Refund and Cancellation Policy

1. What you are paying for

Our websites are sold as an ongoing monthly service, not as a once-off purchase. The monthly fee covers your website, hosting, your domain, security, backups, updates and support, supplied together month by month. You pay monthly in advance, so each payment covers the month ahead.

2. Changing your mind in the first 7 days

If you change your mind within 7 days of signing, and we have not yet started building your website, we refund what you have paid in full.

If we have already registered a domain for you, we refund everything except the domain registration fee, because a domain cannot be returned once registered. The domain stays yours.

3. Months already supplied

Once a month has been supplied, its fee is not refundable. This is because the service, including hosting, security, backups, monitoring and support, has already been delivered for that month.

If you cancel part way through a month, your website stays live until the end of the month you have paid for.

4. Cancelling after your minimum term

Starter has a minimum term of 12 months. Bronze, Silver, Gold and Platinum have a minimum term of 24 months. Our care plan for an existing website has no minimum term.

After the minimum term, you may cancel at any time by giving 1 calendar month’s written notice by email. There is no cancellation fee, and the last month you pay for is served in full.

5. Cancelling during your minimum term

You committed to the minimum term when you signed, so cancelling early means settling the balance of that term:

• Starter: you pay the remaining monthly fees for the unexpired part of the 12 months. The website stays ours, and you may buy it at any time for the buy-out amount in your agreement.
• Bronze, Silver, Gold and Platinum: you pay the early ownership amount in your agreement, which is the total of the remaining monthly fees for the unexpired part of the 24 months. Once that is paid, ownership of the website passes to you.

This does not apply where you are cancelling because we have breached the agreement and have not fixed it within 14 days of your written notice. In that case you pay nothing further.

6. What is not refundable

• A month that has already been supplied
• Domain registration and renewal fees, once the domain is registered or renewed
• Third-party licences, premium plugins or stock images bought for your project
• Advertising spend paid to Google or Meta, which you pay them directly
• Work already carried out on a quotation you approved in writing, including extra pages, copywriting, photography and design work
• The onboarding audit fee on a care plan, which is payable whether or not the care plan starts

7. If we end the agreement

If we end your agreement for a reason of our own, rather than because of a breach by you, we refund the unused part of the month you have paid for, worked out per day.

If we end it because of a breach by you that you have not fixed within 14 days of our written notice, no refund is due.

Either way, and even in a dispute about fees, we do not hold your content, your domain name or your business data. We release your domain and give you a full export of your website and its database within 10 business days of your request, once all amounts due have been paid. We keep a backup for 30 days after the agreement ends.

8. Billing errors

If we collect the wrong amount, collect twice, or collect after you have cancelled, we refund it in full. Tell us and we will process the refund within 5 business days, back to the card the payment came from.

9. How to cancel or ask for a refund

Email info@digital-xpression.com with:

• your name and business name
• your website address
• whether you are cancelling or asking for a refund
• the amount and date, if it is a refund
• the reason

We reply within 2 business days. Approved refunds are paid within 5 business days, to the card or account the payment came from. We do not pay refunds in cash or to a third party.

Cancellation takes effect from the date we receive your email, and the notice period in your agreement starts from that date.

10. Card disputes

Please talk to us before disputing a payment with your bank. Most problems are a misunderstanding we can fix quickly. If a payment for a service we have supplied is reversed or disputed, we may suspend the website on written notice until the amount is settled.

11. Your legal rights

Nothing in this policy affects the rights you have under the Consumer Protection Act 68 of 2008 or the Electronic Communications and Transactions Act 25 of 2002.