Preened Provider Terms of Service

Last updated: 27 July 2026

The short version

What Preened is: a booking and profile tool. Clients find you, book you, and pay you directly. We take 0% commission — you keep 100% and your clients are yours, always. What Preened is not: your employer, your agent, or a party to your appointments. We don't vet, background-check, or endorse providers — the "Trusted Pro" badge only reflects your track record on the platform. Your side of the deal: you're an independent business. You're responsible for your services being safe, legal and properly qualified/permitted; for treating your clients' personal information lawfully; and for keeping your profile honest. No fake reviews, no fake bookings, no gaming the badge. Deciding who to accept is yours. We show you whether a client has booked you before, and we give you free tools for home visits — but we don't vet clients, and we never claim to. Accepting a booking, and attending an address, is your call and your responsibility. Money: Free is free forever. Pro is a flat subscription billed through PayFast (no commission, ever). You can cancel at any time, and section 9 sets out the refund, cancellation and delivery rules in plain language. If something goes wrong at an appointment, that's between you and your client — our liability is limited as set out in section 12, and you cover us for claims arising from your services (section 13).

The short version is a summary only. The full Terms below are what you agree to.

1. Who we are, and definitions

"Preened", "we", "us" — Burgess Software Solutions (Pty) Ltd (registration number 2026/565549/07), trading as Preened, a private company registered in South Africa and based in Cape Town, South Africa (full postal address available on request), contactable at support@preened.co.za.

"Provider", "you" — the independent service business (solo professional or salon) that creates a profile and accepts these Terms at sign-up.

"Client" — a person who books a Provider's services through the platform.

"Platform" — the Preened website and software, including your booking page, studio, calendar and discovery listing.

"Services" — the hair, beauty or related services you deliver to Clients. The Platform itself is not the Services.

"POPIA" — the Protection of Personal Information Act, 4 of 2013. "CPA" — the Consumer Protection Act, 68 of 2008. "ECTA" — the Electronic Communications and Transactions Act, 25 of 2002.

2. What Preened is — and is not

2.1 Preened is a booking and profile tool only. We provide software that lets Clients find you, request appointments, and lets you manage your calendar and profile.

2.2 We are not a party to the contract between you and your Client. Every appointment is a direct agreement between you and the Client. We do not deliver, supervise, direct, inspect or guarantee the Services.

2.3 We do not handle Client payments. Clients pay you directly, by whatever method you and they agree. We never hold, route or take a cut of the money a Client pays you. The only money we ever collect is your own subscription fee (section 9).

2.4 We do not vet, background-check, endorse or guarantee Providers or Clients. Listing on the platform is not a recommendation.

2.5 The platform is provided on a reasonable-efforts basis. We do not guarantee uninterrupted availability, that Clients will find or book you, or any level of bookings or income.

3. Your relationship with us — you are independent

3.1 You are an independent business. Nothing in these Terms makes you an employee, worker, agent, partner, franchisee or joint-venturer of Preened, and neither of us may represent otherwise.

3.2 You control your business. You set your own prices, services, working hours, service areas and availability. You decide which booking requests to accept or decline. We do not roster you, set your prices, or discipline how you work.

3.3 You keep 100% of what Clients pay you and you own your client relationships and your client list (see section 6). Nothing in these Terms gives us ownership of your client relationships.

3.4 You are responsible for your own tax, statutory registrations and business compliance.

4. Trusted Pro and ID verification

4.1 The "Trusted Pro" badge is earned from your activity on the platform (such as real reviews, repeat clients and a complete profile). It is not an identity check, criminal background check, qualification check or endorsement, and you must not describe it as one.

4.2 Where we offer a separate ID-verification tier, we will describe exactly what was checked and by whom. Until then, none of our badges means we have checked who you are.

4.3 We may adjust, suspend or remove a badge if the conduct that earned it turns out to be false or manipulated (section 7).

5. Your warranties and obligations

By using the platform you warrant (promise) that:

5.1 You are 18 or older and legally able to enter into contracts.

5.2 You hold all qualifications, registrations, municipal or health permits, and (where relevant) insurance that the law requires for the Services you offer, and you will keep them current. Checking what your specific services require is your responsibility, not ours.

5.3 You are responsible for the quality, safety and legality of the Services you deliver, including at a Client's home.

5.4 Your profile information is accurate and kept up to date — services, prices, service areas, availability and photos. Photos of your work must be your own work.

5.5 You will show up for accepted bookings or cancel/reschedule with reasonable notice, and treat Clients lawfully and respectfully, without unfair discrimination.

5.6 You will not provide Services to a Client you know or reasonably suspect to be under 18 and unaccompanied — a parent or guardian must have made the booking and be present (this mirrors the Client Booking Terms).

5.7 We strongly recommend you carry your own public liability / professional indemnity insurance appropriate for in-home work.

5.8 You attend the appointment yourself. The Client books you, and before a home visit we show them your name, photo and contact number. You must not send someone else in your place unless you have told the Client in advance who will attend and they have agreed. If someone else arrives unannounced, the Client may cancel at no charge and any deposit they paid is refundable by you. Repeated breaches are grounds for suspension under section 8.

5.9 Accepting bookings is your decision. We do not vet, identify or background-check Clients (2.4). We show you what we know about a booking — whether that Client has booked you before — and we give you free tools to act on it (10.3, 10.4). Deciding whether to accept a booking, and whether to attend a particular address, is yours alone, and you accept that responsibility when you join. Nothing we display is a representation that any Client is who they say they are, or is safe.

6. Your Clients' personal information (POPIA)

6.1 Your client list is yours. For the personal information of your own Clients (names, phone numbers, addresses, booking history), you are the "responsible party" under POPIA for how *you* use it in your business. Preened processes booking data in order to operate the platform — our handling and security controls are described in our privacy notice.

6.2 You may use Client personal information only to fulfil bookings and run your own business with those Clients. You must:

• keep it secure (don't share logins; don't leave client details lying around; use your own devices responsibly);
• not sell, rent, trade or leak it, or share it with anyone who has no role in delivering the booking;
• get a Client's own consent before sending them marketing (POPIA section 69 restricts unsolicited electronic marketing — a booking is not marketing consent);
• not record sensitive ("special") personal information — like health conditions or allergies — in booking notes or reviews beyond what the Client volunteers and the appointment genuinely needs;
• tell us promptly at privacy@preened.co.za if you lose Client data or suspect it has been accessed by someone who shouldn't have it.

6.3 You are responsible for your own conduct with Client data, and you indemnify us for claims arising from *your* misuse of it (section 13). Our security of the platform itself remains our responsibility, as described in the privacy notice.

6.4 When you leave the platform you can export your client list and booking history (section 14). Owning your clients is the point.

6.5 Client history shown to you.

(a) When you accept or decline a home-visit booking we show you whether that Client has booked with you before — for example *"first booking with you"* or *"3 previous visits with you, last 12 June"*.

(b) This is your own booking data, presented back to you. It never includes a Client's bookings with any other provider.

(c) You may use it only to decide whether to accept a booking and to run that appointment. You may not use it to build or share a profile of a Client for any other purpose, and you may not disclose it to anyone outside your business.

(d) It says nothing about identity. Treat it as one signal among several — it does not replace your own judgement about attending a location, and it does not transfer any risk of the appointment to us (section 12).

(e) You must not require a Client to identify themselves beyond what the booking needs, or refuse bookings on any ground that amounts to unfair discrimination (5.5 continues to apply).

6.6 No shared client blocklists. You must not use the platform, or information obtained through it, to create, contribute to or circulate a shared list of Clients between providers — whether that is a blocklist, a "warning" list, a group chat naming Clients, or anything similar. Reports about a Client's conduct go to us at support@preened.co.za, where they can be handled with the confidentiality, accuracy and right of reply the law requires. Naming a Client to other providers exposes you personally to defamation and POPIA claims, and is grounds for removal under section 8.

7. Acceptable use and platform integrity

You must not:

7.1 create, solicit or incentivise fake or misleading reviews (including reviewing yourself or trading reviews);

7.2 create fake client accounts or fake bookings, or otherwise game the Trusted Pro badge, ratings or discovery ranking;

7.3 put unlawful, harmful, discriminatory, deceptive or infringing content on your profile (including services you may not lawfully offer, or photos you don't have rights to);

7.4 misrepresent your identity, qualifications or the nature of your business;

7.5 use the platform to harass anyone, to spam, to scrape data, or to interfere with the platform's operation or security;

7.6 use platform data (including other providers' or clients' information) for any purpose outside your own bookings;

7.7 describe, imply or advertise any Preened badge or marker — including "Trusted Pro" — as an identity check, background check, vetting, screening or safety guarantee, whether on your profile, in your own marketing, or to a Client.

8. Suspension and removal

8.1 We may suspend or remove your profile if you breach these Terms, if we reasonably believe a Client or the platform is at risk, or where the law requires it.

8.2 Fair process: where practical we will give you notice, tell you the reason, and give you an opportunity to respond before removal. For serious risks (e.g. safety, fraud, data misuse) we may suspend first and hear you afterwards.

8.3 Section 14 explains what happens to your page and data on removal.

9. Fees, subscriptions, refunds, cancellations and delivery

9.1 0% commission on every tier, always. We never take a cut of what your Clients pay you. Our only revenue from you is the flat subscription below.

9.2 Free tier: free forever, and genuinely usable — booking page and QR code, calendar, discovery listing (once eligible), and reviews.

9.3 Pro tier: adds automation and growth features as described on the pricing page. Pro is billed as a subscription:

9.4 Payment processing. Subscriptions are processed securely by PayFast, our South African payment processor. Your card or payment details are captured and stored by PayFast, not by us — we never see or store your card number. Prices are shown in South African Rand. Preened is not currently VAT-registered, so no VAT is charged; if that changes we will say so clearly.

9.5 Delivery. Preened sells no physical goods, so nothing is shipped. Your subscription is delivered digitally and immediately: Pro features are activated on your account automatically as soon as PayFast confirms your payment (normally within minutes). If your account hasn't upgraded within an hour of a successful payment, email support@preened.co.za and we will fix it promptly.

9.6 Auto-renewal. Subscriptions renew automatically at the end of each billing period until you cancel. Your renewal date is shown on your studio Account page.

9.7 Cancellation. You can cancel at any time — from your studio Account page, via your PayFast subscription management, or by emailing support@preened.co.za — with no phone calls, no penalties and no cancellation fee. Cancellation takes effect at the end of the period you have already paid for: you keep Pro until then, and you are simply not billed again. Your account then moves to the Free tier — your profile, bookings and data stay intact.

9.8 Refunds.

• First subscription, 7-day cooling-off: if you cancel within 7 days of your first subscription payment, we will refund that payment in full on request.
• Billing errors: duplicate charges, or charges after you cancelled, are refunded in full — email support@preened.co.za with the payment reference.
• Otherwise: amounts already paid for the current billing period are not refunded pro-rata (you keep Pro access until the period ends). Nothing in this section limits any right to a refund that the Consumer Protection Act or ECTA gives you — where the law grants one, we honour it.
• Refunds are processed back through PayFast to your original payment method, normally within 7–10 business days.

9.9 Price changes: we will give you at least 30 days' notice before any price increase; if you don't accept it, you can cancel before it takes effect.

9.10 Pass-through costs: where a feature uses a third party you choose to switch on (e.g. WhatsApp message delivery, payment processing for your own deposits), those third-party costs are passed through at cost, with no Preened markup, and will be shown before you enable the feature.

9.11 Founding members: if you joined the pilot cohort, your account is grandfathered at the founding terms you were promised (Pro features at no charge during the pilot, and thereafter the R79 per month founding rate for as long as you keep the subscription). We honour founding terms; they don't expire because we change our pricing later.

9.12 Deposits and online payments for your Clients (when launched) are provider-direct: money flows into your own account, never through Preened.

10. Safety features

10.1 Safety features are free on every tier, always — we will never place a safety feature behind a paid plan. This includes the mobile safety check-in with a trusted contact, which is available now on Free and on Pro, and any safety feature we release in future.

10.2 They are tools, not a guarantee. Alerts depend on networks, devices and the details you enter being correct. They do not replace your own judgment about accepting a booking or attending a location, and we are not an emergency or security service.

10.3 Which features are safety features. Clause 10.1 applies to, at minimum: the mobile safety check-in; the new/returning Client indicator shown when you accept or decline a home visit (6.5); the home-visit rules in 10.4; and the tools we give Clients to share an appointment with someone they trust and to report a problem. These are free on Free and on Pro, and will not be moved behind a paid plan.

10.4 Home visit rules. You can switch on, at no cost:

(a) Daytime home visits only — Clients booking a home visit are offered times inside a fixed daytime window only, and the whole appointment must finish inside it. It is a fixed window rather than actual sunset, so your availability stays predictable through the year. It applies to every home visit, not only first-time Clients.

(b) Remind me to call before I approve a home visit — home-visit requests already wait as pending until you approve them; this adds a reminder on the request so you speak to the Client first. It does not block anything.

These are yours to set and yours to switch off. They are tools, not guarantees (10.2 applies), and choosing not to use them does not shift responsibility for an appointment to us.

11. Your content

11.1 You keep ownership of the content you upload (photos, descriptions, prices). You give us a non-exclusive licence to host and display it on the platform and in reasonable promotion of the platform (e.g. showing your public profile in discovery). The licence ends when the content is deleted, except in backups for a short period.

11.2 Client reviews of you are the Client's content; we host them. We don't edit reviews to make you look better or worse, and we remove them only under our review-integrity rules.

12. Our liability

12.1 The Services are yours, not ours. To the maximum extent South African law allows, Preened is not liable for anything arising out of the Services or an appointment — including in-home visits — such as injury, damage to property, loss, theft, poor workmanship, no-shows, or a dispute between you and a Client.

12.2 The platform is provided "as is" and "as available", without warranties of uninterrupted operation or fitness for a particular purpose, except to the extent the CPA or other law gives you rights that cannot be excluded — nothing in these Terms takes away rights the law says you keep.

12.3 To the maximum extent the law allows, our total liability to you for anything connected to the platform is limited to the subscription fees you paid us in the 12 months before the claim arose (or R1,000 if you paid nothing), and we are not liable for indirect or consequential loss, lost profits or lost bookings.

12.4 Nothing in these Terms excludes liability that cannot lawfully be excluded.

13. Indemnity

You indemnify (cover) Preened, its directors, employees and representatives against claims, damages and reasonable legal costs brought by any third party (including your Clients) to the extent they arise from: (a) the Services you delivered or failed to deliver; (b) your conduct at or around an appointment; (c) your breach of these Terms or of the law; or (d) your misuse of a Client's personal information. This indemnity does not cover claims to the extent they are caused by our own breach of these Terms or of POPIA in respect of the platform's own systems.

14. Termination and your data

14.1 You can leave any time — close your account in the studio or by emailing us. We can terminate as per section 8, or on 30 days' notice if we shut the platform down or stop serving your area.

14.2 On termination: your public page comes down; you may export your client list, booking history and reviews-of-you in a usable format (request within 30 days of closure); we then delete or de-identify your personal information within a reasonable period, except what we must keep by law (e.g. tax records) — as described in the privacy notice.

14.3 Sections that by their nature survive termination (6.3, 11–13, 16) survive.

15. Changes to these Terms

We may update these Terms. For material changes we will give you at least 14 days' notice (email and/or an in-studio notice) before they take effect. Continuing to use the platform after the effective date is acceptance; if you don't accept, you may close your account under section 14. Each version is numbered and dated; we keep prior versions available on request.

16. General

16.1 Governing law: South Africa. Disputes: we'll try to resolve informally first (email support@preened.co.za; we respond within 10 business days). Failing that, disputes go to the courts of South Africa, and you retain any rights you have to complain to the National Consumer Commission or other regulators.

16.2 ECTA disclosures: our legal name, contact details, and these Terms are published on this website as required by section 43 of ECTA.

16.3 If any clause is unenforceable, the rest stand. These Terms plus the privacy notice are the whole agreement about the platform. No waiver of a breach waives later breaches. You may not cede these Terms without our consent; we may cede them to a company that takes over the business, with notice to you.

16.4 Contact: Burgess Software Solutions (Pty) Ltd, trading as Preened · support@preened.co.za · privacy@preened.co.za (POPIA queries) · Cape Town, South Africa.