Terms of use. The rules of the club.

1. About these terms

These terms are an agreement between you and Search Marketing Club, 125 Queen Street, Sheffield S1 2DU ("the club", "we", "us"). They cover searchmarketingclub.com and platform.searchmarketingclub.com (together, "the service"). By creating an account or using the service, you accept these terms, the Privacy policy, the Cookie policy and the house rules.

If you use the service for a business, you accept these terms for that business and confirm you're allowed to.

2. Words we use

• Member: anyone with an approved account.
• Marketing pro: a member with an individual account, on the free plan or the Professional plan.
• Professional: a member on the Professional plan who can offer paid sessions.
• Business account: an account for an organisation, used for jobs, events, sponsored placements and directory listings.
• Content: anything posted on the service, such as posts, messages, reviews, listings, jobs, events and files.

3. Joining and your account

• You must be 18 or over and work in search marketing. We check every application and can decline any application.
• The club is open to people everywhere, except where sanctions laws stop us or Stripe from dealing with a person or place. Some features, such as getting paid, depend on what Stripe supports in your country.
• Give accurate details and keep them up to date. Keep your sign-in secure and don't share your account. You're responsible for what happens on it.
• Tell us straight away if you think someone else has used your account.
• Business accounts are for organisations. The person who creates one confirms they can act for the business.

4. House rules

The full house rules are on the About page. In short, you must not:

• harass, threaten, or post hateful, discriminatory or sexually explicit content;
• spam, send unsolicited promotions or cold messages, or sell links or guest posts;
• share other members' posts, messages or personal details outside the club without permission;
• post confidential client data or anything you don't have the right to share (anonymise client data);
• impersonate anyone, or misrepresent who you are or who you work for;
• post fake reviews, buy or trade reviews or votes, or try to game reputation, rankings or badges;
• scrape the service, get around its security or limits, or upload malware;
• use the service for anything unlawful, including fraud or infringing someone's rights.

We can remove content that breaks these rules and take the steps in section 20.

5. Your content

You own what you post. You give the club a non-exclusive, worldwide, royalty-free licence to host, store, display and adapt it (for example, resizing an image) to run the service, including on the public site where you or our staff choose to publish it, such as library resources, directory listings and public reviews. The licence ends when you delete the content or your account, except where others have already quoted it in replies or where we must keep it by law.

You confirm you have the right to post your content and that it doesn't break the law or anyone's rights. If you send us ideas or feedback, we can use them without owing you anything.

If you think content on the service infringes your rights, contact us with the details and we'll look at it promptly.

6. Our content and brand

The service, its design, software and the Search Marketing Club name and logo belong to us or our licensors. You can use the service as these terms allow, but you can't copy, sell or build on it, or use our name or logo in a way that suggests we endorse you, without our written permission.

7. Plans, billing and cancelling

• Membership is free. The Professional plan, the Business plan, directory add-ons and listing upgrades are paid subscriptions. Current prices are on the pricing page and at checkout.
• Subscriptions are billed in advance through Stripe, monthly or yearly. Listing upgrades and the Promoter pass are yearly only. Event listings can also be one-off payments.
• All prices are in US dollars. If your card is in another currency, your bank converts it and may charge a fee. Any tax is shown at checkout, and businesses can add a tax ID there.
• Subscriptions renew automatically at the end of each period until you cancel. We'll tell you before a price change applies to your next renewal.
• Cancel any time in Settings › Plan and billing. You keep access until the end of the period you've paid for, and the subscription doesn't renew. Switching between monthly and yearly, or adding or removing an add-on, is prorated by Stripe.
• If a payment fails, Stripe retries it. If it still fails, paid features may stop until it's paid. When a plan, add-on or upgrade ends, what it covers (for example listings, jobs, events and ads) is unpublished, kept, and comes back if you subscribe again.

8. Refunds and your rights

• Except where the law says otherwise, payments for periods that have started, and one-off event listings that have been published, aren't refunded.
• If a payment is refunded, the features it paid for are removed.
• Session bookings have their own cancellation rules (section 9).
• Nothing in these terms affects your statutory rights as a consumer, including any right to cancel that the law gives you. Business plans, upgrades and event listings are for business use.

9. Bookings with Professionals

• Members pay for sessions in full when they book. The agreement for the session itself is between the member and the Professional. The club provides the booking platform.
• Session times show in your own time zone. A Professional's availability is set in theirs.
• Members can cancel for a full refund up to 24 hours before a session. If a Professional cancels, the member is refunded in full.
• Payment protection. The club holds each session payment and releases the Professional's share 48 hours after the session ends, unless it was refunded. If something went wrong with a session, contact us within those 48 hours.
• Professionals must deliver the session they offered, at the time booked, and describe their services honestly.
• Arrange and pay for sessions through the club. Don't take members found through the club off-platform to avoid booking through it.

10. Getting paid as a Professional

• The club takes a platform fee from each booking and each paid group membership. The fee is shown on the platform before you offer paid sessions or start a paid group. You receive the rest, less Stripe's fees.
• Where you can be paid. In the UK, the US, Canada, Switzerland and the European Economic Area through Stripe Connect. In India, Australia and many countries in Africa, Asia and the Americas through Stripe Global Payouts, once it's available for that country. You must complete Stripe's identity and bank checks to be paid.
• Timing. After the 48-hour protection period, Stripe waits a further 7 days before paying your share to your bank. The same 7-day wait applies to paid group memberships.
• Currency. Members pay in US dollars and the club receives the money in pounds. Your share is paid in pounds at the exchange rate Stripe used for that payment, then converted by Stripe into your currency. Stripe or your bank may charge conversion fees.
• Refunds after payout. If a member is refunded after you were paid, your share is taken back from your Stripe account (Stripe Connect) or off your next payout (Stripe Global Payouts).
• You're responsible for your own tax on what you earn.
• Stripe's terms. Payment processing for Professionals is provided by Stripe and is subject to the Stripe Connected Account Agreement, which includes the Stripe Services Agreement (together, the Stripe terms), or, for Stripe Global Payouts, the terms Stripe shows you when you set up payouts. By accepting these terms or continuing to be paid as a Professional, you agree to the Stripe terms, as Stripe may change them. You authorise us to share information about you and your transactions with Stripe so it can provide its services.

11. Reviews and track records

• Only a member who paid for a session with a Professional through the club, and wasn't refunded, can review that Professional, up to 60 days after the session.
• A Professional's track record (paid sessions, repeat clients, reviews and rating) comes only from sessions paid for through the club. Refunded sessions stop counting.
• Directory reviews of agencies and software come only from verified members.
• Reviews must be honest and based on your own experience. Don't offer or accept payment or favours for reviews. Businesses must only invite their own real customers, and only people they're allowed to contact.
• Reputation points, levels, leaderboards and badges are worked out from activity on the platform. We can adjust them, and remove reviews or votes, where rules have been broken.

12. Groups

• Professionals can run invite-only groups. Group owners are responsible for their group's content and for what they promise members.
• Paid groups are billed monthly through Stripe. The owner sets the price, and the club takes the platform fee shown on the platform before you start a paid group. Members can cancel any time and keep access until the end of the month they've paid for.

13. Business accounts

• Business accounts can post jobs, host events, run sponsored placements and list in the directories, as their plan allows.
• Businesses never get members' contact details and must not use the service to cold-message members.
• You're responsible for everything your business publishes and must follow advertising, consumer and employment law.
• If you use the service for business, you agree to cover our reasonable losses from claims caused by your content or your breach of these terms.

14. Directory listings and upgrades

• Every listing is checked before it goes live. We can ask for changes, or decline or remove listings that are inaccurate or break the rules.
• Listing upgrades (Software Starter, Software Pro, Agency Verified and Featured sponsorship) are billed yearly. Software Starter and Software Pro replace each other.
• The Verified badge only appears after we've checked your company and website. We can remove it if those details stop being true.
• Featured sponsorship is limited to 3 sponsors per page, is marked "Sponsored", and is first come, first served.
• Paying for a listing or upgrade never changes reviews or ratings.

15. Event listings

• Community Pass listings are free for meetups and free webinars. SEO & Growth Boost and Enterprise Summit are one-off payments per event. The Promoter pass makes every event Enterprise for a year.
• For Enterprise events, we build the listing from the details you send. You confirm they're accurate.
• Events must be real and should teach something. Product demos are fine when they're clearly labelled. You're responsible for running the event and for any tickets you sell.

16. Jobs

• Every role must be real, lawful, open and show a salary range.
• Employers must not discriminate unlawfully, and must handle applicants' data lawfully and only for that role.
• We can remove any listing that breaks these rules.

17. Sponsored placements

• Every sponsored placement is reviewed before it goes live and is labelled as sponsored. We can decline or remove any placement.
• Placements are shown by where they appear, not by tracking individual members.
• Ads must be accurate, lawful and relevant to search professionals.

18. Advice from members

Advice from members, Professionals, groups and events is their own, not ours. It isn't professional advice from the club. Check anything important before you rely on it, especially for client work.

19. Running the service

We work hard to keep the club running, but we provide it "as is" and can't promise it will always be available or error-free. We may change, add or remove features. If we remove something important you've paid for, we'll tell you and offer a fair refund for any period you can no longer use. The service links to and uses third-party services, such as Stripe, Google and LinkedIn, which have their own terms.

20. Suspension and ending your account

• You can delete your account any time in Settings. Cancel any paid subscriptions first.
• We may remove content, limit features, or suspend or close accounts that break these terms or the house rules, or put members or the club at risk. We normally give a warning first, unless the breach is serious.
• If we close your account for a serious breach, unused subscription time isn't refunded, except where the law says otherwise.
• Tell us if you think we've got it wrong, and we'll review it.

21. Our liability

Nothing in these terms limits liability that can't be limited by law, such as for death or personal injury caused by negligence, or fraud. Otherwise, we aren't liable for indirect or consequential losses, or for lost profits, revenue, business or data. Our total liability to you is limited to the amount you paid us in the 12 months before the claim.

If you're a consumer, we're responsible for losses that are a foreseeable result of us breaking these terms or failing to use reasonable care.

22. Changes to these terms

We may update these terms, for example when we add features or the law changes. We'll give members notice of material changes before they take effect. If you don't agree, you can cancel and delete your account before then.

23. Law and disputes

These terms are governed by the law of England and Wales, and disputes go to the courts of England and Wales. If you're a consumer living elsewhere in the UK, you can use your local courts. If you're a consumer living outside the UK, you also keep any protections that your local consumer law gives you and that can't be changed by agreement.

Please talk to us first. Most problems can be sorted out quickly.

24. Contact

Contact us, or write to Search Marketing Club, 125 Queen Street, Sheffield S1 2DU.