Terms of Service

1. Who these terms are between

These Terms of Service (“Terms”) are an agreement between Varo, a business operated by its sole proprietor in South Africa (“we”, “us”), and the business signing up to use the Varo platform (“you”, “your organisation”). By creating an account, you're agreeing to these Terms on behalf of that business, and confirming you're authorised to do so.

2. What Varo is, right now

Varo is an admin assistant — Mercial and a set of specialist agents behind it — for small and medium South African businesses in mining, accounting, real estate, and software/services, reached through a web app, phone calls, and WhatsApp.

Varo is still being built, so, plainly: features change, sometimes without much notice; things will occasionally break or go down; the app tells you directly, in-app, what it can and can't actually do, and these Terms don't override that — if it's honest that a feature doesn't exist yet, it doesn't exist yet. Anyone can sign up. We can change who gets access at our discretion.

3. What Mercial is — and isn't

Mercial is an AI assistant. It drafts, summarises, tracks deadlines, and answers questions based on what you and your team tell it and what's already in your account. It does not replace your accountant, attorney, tax practitioner, or any other professional adviser, and nothing it says is professional accounting, legal, tax, or compliance advice. You are responsible for reviewing what Mercial produces before relying on it or sending it, the same way you'd review a colleague's work before it goes out under your name.

Mercial is built to say “I don't know” or “I can't do that yet” rather than guess or promise something the product can't deliver. Mercial does not, on its own, send messages, file documents, or take an action outside the conversation, unless a specific feature explicitly says otherwise and someone in your organisation has approved it.

4. Your account

You're responsible for keeping your login details secure and for what happens under your account. Tell us straight away if you think someone else has access to it who shouldn't. If you administer your organisation's account, you're responsible for who you invite and what role you give them.

5. Your data and content

Whatever your business puts into Varo — client records, reports, chat messages, call recordings and transcripts, uploaded documents — stays yours. We process it to run the product, as described in our Privacy Policy, and don't use it for anyone else's benefit or sell it. Letting us use it to improve the underlying AI is a separate, optional, off-by-default choice in Settings.

You're responsible for making sure you have the right to put information into Varo in the first place.

6. Acceptable use

Use Varo for real business admin, not to: break the law, send unlawful or harassing messages through it, try to access another organisation's data, overload or attack the service, or reverse-engineer it. We can suspend or close an account that does any of this.

7. Fees, the free plan and refunds

The free plan includes a free allowance of Mercial's work, shown in Settings as, for example, “R20 of your R300 free allowance used”. When the allowance is used up, Mercial keeps logging your figures in a simpler way and the full assistant waits for you to move to a paid plan. The free allowance does not renew.

Paid plans are monthly, in South African rand, and are paid through PayFast. We never see your card details. We do not charge VAT. A new paid plan can start with 7 free days: you give your card to PayFast, R0 is taken, and the first payment is taken on day 8; cancel before then and you pay nothing. Prices are shown before you pay. We tell you in advance, and you can cancel before the new price applies to you, if a price changes.

You can cancel a paid plan at any time with Cancel my plan in Settings, or by emailing support@varotech.org. You keep the plan to the end of the month you have already paid for, and nothing further is taken.

Payments are not refundable, because the month's work and credits start to be used as soon as you pay. Before you pay you are asked to tick that you understand and accept this. If we charge you twice or the wrong amount, we refund the difference in full. Nothing here limits a right you have under the Consumer Protection Act. The full policy is on the Refund and cancellation page.

8. Third-party services

Varo relies on other companies to work — to carry phone calls, transcribe speech, generate voice replies, send email, and, only if you connect it yourself, save a file to your Google Drive. These are described in our Privacy Policy. We choose them carefully, but don't control them, and aren't liable for their outages or mistakes beyond what the law requires.

9. No warranty

Varo is provided “as is”, especially during this beta. We don't promise it will be uninterrupted, error-free, or fit for a particular purpose beyond what we've told you it does.

10. Limitation of liability

To the fullest extent the law allows, Varo is not liable for indirect, incidental, or consequential loss arising from your use of the product — for example, a missed statutory deadline Mercial was tracking remains, ultimately, your business's own legal responsibility to meet; Varo is a tool that helps you track it, not a party to your compliance obligation.

11. Ending the agreement

You can stop using Varo and close your account at any time — contact support@varotech.org. We can suspend or end an account for a real breach of Section 6, for non-payment once paid plans exist, or if we discontinue the beta, with reasonable notice where practical.

12. Changes to these terms

We may update these Terms as the product changes. We'll update the date below when we do, and tell active users directly about a change that meaningfully affects their rights or obligations.

13. Governing law

These Terms are governed by the laws of the Republic of South Africa.

14. Contact us

support@varotech.org