terms: the very first step of onboarding (step 0) requires you to reply YES to the bot to confirm that you have read and agree to these Terms and our Privacy Policy. The bot stores your acceptance as a time-stamped audit-log record. You cannot use the Service without completing this step. You may also receive a copy of these Terms via WhatsApp on request by replying terms.
- You must provide accurate information during the subsequent onboarding steps (business name, trade, contact details, etc.). Your email address is required so we can recover your account if you lose access to your WhatsApp number.
- You are responsible for keeping your WhatsApp account and SIM secure.
3. Plans, Billing and Cancellation
The Service offers four tiers. All prices are in South African Rand (ZAR) and inclusive of VAT where applicable.
- Free: R0/month. Limited to 5 invoices and 5 voice notes per calendar month.
- Starter: R199/month. Unlimited invoices and voice notes, plus CSV export.
- Pro: R399/month. Adds automatic invoice delivery to your clients via WhatsApp and a private business dashboard.
- Premium: R699/month. Adds a configurable payment-reminder feature (see clause below), custom invoice branding (logo and colour), and multi-staff access.
Payment-reminder feature (not debt collection). The Premium payment-reminder feature is a courtesy tool that helps you send a polite, optional reminder message to a client about an outstanding invoice. It is not a debt-collection service. TradeJot is not a credit provider or registered debt collector under the National Credit Act 34 of 2005 or the Debt Collectors Act 114 of 1998, and you must not use the reminder feature in any way that constitutes regulated debt collection. You remain solely responsible for the lawful pursuit of any amounts owed to you.
Paid plans are billed in advance via a South African PCI-DSS Level 1 payment processor. Each plan period is a one-off hosted-checkout payment; card details are entered on the processor's secure page and never reach TradeJot. The specific payments provider in use is disclosed in our Privacy Policy sub-processor list. You may cancel at any time by emailing support@tradejot.co.za from your registered email address (or by messaging the bot). Cancellation takes effect at the end of your current billing period. Refunds are governed by our Refund Policy. We may change pricing with at least 30 days' notice via WhatsApp and on this site. Existing subscriptions keep their original price until renewal.
3.1 Service activation and delivery timeframe
TradeJot is a digital subscription service delivered via WhatsApp. There is no physical product, no shipping, and no manual fulfilment step. The Service is activated automatically as soon as our payments provider confirms successful payment to our server via webhook:
- Activation timeframe: typically within a few minutes of successful payment. The webhook delivers within seconds of payment confirmation in the normal case, and our server upgrades your plan on receipt. You receive a confirmation WhatsApp message from the TradeJot bot the moment the upgrade lands.
- Upper bound: in the rare case of a webhook delivery delay (our payments provider retries failed webhooks for up to 24 hours), activation may take up to 24 hours. If your upgrade has not landed within that window, email support@tradejot.co.za with your payment reference and we will activate manually within 1 business day.
- What you receive: immediate access to all features of the tier you paid for (Starter / Pro / Premium) via your existing TradeJot WhatsApp bot. No app download, no account credentials to manage — you keep using the same WhatsApp number you started with.
- Renewals: at the end of each paid period, you will receive a WhatsApp message with the renewal link at least 7 days before the period expires (with reminders again at 3 days and 1 day before, in case the first was missed). Renewal is opt-in via the same hosted-checkout flow; the Service does not auto-charge your card.
If your payment is successful but the Service is not activated within the timeframes above, this is treated as a failure of delivery and you are entitled to a full refund under our Refund Policy regardless of the 7-day window.
4. Acceptable Use
You agree not to use the Service to:
- Send spam, threats, harassment, or unsolicited bulk messages to your clients via TradeJot.
- Issue false or fraudulent invoices.
- Store or process other people's personal information without a lawful basis under the Protection of Personal Information Act 4 of 2013 ("POPIA").
- Reverse-engineer, scrape, or attempt to gain unauthorised access to the Service or its underlying infrastructure.
- Use the Service to break any South African law.
Consent for Client Communication
If you use features that have the Service contact your clients directly on your behalf (such as the automatic invoice delivery feature on Pro plans), you warrant that you have obtained prior consent from each client to be contacted via WhatsApp for that purpose. You are responsible for managing this consent and for any consequences of contacting a client without it.
Multi-Staff Accounts (Premium Tier)
If you add staff members to your Premium account, you warrant that you have a valid lawful basis under POPIA (for example, the processing is necessary for the performance of the staff member's employment contract, or a documented legitimate interest that does not override the staff member's rights) to add their WhatsApp number and to log their actions on your behalf. You are responsible for informing each staff member of the processing in writing before adding them.
Processing of Children's Information
You warrant that you will not use the Service to process the personal information of any person under the age of 18 ("a child") without obtaining verifiable consent from the child's parent or legal guardian, as required by section 35 of POPIA. You indemnify TradeJot against any claim or regulatory action arising from your breach of this warranty.
Prohibition on Special Personal Information
You are prohibited from using the Service to store or process any "Special Personal Information" as defined in section 26 of POPIA (including information relating to a person's religious or philosophical beliefs, race or ethnic origin, trade union membership, political persuasion, health or sex life, or biometric information, and the criminal behaviour of a data subject) unless you have specific authorisation to do so under section 27 of POPIA. You bear full legal responsibility for any such processing.
WhatsApp Platform Compliance
You agree that your use of the Service must also comply with the WhatsApp Business Policy and the WhatsApp Commerce Policy. You may not use the Service to issue invoices for any goods or services prohibited by those policies (including, without limitation, adult content, weapons, real money gambling, illegal drugs, animals, or supplements).
We may suspend or terminate accounts that violate this section.
5. Your Content and Data-Protection Roles
You retain ownership of your invoices, client records, and other content you create using the Service ("Your Content"). You grant TradeJot a limited licence to store and process Your Content solely to provide the Service to you.
Under POPIA, when it comes to your clients' personal information:
- You are the "Responsible Party" in respect of your clients' personal information. You determine the purpose and means of processing their data (i.e., to invoice them). You are responsible for having a lawful basis to collect and use their information.
- TradeJot is the "Operator". We process this data on your behalf and under your instruction to deliver the Service. We do not use your clients' data for our own purposes.
You can export Your Content at any time by replying mydata to the bot.
Our Obligations as an Operator (POPIA section 21)
In our capacity as an Operator processing personal information on your behalf, TradeJot contractually commits to the following, in accordance with section 21 of POPIA. Your acceptance of these Terms constitutes the written mandate required under POPIA for us to act as your Operator:
- We will process the personal information of your end-clients only with your knowledge or authorisation, as provided through your use of the Service.
- We will treat all personal information we process on your behalf as confidential and shall not disclose it unless required by law or as necessary to provide the Service.
- We have established and will maintain the security measures detailed in our Privacy Policy to secure the integrity and confidentiality of the personal information in our possession, in order to prevent loss, damage, or unauthorised access.
- We will notify you, the Responsible Party, immediately if we have reasonable grounds to believe that the personal information of your end-clients has been accessed or acquired by any unauthorised person. You are then responsible for any further notification to the Information Regulator and the affected data subjects, as required by POPIA section 22. We will provide reasonable assistance to enable you to do so.
- At your instruction, we will return or delete the personal information of your end-clients as soon as reasonably possible, unless we are required by law to retain it (for example, SARS retention obligations). If retention is required, we will restrict its processing to what is necessary for that legal obligation only. This implements POPIA section 21(1)(d).
Handling of End-Client Data-Subject Requests
When an end-client of yours messages our master WhatsApp number with a data-subject request (such as STOP, START, MYDATA, or FORGETME), you authorise us, as your Operator, to acknowledge and action the request on your behalf in accordance with our Privacy Policy. You agree to cooperate with any reasonable identity-verification step we require. If you have a lawful reason to refuse a particular request, you must notify us immediately so that we can decline or defer it.
6. Account Recovery
To use the Service, you must provide a valid email address during onboarding. We use this email solely for account recovery and critical service notices. If you lose access to your WhatsApp number (lost device, ported number, banned account, etc.), you can initiate a recovery process from a new WhatsApp number. We will send a secure, time-limited magic link to your registered email address to verify your identity and re-link your account to your new number.
7. Customer Support
Support is available via two channels:
We aim to respond to support queries within one business day.
8. Service Availability
We aim to keep the Service running but do not guarantee uninterrupted availability. WhatsApp outages, third-party provider outages (payments, AI, WhatsApp, hosting), and scheduled maintenance may cause downtime. We are not liable for losses arising from downtime that is reasonable under the circumstances.
9. Limitation of Liability
To the maximum extent permitted by South African law:
- The Service is provided "as is" without warranties of any kind, express or implied.
- TradeJot's total financial liability to you for any claim arising from or related to the Service is capped at the total fees you paid to us in the 12 months immediately preceding the event giving rise to the claim, or R5,000, whichever is greater. You acknowledge that the pricing of the Service reflects this allocation of risk and limitation of liability.
- We are not liable for indirect, consequential, special, or punitive damages, including lost profits or lost business.
Nothing in this section limits or excludes our liability for:
- death or personal injury caused by our negligence;
- fraud or fraudulent misrepresentation;
- gross negligence or wilful misconduct;
- any other liability that cannot lawfully be limited or excluded under the Consumer Protection Act 68 of 2008 or any other applicable South African legislation.
To the extent any provision of these Terms is found to be unenforceable under applicable law, that provision will be severable and the remainder of these Terms will continue in force.
Cooling-off Right (Electronic Communications and Transactions Act)
Where you qualify as a consumer under section 42 of the ECT Act, you may have a statutory right under section 44 of the ECT Act to cancel an electronic transaction without reason and without penalty within 7 days. Our Refund Policy implements this right and may provide additional rights beyond the statutory minimum.
10. Indemnity
You indemnify TradeJot against claims by third parties (including your clients) arising from your use of the Service in breach of these Terms or applicable law, particularly your obligations as a Responsible Party under POPIA. Your indemnity does not apply to any claim to the extent that it results from TradeJot's own breach of these Terms, gross negligence, or wilful misconduct.
11. Termination
You may terminate your account at any time by emailing support@tradejot.co.za with your WhatsApp number and the subject line "Delete my account", or by sending forgetme to the bot. We may terminate or suspend your account immediately for material breach of these Terms, suspected fraud, or for legal reasons. On termination we delete your data subject to the retention rules in our Privacy Policy.
12. Changes to these Terms
We may update these Terms from time to time. We will give at least 30 days' notice of material changes via WhatsApp and on this site. Continued use of the Service after the effective date constitutes acceptance.
13. Governing Law and Disputes
These Terms are governed by the laws of the Republic of South Africa. The courts of South Africa have non-exclusive jurisdiction over any dispute arising from these Terms or the Service — you may also bring proceedings in the court of your own place of residence or business, where such jurisdiction is available.
You may also lodge complaints with:
- the Information Regulator of South Africa (inforegulator.org.za) in respect of personal-information disputes; or
- the National Consumer Commission (thencc.gov.za) in respect of consumer-protection disputes.
14. Contact and Legal Information
TradeJot is a service provided by Dewald du Toit (sole trader), operating from the Free State, South Africa.
- Legal name: Dewald du Toit
- Trading as: TradeJot
- Company registration number: Sole trader, no registration number
- VAT registration: Not a VAT vendor
- Physical address for service of legal documents: 41 Market Street, Villiers 9840, Free State, South Africa
- Email: support@tradejot.co.za
- Information Officer (POPIA): Dewald du Toit, contactable at the email address above with the subject line "POPIA Enquiry".
A manual prepared in terms of the Promotion of Access to Information Act 2 of 2000 ("PAIA Manual") is available on request from the Information Officer.
15. Material Changes
v2.1 → v2.2 (12 May 2026 — DeepSeek adversarial review pass)
- Premium payment reminder: reframed the Premium "automated chaser" as a "configurable payment-reminder feature" with an explicit disclaimer that it is not a debt-collection service, to remain within Meta's Commerce Policy and to keep TradeJot outside the scope of the National Credit Act and the Debt Collectors Act.
- Acceptance mechanism: section 2 now specifies that you accept these Terms by replying YES to the bot at onboarding step 0, with the acceptance recorded in the audit log.
- Operator obligations: added POPIA s.21(1)(d) return-or-delete obligation and clarified that we notify you (the Responsible Party), not your clients directly, of any compromise of client data.
- End-client data-subject requests: added a clause authorising us to action STOP / MYDATA / FORGETME requests from your clients on your behalf.
- Multi-staff lawful basis: replaced the "explicit consent" warranty with a "lawful basis under POPIA" requirement, since employment-context consent is not reliably "freely given".
- Liability cap: raised the floor from R1,000 to R5,000, and added explicit carve-outs for personal injury, fraud, gross negligence, and statutory rights that cannot be excluded.
- Indemnity: carved out claims arising from TradeJot's own breach, gross negligence, or wilful misconduct.
- Jurisdiction: changed from "exclusive" to "non-exclusive" South African jurisdiction, allowing consumers to bring proceedings in their own place of residence. Added pointer to the National Consumer Commission.
- Command consistency: aligned the data-export reference to mydata to match the bot's actual command name.
v2 → v2.1 (12 May 2026 — pre-launch legal-review pass)
- Definitions: added a Definitions section at the start.
- Acceptable use: added explicit clauses on children's information (POPIA s.35), Special Personal Information (POPIA s.26), and WhatsApp Platform Compliance (Business and Commerce policies).
- Operator Agreement: integrated the mandatory POPIA s.21 Operator clauses directly into the Terms.
- Cooling-off right: added explicit reference to your ECT Act s.44 cooling-off right.
- Contact and Legal Information: expanded to include full legal name, physical address for service, company registration number, VAT status, and a PAIA Manual reference, as required by ECT Act s.43.
v1 → v2
- Tier renaming: the "Team" tier has been renamed "Premium". Tier structure is now Free, Starter, Pro and Premium with prices R0/R199/R399/R699 per month.
- Onboarding: the process now starts with a magic-phrase first message (TradeJot Free or TradeJot Premium) and requires explicit acceptance of these Terms and the Privacy Policy as step 0.
- Account recovery: a new, secure email-based account recovery process has been introduced. Email is now a required onboarding field.
- Acceptable use: added specific clauses requiring you to have consent from your clients for automated messaging and from your staff for multi-staff accounts.
- Data-protection roles: clarified the "Responsible Party" (you) vs. "Operator" (TradeJot) relationship under POPIA.
- Customer support: new section formalising support channels and 24-hour response target.