Client Terms | Blinkz

1. When these terms apply

These terms apply to all paid work Blinkz LLC ("Blinkz," "we," "us") does for you ("you," the client): an app check, a plan week, a build or rescue, an on call plan, the Builder Residency, and any other paid work.

How you accept them. You accept these terms when you sign a quote or statement of work that refers to them, pay an invoice from us, or tell us in writing to start.
What counts as the agreement. Your agreement with us is your quote or statement of work (the "Quote"), these terms, and any data processing or business associate agreement we both sign. If the Quote and these terms disagree, the Quote wins, but only on the point where it says so clearly.
Your own paper. If you need us to sign your contract instead, we will review it, and it applies only once both sides sign it.
Nothing else is part of the deal. Things said on calls, in direct messages, in chats or in our marketing are not part of the agreement unless they are written into the Quote. That includes any estimate of results.

2. Before you hire us

The free call is to see if we are a fit. Anything we say on it is general and is not advice to act on. No work starts, and nothing is owed either way, until you accept a Quote and the first invoice is paid. A Quote is valid for 14 days unless it says otherwise.

3. What each service includes

App check

What you get. A signed, written report: a ranked list of what we found that will break or put your app at risk, and how to fix each problem. You keep the report whether or not you hire us for the fixes, and you may share it with investors, partners and buyers as it is.
When. We deliver within 5 business days of the day we have everything we need: access to the code and the app, test accounts, and answers to our questions. If access arrives late, the date moves with it.
What it is not. The report covers what we could see with the access you gave us, at that point in time. It is not a guarantee that no other problems exist, not a penetration test, and not a security or compliance certification. No one can honestly certify an app as hack proof, and we do not.
Fixes are separate. The app check does not include making the fixes unless the Quote says so.

Plan week

A paid week to understand your app and goals before any build. You get a written plan, the scope, and a fixed quote for the build. The plan is yours to keep and use, even if you build with someone else.

Build or rescue

Fixed scope, fixed price. We build what the Quote and plan describe, for the price in the Quote.
Payments. A deposit is due before we start. The rest is due on the schedule in the Quote. If the Quote has no schedule, the balance is due before we hand over the final code and accounts or launch the work.
Progress. During a build we send a written update at least once a week: what is done, what is next, and anything blocking us. Estimates of how far along we are are estimates, not promises.
Acceptance. When we deliver work, you have 5 business days to test it and tell us in writing about anything that does not do what the agreed scope says. We fix those items. The work is accepted when you approve it, when you put it into use with real users, or when 5 business days pass without a written report of such a problem, whichever comes first.
Fix period. For 30 days after acceptance, we fix at no charge any defect where the delivered work does not do what the agreed scope says. This does not cover new features, changes made by anyone other than us, problems in services or accounts we do not control, or problems caused by use outside the agreed scope.

On call

Month to month. On call is billed monthly in advance and renews each month until you or we cancel.
Response. Business hours are 9am to 8pm Eastern time, Monday to Saturday, except US federal holidays. If you report something broken during business hours, you get a real answer the same day. If you report it outside business hours, you get one by the end of the next business day. An answer means a person has looked at the problem and told you what is happening and what happens next. It is not a promise that every problem is fixed that day.
What is included. Your Quote says what the plan covers. Work beyond that is quoted separately before we do it. Unused time does not carry over to the next month.
Cancelling. Either side can cancel by email before the next billing date. The month already paid is not refunded, and on call continues until the end of that month.

Builder Residency and other programs

Programs are coaching and education. We teach and give feedback; what you build and earn depends on you. We do not promise any job, income, clients or other result. The schedule, length and any program specific terms are in your Quote or enrollment confirmation.

4. Paying us

Pay only Blinkz LLC. Pay only through the method on our invoice, made out to Blinkz LLC. Never pay an individual. If you get payment instructions that look different from usual, confirm them with us at hello@blinkz.ai before you pay.
When. Invoices are due on receipt unless the invoice or Quote says otherwise. Work starts once the first payment clears.
Late payment. If a payment is late, we will remind you in writing. If it is still unpaid 5 business days after that reminder, we may pause the work until it is paid, and the schedule moves by the length of the pause. Overdue amounts may accrue interest at the rate North Carolina law allows. You also pay our reasonable costs of collecting overdue amounts, including legal fees, as far as the law allows.
Disputing an invoice. If you think an invoice is wrong, tell us in writing within 10 days and pay the part you do not dispute. We will work it out with you in good faith.
Card disputes. If there is a billing problem, contact us first. Filing a card dispute or chargeback for work we delivered, instead of raising it with us, breaks these terms, and you remain responsible for the amount and any dispute fees we are charged.
Third-party costs. Hosting, app store fees, domains, software licenses, AI and API usage and similar costs are yours. Ideally they are billed straight to your accounts. If we pay any of them for you with your approval, you reimburse us.
Taxes. Prices do not include sales or similar taxes, which you pay if they apply.

Refunds are covered in our Refund Policy, which is part of these terms.

5. Changes to the scope

The scope is what is written in the Quote and plan. Anything else is a change.

A change is agreed only when both of us approve a written change order, by email or signature, that states what changes and what it costs, before the work is done.
Requests in chat, on calls or in project tools are welcome, but they do not change the scope, price or dates until a change order is approved. Silence is not agreement.
If a change affects the schedule, the change order says how.

6. What we need from you

Access and answers on time. You give us the access, information, decisions and test accounts the work needs, when we need them. Delays on your side move our dates.
Your accounts stay in your name. Your domains, hosting, cloud, app store, payment and analytics accounts should be in your name and paid by you. If an account we depend on is closed, suspended, unpaid or never provided, we are not responsible for the work that depends on it.
Your materials. You confirm you have the rights to everything you give us, including code, designs, content and data, and that our using it for your project will not break any law or anyone else's rights.
Your product and your claims. You are responsible for your app's legal compliance (such as its privacy policy, terms, and industry or app store rules) unless the Quote makes it part of our scope. You are also responsible for what you tell your users, investors and the public about your product.
Backups. You keep your own backups unless the Quote says we run them.
Going quiet. If we cannot reach you for 30 days in a row despite trying, we may close the engagement, send the work done so far, and invoice for it.

7. How we work

Our methods. We decide how to do the work. We use AI coding tools, and an engineer reviews everything before it reaches you. Our Security page explains how we keep your code and data safe while doing this.
Our team. We may use trusted subcontractors who are bound by confidentiality terms at least as strict as these. We stay responsible for their work.
Writing wins. Approvals, change orders, notices and anything that changes the deal must be in writing, by email. Chat and calls are for day-to-day work.
Your systems. We do not change your live app or database without your go-ahead, except to stop an active incident under an on call plan.

8. Who owns what

Your things are always yours. Your data, your accounts, and everything you give us stay yours. You can get a copy of your own data from us at any time, even during a disagreement about payment.
The work we make for you. When you have paid in full for a piece of work, we transfer to you our rights in the code, designs and documents we made specifically for you under that Quote. Until then, we own them, and you may use them only to review and test.
Our tools stay ours. We keep everything we had before your project or make outside it, including our tools, libraries, templates, prompts, components, methods and know-how, and anything general we improve while working for you. If any of it is part of what we deliver, you get a permanent, non-exclusive license to use it as part of that delivery.
Open source. Open-source and third-party parts stay under their own licenses.

9. Showing our work

What we may show. We may say we worked with you, show your name and logo, describe the work, and show screenshots or short recordings of it, with confidential information and personal data removed.
If you need it private. If you need the work kept private, for example because you are an agency and we work behind you, say so before you accept the Quote and we will mark the engagement confidential. We will then show nothing that identifies you.
Later requests. If you ask us in writing after the work is delivered, we will stop adding your name or logo to new material. We may keep describing the work without naming you.
Our name on your company. You may say you worked with Blinkz. You may not list Blinkz or anyone who works with us as an officer, employee, team member or adviser of your company, or suggest we endorse you, without our written consent. Any such listing comes down when our work ends.

10. Confidentiality

Each of us will keep the other's non-public information confidential and use it only for this work. This does not cover information that is public, that the other side already knew, that it developed independently, or that it received lawfully from someone else. Either of us may disclose confidential information when the law requires it, after giving notice where allowed. This lasts for 3 years after the work ends, and for as long as the information is a trade secret.

11. Working with our people directly

While we work together and for 12 months after, you will not hire or engage directly, without our written consent, anyone we introduced to your project as part of our team. This protects the team we built, not anyone's right to work.

12. Warranties and their limits

We will do the work with professional skill and care, and we give the fix period in section 3.
If work does not meet that standard, your remedy is that we fix it, or, if we cannot, we refund what you paid for the part that falls short.
No guaranteed results. We do not promise revenue, users, rankings, funding, app store approval or any other business result.
No guarantee against all attacks or bugs. No software is free of every defect or immune to every attack.
AI output. AI tools can produce errors. We review what they produce, but you must review deliverables before relying on them.
Outside services. We are not responsible for outages, changes or limits of services we do not control, such as hosting, app stores, AI providers or payment providers.
Apart from what this section says, the work is provided "as is," and we give no other warranties, express or implied, to the fullest extent the law allows.

13. Limit of liability

Neither of us is liable for indirect, incidental, special or consequential damages, or for lost profits, revenue, data or business, even if warned they were possible.
Our total liability for everything related to an engagement is limited to the fees you paid us for that engagement in the 12 months before the event that caused the claim.
These limits do not apply to your duty to pay us, to either side's indemnity duties, to breach of confidentiality, or to fraud, gross negligence or willful misconduct.

14. Indemnity

Ours. We will defend you against a third-party claim that the original work we made for you infringes their intellectual property, and pay the resulting costs and damages. This does not cover your materials, changes made by others, or third-party, open-source or AI-model parts you asked us to use.
Yours. You will defend us against third-party claims that come from your data and materials, your product and what you claim about it, how you use our work, or your breach of these terms or the law, and pay the resulting costs and damages.
The side asking for protection must tell the other promptly and let it control the defense. Neither side may settle in a way that binds the other without its consent.

15. Ending the work

You can end it. You may end an engagement at any time by email. You pay for the work done up to that day and any costs we cannot cancel. Our Refund Policy explains what happens to money already paid.
We can end it. We may end an engagement by email if you do not pay, break these terms and do not fix it within 10 days of our notice, or treat our team abusively. We may also end it for any other reason, and if we do, we refund what you prepaid for work we have not done.
When it ends. We hand over the paid work, return or delete your confidential information unless we must keep it by law, and remove our access. You change the passwords and keys we used. Sections 4 and 8 to 17 continue to apply after the engagement ends.

16. Disputes

Talk first. If there is a problem, tell us in writing at hello@blinkz.ai. Both sides will try in good faith to solve it within 30 days.
Then mediation. If that fails, either side may ask for mediation in Wake County, North Carolina or by video, with the cost shared equally.
Then court. If mediation does not resolve it within 30 days, either side may go to the state or federal courts in Wake County, North Carolina, which both sides accept as the only place for such cases. Either side may use small claims court for claims within its limits, or go to court at any time to stop misuse of confidential information or intellectual property.
Law. North Carolina law governs these terms, without regard to its conflict of law rules.
Legal fees. In a dispute about these terms, the winning side may recover its reasonable legal fees from the other, to the extent North Carolina law allows.

17. General

Independent business. We are an independent contractor. Nothing in these terms makes us partners, a joint venture, employer and employee, or gives either side any ownership or equity in the other's business.
Notices. Formal notices go by email: to us at hello@blinkz.ai, and to you at the email on your Quote.
Things outside our control. Neither side is responsible for delays caused by events it cannot reasonably control, such as outages of major providers, natural disasters or serious illness. Payment duties are not excused this way.
Transfer. Neither side may transfer an engagement without the other's consent, except to a buyer of the whole business.
If part fails. If a court finds part of these terms unenforceable, the rest still applies. Not enforcing a term right away does not give it up.
Changes. We may update these terms for future work. The version in effect when you accepted your Quote applies to that engagement unless we both agree in writing to change it.

18. Contact

Questions about these terms or your engagement: email hello@blinkz.ai.

Blinkz LLC, Morrisville, North Carolina, United States.