Terms of Service

• Answers calls you don’t pick up, in your business name, during hours you set.
• Uses your information (services, hours, pricing, FAQs) to answer questions.
• Rings you first so you can take the call yourself if you’re free.
• Books appointments and captures the caller’s name, number, city, address, and job type.
• Gives you one local number for inbound calls, outbound calls, and texts.
• Texts you the caught job and a recording, right after the call.
• Texts callers who didn’t book, so they can come back to you.
• Screens spam and solicitors.
• Asks your customers for a Google review on jobs the service booked for you, when you tell us to (Section 6a).
• Sends you regular reports.

We may add or change features over time. If we change something core to how it works, we’ll tell you.

The service is an automated system, not a person. It answers based on the information you give us, and like any AI it can occasionally get something wrong, say something incomplete, or handle a situation differently than you would.

What that means for you: anything the AI says on a call is said in your business’s name, so you’re responsible for it. That includes pricing, availability, scheduling, and any safety or troubleshooting guidance.

The AI isn’t a plumber and doesn’t give professional advice. Anything it says about shutting off a valve or handling an emergency is general information only.

You can review and change how it responds at any time. Just tell us and we’ll adjust it. We’ll make reasonable efforts to implement what you ask, though we can’t promise the AI will never deviate from its configuration.

It’s on you to make sure what it says fits your licensing and your local rules.

We record inbound calls and play a recording notice at the start of every one.

By signing up, you’re confirming that you have the right to record calls to your business, and that you’re responsible for following your state’s recording and consent laws. Some states, including California, require all parties to consent.

We provide the notice as a feature. We’re not your lawyer, and we can’t tell you whether it’s enough for your situation. That’s worth a quick check with counsel if you’re unsure.

If a caller ever raises an issue about being recorded, that’s your responsibility to resolve, and Section 11 applies.

We send texts on your behalf. Carriers and federal law take this seriously, so a few things need to be true:

• Any contact information you give us was obtained legally.
• You have whatever consent the law requires for texting the people we’ll be texting.
• You won’t use the service for marketing or promotional blasts unless you’ve got proper consent.
• The information you give us for carrier registration is accurate.

This covers review requests too. Section 6a messages go out on your behalf and under your consent, the same as any other message we send.

If a carrier or regulator ever flags your messaging, we may have to pause it right away, sometimes without warning, because that’s how the carriers work. That cycle still bills.

Anything that comes from messages sent on your behalf is your responsibility, and Section 11 applies.

A caught call is an inbound call you didn’t answer, that the AI handled for 20 seconds or more, where the caller was a real customer or prospective customer.

Spam, solicitors, wrong numbers, and quick hang-ups don’t count and are never billed.

Every catch waits 24 hours before it counts. We text you the job right away, and if you reply NO in that window it never reaches your count at all.

If you think a call shouldn’t have counted, just reply NO to the catch text. It comes off your count, no questions asked. If that changes your band, your next bill reflects it.

We decide in good faith whether a call qualifies, and our call is final, but the reply-NO option is always open to you.

Your price follows what we actually catch. Each cycle is 28 days, so there are 13 cycles in a year, not 12. At the end of each cycle we count your caught calls, and that sets your price for the next cycle.

Your price never changes in the middle of a cycle. Whatever band you start a cycle in is what you pay for it.

Your first cycle is the exception, because there’s no prior cycle to measure. It’s billed at the band we set from the estimate you gave us when you signed up. From your second cycle on, your price is set by what the previous cycle actually caught.

How your first cycle works

Which of these applies is whatever we agreed when you signed up. It’s on your receipt and in the written promise we texted you.

• Standard. Your first cycle starts the day your calls route to us and is billed then.
• Intro rate. Your first cycle is $199 no matter what it catches. Your second cycle is billed at the band your first cycle earned, and we’ll text you before that charge.
• Pay at first catch. Nothing is billed until the service catches your first real customer. That day starts your first cycle.
• Founding shop. 28 days, no card, nothing billed, nothing to cancel. In exchange you agree to leave it running the full 28 days, tell us honestly what it gets wrong, and let us use a recording of a call it handled for you (Section 16).

How your price moves

Down is immediate. Up is slow.

• To move up a band, you have to be above it two cycles in a row. One busy cycle never raises your price.
• To move down, one quieter cycle is enough. It drops the very next cycle.
• A quieter cycle resets the count, so you’d need two consecutive busy cycles again.

There’s no floor. If you start at $399 and have a cycle that catches five, your next cycle is $199.

The free cycle

Any cycle it catches you two or fewer, your next cycle is free. Because you’re billed in advance, this pays forward rather than back: it’s the same rule as every other band, applied to the bottom one.

A free cycle still counts as the band its catches would have earned, so it doesn’t reset your position in the table.

Notice

We’ll tell you before anything changes. Moving up, you get a text at least three days before the charge, with a link to the calls that caused it. Moving down, you get a text with the new price. These notices are a courtesy. If one doesn’t reach you, the charge still stands.

Your calls never stop. No caps, no cutoffs, no per-call overage. If you catch more than your band covers, the service keeps working and the band adjusts at the end of the cycle.

No setup fee. Service starts when your calls are routed to your Waterline Voice number.

Texts above 2,000 segments a month are billed at carrier cost. AI calls over 10 minutes hand off automatically and stop counting toward handle time.

You’re authorizing us to charge your card for your plan each cycle and for any pass-through costs, until you cancel. Every receipt shows the caught-call count and dates that set your price.

If a payment fails, we’ll retry and reach out. If it’s not resolved within 14 days we may pause or close the account, and you’d still owe what’s outstanding, including reasonable collection costs.

Before starting a chargeback, please just call us. We’ll sort out almost anything. Going straight to a chargeback is treated as a breach of these Terms and we may close the account.

Prices don’t include tax. Any applicable sales or use tax is yours.

On jobs the service books for you, we can contact that customer afterward and ask them for a Google review.

You control who gets asked. Each week we send you the jobs we caught, numbered. We only contact the customers you tell us to. If you don’t reply, nobody is contacted.

We ask everyone you select the same way, and we never offer anything in exchange for a review.

Because these messages go to your customers, in your name, Section 4 applies to them the same as any other message we send. You’re responsible for making sure asking your customers for reviews is consistent with your own obligations and with the review platform’s rules.

The 28-day guarantee

If you want out for any reason inside your first 28 days, we refund your first cycle. No questions, no conditions.

Just tell us. A text is enough. We’ll refund what you paid and shut it off.

The recording guarantee

If a call the service handled doesn’t sit right with you, for any reason, send us the recording and your next cycle is on us. We’ll also adjust how the service responds so it doesn’t happen again.

For this to apply:

• You send us the specific recording within 7 days of the call.
• The call was one the service actually handled, not spam or a hang-up.
• One free cycle per cycle: three recordings from the same cycle earns one free cycle, not three.

We won’t argue about whether you should have liked the call. You didn’t, and that’s enough. We just need the recording, so we can fix the thing you’re pointing at.

We’ll assess the recording guarantee in good faith, and our decision is final. These guarantees, plus the free-cycle rule in Section 6, are the only remedies for dissatisfaction with the service.

• Routing your calls to your Waterline Voice number.
• Calling back the opportunities we deliver.
• Doing the work and setting your own prices.
• Giving us accurate information to configure the AI, and reviewing how it answers.
• Keeping your licenses, permits, bonds, and insurance current.
• Following the laws that apply to your business.

We can’t catch calls that aren’t routed to us.

We don’t promise any number of calls, jobs, or dollars. Anything discussed on a sales call or shown in marketing is an estimate or a past example, not a promise of what you’ll get, except for the specific commitments in the written promise we text you at signup, which do count (Section 17).

Running the service means we handle your callers’ names, numbers, addresses, job details, and call recordings.

That information is yours. We process it for you, to run the service.

Your side:

you’ll need a privacy policy that mentions you use a third-party answering service and that calls are recorded, and you’re responsible for privacy laws that apply to you, including California’s. If a caller asks to see or delete their information, that request comes to you; we’ll help however we reasonably can.

Our side:

we use the information to run, secure, and improve the service. We may use anonymized, aggregated data more broadly, including to improve our AI.

We keep reasonable safeguards in place, though no system is perfectly secure and we can’t promise data will never be accessed without authorization.

We keep recordings and caller data while your account is active and for a reasonable period after. You can ask us to delete it in writing.

Ours:

the service itself: software, AI models, prompts, configurations, workflows, and documentation. You get a license to use it while you’re subscribed, not ownership.

Yours:

your business name, logo, and the information you give us. You’re letting us use those to run the service for you.

Call recordings.

The recordings of calls the service handled for you are yours. Section 16 covers the limited rights you’re giving us to use them.

Please don’t reverse engineer the service, resell it, white-label it, or use it to build something competing. If you send us ideas or feedback, we may use them freely.

If a claim comes at us because of something on your side, you’ll cover it, including reasonable legal costs. That includes:

• Something the AI said on your behalf, including safety or pricing guidance.
• A caller’s complaint about being recorded or about privacy.
• A text or call sent on your behalf, including any TCPA or carrier issue, and including review requests under Section 6a.
• Work you did or didn’t do for a customer.
• A breach of these Terms, or of any law or license that applies to you.
• A dispute between you and one of your customers.

We’ll let you know about any claim and may take part in the defense at our own cost. Please don’t settle anything in a way that puts obligations on us or admits fault for us without asking first.

The service is provided “as is” and “as available.” To the fullest extent the law allows, we disclaim all warranties, express or implied, including merchantability, fitness for a particular purpose, and non-infringement.

We can’t promise the service will be uninterrupted or error-free, that it’ll catch any particular call, that the AI will always respond the way you’d want, or that every call or text will be delivered.

The service runs on carriers, SMS networks, AI providers, and cloud infrastructure we don’t control. Outages, filtering, or delays caused by any of them aren’t something we can be responsible for.

Apart from the guarantees in Section 7 and the free-cycle rule in Section 6, no other warranty is given.

We’re not liable for indirect or consequential damages (lost profits, lost revenue, lost business, lost opportunities, lost data, or business interruption), however the claim arises, even if we knew such damages were possible.

Our total liability for any claim is capped at the greater of what you paid us in the three months before the claim, or $100.

We’re not liable for any missed call, lost customer, or lost job, whether it came from a system failure, a carrier issue, an AI error, calls not being routed to us, or anything else.

These limits apply whatever the legal theory, and they survive even if a remedy in these Terms fails its purpose. Where local law doesn’t allow a particular limit, our liability is limited as much as the law allows.

Our pricing reflects this balance of risk. We couldn’t offer the service at these prices otherwise.

You:

cancel any time before your next billing date. It takes effect at the end of the current cycle. No partial refunds, and carrier registration or number fees aren’t refundable.

A free cycle you’ve earned doesn’t carry over. It applies to your next cycle with us, so if you cancel after a quiet cycle there isn’t one to apply it to.

Us:

we may pause or close an account with notice, and immediately without notice if there’s a breach, non-payment, a carrier or regulatory complaint, or something we reasonably think puts us at legal risk.

When an account closes, access ends, the number may be released, and we may delete the data after a reasonable period. Sections 2, 3, 4, 6a, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 15, 16, and 17 stay in effect.

Talk to us first.

Before filing anything, email us and give us 30 days to work it out. Most things get resolved in a phone call.

If that doesn’t work: arbitration.

Any dispute we can’t resolve goes to binding arbitration with JAMS, under its Streamlined Rules, with one arbitrator, in Los Angeles County, California. The Federal Arbitration Act governs.

A few things you should know, and we want to be upfront about them:

Arbitration means no jury trial and no court case.

We’re each giving that up.

No class actions.

Claims are brought individually, not as part of a group or class. If that limitation is ever found unenforceable, this whole arbitration section drops away and disputes go to court.

One-year window.

Any claim needs to be brought within a year of when it comes up.

You can opt out.

If you’d rather not be bound by arbitration, email us within 30 days of signing up and say so. Nothing else changes if you do.

Either of us can still use small claims court, or go to court for an urgent order protecting intellectual property or confidential information.

While you’re a customer and for 24 months after, we may use your business name, logo, and anonymized recordings, transcripts, or text examples, with caller details removed, in our marketing and to improve the product. That includes playing an anonymized recording to another business owner to show them how the service handles a call.

If we want to quote you by name, name your shop in a recording, or write you up as a case study, we’ll ask you first, in writing.

You can withdraw this by emailing us; it takes effect within 30 days for anything new. Things already published don’t need to be pulled back.

Founding shops.

If you signed up as a founding shop, the 28 days were given in exchange for your feedback and for permission to use a recording of a call the service handled for you. That specific permission is the consideration for the free period, so it doesn’t expire and isn’t withdrawable under the paragraph above, though we’ll still anonymize caller details, and we’ll still ask before naming your shop.

Whole agreement.

These Terms, your checkout page, and the written promise we text you at signup are the full agreement, and together they replace anything discussed beforehand. The written promise is what records which first-cycle option you took and the specific commitments we made to you; where it and these Terms conflict, the written promise wins for that customer. Nothing else said on a sales call or in marketing becomes part of this agreement or creates a warranty.

Changes.

We may update these Terms. Material changes get posted with a new date and, where practical, a heads-up. Continuing to use the service means you accept them. If you don’t, you can cancel.

Severability.

If any part of this is unenforceable, it gets trimmed to the minimum needed, and the rest stands.

No waiver.

If we don’t enforce something once, we haven’t given up the right to.

Assignment.

You’ll need our okay to transfer these Terms. We can transfer them freely, including if the business is sold.

We’re a vendor, not your employee.

Nothing here makes us partners, employer and employee, or a franchise, except that we answer calls in your business name as you’ve configured us to.

Things outside our control.

Neither of us is liable for delays or failures caused by things we can’t control: natural disasters, war, labor disputes, government action, power or internet outages, or a carrier or provider failing.

Notices.

We’ll reach you at the email or number on your account. Reach us at team@waterlinevoice.com.

Governing law.

California law applies, without its conflict-of-laws rules. Apart from Section 15, any action goes to the state or federal courts in Los Angeles County, California.

team@waterlinevoice.com. We’d rather hear from you than have you guess.

By checking the box and completing checkout, you’re confirming you’ve read these Terms and agree to them, including the arbitration and class action provisions in Section 15, the responsibilities in Section 11, and the liability limits in Section 13.