Terms & Conditions

1. Who we are

Meerkat Hosting is a trading name of Meerkat Digital Services Limited, a company registered in England and Wales. References to "we", "us" or "Meerkat Hosting" mean Meerkat Hosting. References to "you" mean the customer ordering services from us. You can contact us at sales@meerkat-hosting.co.uk.

2. Our services

We provide the following services to businesses and individuals in the UK and elsewhere:

• Web hosting (including WordPress hosting) and domain registration, ordered, billed and provisioned through WHMCS, our order and billing system built on 20i's infrastructure.
• Our free website offer - we build your business website at no charge, and you pay only for hosting and your domain. See section 3 for how this works.
• Website Care plans - optional paid plans covering ongoing updates to an existing website beyond the free basic support included with hosting.
• Bespoke web design and portal projects - custom-built websites, staff/client portals, booking systems, ecommerce stores and web applications, scoped and quoted individually.

3. The free website offer

• There is no charge for the initial website build. You pay only for hosting (currently only £10/mo or £100/yr) and your domain name once you're happy with the site and choose to go live.
• The free build covers a website built from one of our existing template designs, typically covering the pages most small businesses need (for example Home, About, Services, Gallery and Contact). Bespoke design, additional pages beyond what's agreed, or features like online stores, staff portals or booking systems are outside the free offer and are quoted separately as a bespoke project (see section 6).
• We build the site first - nothing is charged and no payment details are taken until you've reviewed the site and are happy to proceed to hosting.
• Once your site is live on paid hosting with us, you have full control to edit your own text and images. Free basic support (occasional small text or image updates, on request) is included; if you'd like us to make more frequent changes on your behalf, that's what the paid Website Care plans in section 5 are for.
• The free website offer is tied to taking hosting with us. If you cancel your hosting, the free website build itself is not separately refundable (there was no charge for it), and continued use of the site depends on it being hosted somewhere - see section 4 on ownership if you wish to move the site elsewhere.
• We reserve the right to decline to build a free website for a particular business (for example, where the intended content would breach our Acceptable Use Policy), or to withdraw or amend the offer for new orders at any time. Customers already using the offer won't have an already-agreed build withdrawn.

4. Ownership of your website

Once your website (whether built under the free offer or a bespoke project) is paid for and live on active hosting with us, the content and design produced specifically for you belongs to you. Underlying templates, themes, page-builder frameworks or reusable code components we use to build sites remain ours (or our suppliers') to reuse for other customers. If you cancel hosting with us, you're welcome to request an export of your content; we don't guarantee that a site built on a particular template or platform will function identically if migrated to different hosting or software.

5. Website Care plans

Website Care plans (Care Lite, Care Plus, Care Pro) are optional recurring services for customers who want us to handle website updates more often than the free basic support covers. Each tier has a stated number of update requests and turnaround time, shown on our pricing pages at the time you sign up - these may change from time to time, with notice given for existing subscribers. You can cancel a Care plan at any time; your website stays live on your hosting either way. Any introductory offer (such as a first month free) applies only where set up as a valid promotion at the time of order.

6. Bespoke web design and portal projects

• Project scope, deliverables, timelines and pricing for anything outside the free website offer (custom design, staff or client portals, booking systems, ecommerce, or other web applications) will be agreed with you in writing before work begins, usually following a quote request.
• Changes requested outside the agreed scope may be quoted and charged separately.
• You're responsible for providing content, images, access or approvals we reasonably need to complete the work on time. Delays in providing these may affect the agreed timeline.
• Payment terms (for example a deposit followed by a final payment, or milestone-based billing) will be set out in your project quote.

7. Orders, pricing and payment

• Prices shown on this website are correct at the time of publishing and may change. The price you pay is the price confirmed at checkout, in your welcome email, or in your project quote.
• Hosting and domain services are billed automatically through WHMCS according to the billing cycle you choose at checkout.
• Bespoke design and portal projects are billed according to the payment schedule agreed with you before work begins.
• Failure to pay for a service by its due date may result in that service being suspended or cancelled.

8. Domain registration

Domain registrations are subject to the policies of the relevant domain registry (for example Nominet for .uk domains) as well as these terms. Domain registration and renewal fees are generally non-refundable once the registration has been submitted, as these costs are paid onward to the registry and are not recoverable by us. It's your responsibility to keep your contact and payment details up to date so renewal reminders reach you and your domain doesn't lapse.

9. Cancellations and refunds

If you're a consumer ordering online, you may have a statutory right to cancel certain services within 14 days under the Consumer Contracts Regulations. Because hosting and some digital services are typically activated immediately on order, you may be asked to confirm you understand that this cancellation right is lost once the service has started, in line with standard practice for instant digital services. This does not affect the free website offer itself, which carries no charge to cancel before you choose to proceed to paid hosting.

As noted in section 8, domain registrations cannot generally be refunded once registered. Refunds for other services are considered on a case-by-case basis - contact us if something isn't right and we'll do our best to sort it fairly.

10. Service availability

Our current Meerkat One Hosting plan is published with a 99.9% uptime guarantee, using 20i's UK-based infrastructure. Outside of a specific guarantee stated on our pricing pages or agreed with you in writing, we don't commit to a different uptime percentage under these terms. Planned maintenance will be communicated where practical, and we'll always aim to keep disruption to a minimum.

11. Acceptable use

All services are subject to our Acceptable Use Policy. We may suspend or terminate services that breach it.

12. Liability

We'll always aim to provide a reliable service, but we don't accept liability for indirect or consequential losses, or for issues caused by third-party infrastructure, software, or content you supply. Nothing in these terms limits liability where it would be unlawful to do so (for example, for death or personal injury caused by negligence, or fraud).

13. Changes to these terms

We may update these terms from time to time, including to reflect new or changed services. The current version will always be published on this page.

14. Contact

Questions about these terms? Email sales@meerkat-hosting.co.uk or use our contact form.