Refund & Cancellation Policy

01 Principles

Custom software is not a product you can put back on a shelf. Once our team has spent hours on your project, those hours are gone. This policy is built on three commitments:

• You pay for work performed, not for work promised. If we have not done it, you should not be paying for it.
• Nobody is trapped. You can leave an engagement at any time with 15 days' notice.
• No surprises. Every number in this policy is fixed in advance, so a cancellation is arithmetic rather than a negotiation.

02 Scope

This policy forms part of our Terms of Service and applies to all Altrum engagements: fixed-price projects, monthly retainers, care plans, audits and consulting. Where a signed Statement of Work ("SOW") sets different terms, the SOW prevails for that engagement.

This policy does not cover purchases made inside applications we have built for clients. Those are governed by the publisher's terms and by Apple's or Google's refund processes.

03 Deposits

The 30% mobilisation deposit reserves your delivery window, releases team capacity that we then cannot sell to anyone else, and funds discovery and set-up. It is:

• Fully refundable within 5 business days of payment, provided work has not started and no discovery session has taken place.
• Non-refundable after work begins, but always credited in full against work performed — it is never an extra charge.
• Transferable to a rescheduled start date within 6 months, once, at no cost.

04 Cancelling a project

1. Send written notice to ten20.ae@gmail.com. The notice period is 15 days.
2. We stop scheduling new work immediately and complete only what is needed for a clean hand-off.
3. Within 7 business days we issue a close-out statement: work performed to date, hours logged, third-party costs committed, amounts already paid, and the balance owed or refundable.
4. Any refundable balance is paid within 14 business days of the statement being agreed.
5. We deliver all work paid for, in its then-current state, on final settlement — see section 14.

05 Refund schedule for fixed-price projects

Refunds are calculated against the phase in progress when written notice is received. "Phase fee" means the fee allocated to that phase in the SOW.

"Hours logged" are charged at the SOW's blended rate and evidenced by a time record we will share with you. We do not charge for internal administration, sales time, or the preparation of the close-out statement itself.

06 If we cancel

If Altrum terminates an engagement for convenience, or cannot continue for reasons within our control — capacity, staffing, or a decision on our side — then:

• You are charged only for work actually completed and accepted up to that date.
• All other amounts are refunded in full, including the unearned portion of the deposit.
• We hand over all work in progress, source code, designs and credentials at no charge, whether or not the phase is complete.
• We provide up to 5 hours of free transition support to another team, and an honest written hand-over summary of architecture, decisions and outstanding items.

If we terminate for cause — non-payment, a breach of the acceptable use section of our Terms, or a client-caused delay beyond 30 days — the schedule in section 5 applies as if you had cancelled.

07 Retainers and care plans

• Monthly retainers and care plans are invoiced in advance and renew automatically unless cancelled.
• Cancel any time with 30 days' written notice. Service continues to the end of the notice period.
• The current month is not refundable once it has begun, because capacity is reserved for it. Any prepaid months beyond the notice period are refunded in full.
• Unused hours in a month do not roll over and are not refundable unless the plan expressly says otherwise.
• If we fail to deliver the contracted service level in a given month, that month's fee is credited or refunded at your choice.

08 Pausing instead of cancelling

If circumstances change, a pause is often better than a cancellation.

• You may pause a project once for up to 60 days at no charge, with 10 days' written notice.
• Work already invoiced remains payable; no new work is invoiced during the pause.
• We hold your project state, environments and documentation for the pause period.
• Restarting is subject to team availability, and a pause beyond 60 days may require re-mobilisation at our then-current rates.
• A pause exceeding 90 days without written agreement is treated as a cancellation under section 5.

09 Non-refundable items

The following cannot be refunded once incurred, because we have already paid them out or the value has already been delivered:

• Third-party costs committed on your behalf and approved by you — licences, paid APIs, store fees, stock assets, test devices.
• Work already accepted by you, or put into production or commercial use.
• Completed audits, discovery workshops and consulting sessions that have been delivered.
• Rush or out-of-hours surcharges for work already performed.
• Bank transfer fees, card processing fees and currency conversion losses.
• Care-plan or retainer months already in progress.

10 Defects are fixed, not refunded

Where a material, reproducible defect in our work remains uncorrected after two good-faith attempts and a reasonable period, you may reject the affected Deliverable and receive a refund of the fee allocated to it in the SOW. That refund is your exclusive remedy for the defect, subject to the limitation of liability in our Terms.

Not grounds for a refund: a change of mind about a feature you approved; app store rejection for reasons of your business model, content or store account standing; a third-party service changing its terms, pricing or API; commercial performance of the launched app; or requests outside the agreed scope.

11 How to request a refund

1. Email ten20.ae@gmail.com with "Refund request" in the subject line.
2. Include the project or invoice number, the amount you believe is refundable, and the reason.
3. We acknowledge within 3 business days.
4. We respond with a decision and a calculation within 10 business days. If we need more information we will ask within that window.
5. Approved refunds are paid within 14 business days of agreement.

12 How refunds are paid

• Refunds are made to the original payment method and payer wherever possible.
• They are issued in the currency of the original invoice. We are not responsible for exchange rate movement between payment and refund.
• Bank or processor fees on the original payment and on the refund are deducted from the refundable amount.
• We will not issue a refund to a third-party account without written authorisation from the original payer.

13 Chargebacks

Please talk to us before raising a chargeback — most disputes are a misunderstanding about scope and are resolved in a single call. Raising a chargeback for work that was delivered and accepted is a breach of our Terms; we may suspend all services, revoke licences to unpaid Deliverables, and recover the disputed amount together with reasonable costs. We keep detailed delivery records and will present them to the card issuer.

14 Deliverables on cancellation

• You receive everything you have paid for, in its then-current state, once the close-out statement is settled.
• Work in progress is delivered as-is, without warranty, and without the completion, testing or documentation the SOW would otherwise have included.
• Ownership of paid Deliverables transfers under section 9 of our Terms. Unpaid work is not licensed for use.
• We transfer repositories, environments, store listings and credentials on request at hand-over.
• We retain a copy of project records for the periods in our Privacy Policy, then delete them.

15 Disputes

If you disagree with a refund calculation, follow the escalation process in section 23 of our Terms: written notice, project leads confer within 10 business days, then senior representatives. Most disputes end there. We will always show our working — time logs, milestone records and third-party invoices.

16 Contact