Terms & conditions

What these terms cover

These terms apply to everyone who uses Chairtime — artists who subscribe to run their bookings on it, and clients who use it to enquire, book and pay an artist. By creating an account or booking through an artist's page, you agree to them.

What Chairtime is — and is not

Chairtime is software. It gives an artist a booking page, a calendar, a message inbox and business records. It is not a studio, an agency or a marketplace, and it is not a party to any agreement between an artist and their client.

When you book a tattoo, your contract is with the artist and only the artist. The artist decides their prices, their deposit amount, their cancellation policy and their refund policy. Chairtime provides the plumbing, not the promises.

Artist accounts

• The free plan costs nothing a month and includes your public page, bookings and deposits. The paid plan renews monthly until you cancel. You can cancel whenever you like; you keep the paid features until the end of the month you have paid for.
• If your subscription lapses, nothing is deleted and nothing closes: your account moves to the free plan, your public page stays up, and clients can still book and pay deposits. The paid features — text reminders, replying to Instagram from your inbox, importing Instagram posts into your portfolio, QuickBooks sync, cancellation rescue, selling gift vouchers, making discount codes, writing your own consent forms and the add-ons — pause until you subscribe again, and anything you made while paid keeps working. Everything returns as it was if you resubscribe.
• Text reminders come with the paid plan at no extra charge, for reminders and notices to your own clients: appointment reminders, and the one text to somebody waiting in your walk-in queue. They are included under a fair use policy of 300 texts a month. Sending more is not charged for and does not stop your texts, but we may get in touch to talk about how you are using them. So that a fault cannot run away with them, texting stops for the rest of the calendar month once 1,000 have been sent that month; your reminders still go by email.
• Taking deposits requires your own Stripe account, and Stripe's own terms apply to it.
• You are the controller of the records you keep here about your clients, and we are your processor. The data processing terms are part of these terms: they say what we do with those records, who helps us, and what happens to them when you leave. You accept them with these terms, and again if they change.
• We take a flat platform fee on each booking paid through the service — currently £1 for new accounts charging in pounds and €1.50 for new accounts charging in euros — deducted once, from the first payment for that booking to go through your Stripe account, and the same on each gift voucher sold. Later payments for the same booking carry nothing. Payments you record yourself, such as cash or your own card machine, carry no fee. Stripe's own processing fee is separate and theirs: you are the merchant of record for your clients' payments, and it is charged to your Stripe account. The fee that applies to you is the one your account was opened on, and we will tell you before we change it.
• You are responsible for holding whatever licence or registration is required to tattoo where you work, for your own compliance with hygiene and age-restriction law, and for your own taxes. The accounting features are a record-keeping tool, not tax advice.
• You must have the right to the images and designs you upload, and you keep ownership of them. You give us only the licence needed to display them where you put them.
• If you connect Instagram, Meta's terms also apply to that connection, and you must use the inbox in ways Instagram permits.
• If you connect Google Calendar, Google's terms also apply to that connection. We make a calendar named "Chairtime" in your Google account and write your confirmed bookings into it, and nothing you put in Google changes a booking here. Only if you turn on blocking your Google busy times do we read when your main Google calendar says you are busy — the start and end of each busy period, never what the events are — and hide those times from your clients. That is only as good as what Google shows as busy and our last read of it, which is why time off you need kept free belongs on your Availability page too; it never stops you booking by hand. We never read the contents of your own calendars. Disconnecting stops the writing and the reading, deletes the busy times we hold, and leaves the events already there in your calendar, which is yours. The privacy policy sets out exactly what is sent, read and stored.

Studio accounts

• A studio account pays for the plans of the artists in it: £20 a month for each artist on a paid seat, VAT included, billed monthly for at least 2 seats, with up to 10 artists in a studio. A new studio has a free trial of 14 days; if no card is added by its end, the studio ends. The person who opens a studio runs it and pays its bill, and can hand it to one of its artists.
• Each artist in a studio keeps their own account: their page, their clients, their own Stripe account and their money, all of which stay with them if they leave. The studio is not a party to any artist's dealings with their clients, and the clause on deposits, payments and refunds above applies to each artist as it would outside a studio.
• An artist who leaves keeps the plan until the end of the month the studio has paid for, then moves to the free plan unless they choose to carry on at the solo price. If a studio stops paying or is closed, its artists move to the free plan straight away, or to the solo price if they have chosen to carry on.
• A studio can take enquiries from clients who have not chosen an artist. The studio is the controller of such an enquiry until one of its artists takes it on, and the data processing terms apply to the person who runs it; one nobody takes on within 30 days is deleted.
• Chair rent recorded here is only a record between a studio and its artists. Nothing is charged or collected through Chairtime, and we are not a party to that arrangement.

Client accounts

• You must be at least 18 to book a tattoo.
• The details you give — including anything you disclose on a consent or medical form — must be accurate. Your artist relies on them to tattoo you safely.
• Turning up, cancelling and rebooking are governed by your artist's policies, which are shown to you when you book.

Acceptable use

Do not use the service to break the law, to send spam, to upload content you have no right to, or to interfere with the service or other people's use of it. We can suspend or close accounts that do, and will tell you why unless the law prevents it.

The follow-up email sent to a client after their appointment is a service message about the tattoo they had — aftercare, and a request for their feedback on it. It is not for offers, discounts or announcements; marketing goes only to clients who have agreed to receive it, through the features built for that.

Broadcasts are that feature. An artist may email their own clients through the service about their own work, and we send those emails on the artist's behalf. The artist is responsible for what a broadcast says and for having the right to send it; the service offers it only to people who were given the chance to refuse on one of the artist's forms and did not take it, or who asked the waiting list to hear about free time, and puts an unsubscribe link on every message. We cap how many people an artist may email, and we may pause or suspend an artist's sending — for example after complaints or bounces — without suspending anything else about their account.

The service

We work to keep the service available and your data safe, and we take backups. But no software is guaranteed uninterrupted or error-free, and the service is provided as it stands. We may improve or change features over time; if a change genuinely reduces what you pay for, we will tell you before it lands.

Liability

Nothing in these terms excludes liability that cannot lawfully be excluded, such as for death or personal injury caused by negligence, or fraud. Beyond that, our total liability to an artist is capped at the subscription fees they paid us in the twelve months before the claim, and we are not liable for the acts, omissions or services of any artist — including, as above, their handling of deposits and refunds — or for losses that are indirect, or that we could not reasonably have foreseen.

Ending things, changes and the law

You can close your account whenever you like. We can end these terms with an account that breaks them. We may update these terms; if a change is significant we will notify account holders by email before it takes effect, and continuing to use the service after that means you accept it.

These terms are governed by the law of England and Wales, and its courts have jurisdiction — though nothing stops a consumer relying on the protections of the law where they live.

Questions: [email protected].