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Terms of service

Terms for businesses using Valtela in the United States. Effective September 14, 2026, version 2026-09-14.

1. Who provides the service

Provider: Jáchym Jahoda, registered in the Czech Republic, company number 21971561, registered office Bukovany 99, 696 31 Bukovany, Czech Republic. Registration: Trade Licensing Register, Kyjov Municipal Office. Contact: hello@valtela.com.

E-mail is the only address that binds either side. Orders, complaints, cancellations and changes of details go by e-mail.

These terms are part of every agreement between the provider and a customer. They are always available at this address and every invoice links to them. Paying an invoice, or accepting the terms at first sign-in, confirms that the customer has read and accepted them. Anything a salesperson says, and anything on the provider's website, is not part of the agreement.

2. Who the service is for

The service is sold to businesses only, never to consumers. By ordering, the customer confirms that it is a business, that it orders for its own trade, and that it is entitled to act for the location it orders for and for that location's listing on Google.

The service is provided in English to locations in the United States. Accepting an order from elsewhere is at the provider's discretion.

3. Words used here

• Location is one physical place of business at one address, tied to one listing and one licence year.
• Card is the printed card with a QR code and an NFC chip that points at the location's tap screen.
• Tap screen is the web page the card opens. It offers everyone who opens it, in the same form and with no question in front of it, a link to the location's listing on Google and a box for a message to the owner.
• Guest message is the text and optional contact detail a guest sends from the tap screen.
• Dashboard is the signed-in part of the application.
• Listing is the location's public record on Google Maps that the customer names when ordering.
• Licence year is the year the service is bought and paid for. It starts the day the provider records the payment and ends a year later; a year that follows a running one starts the day the previous one ends. The provider usually opens the service at the order, and the days before payment do not count against the year.
• Evidence is the documents the application assembles from what it recorded about the listing.

4. How the agreement is made

The customer orders through the provider's salesperson at the location, or by e-mail. The order names the business, its address, the owner's e-mail, the location and its listing. The agreement is made when the provider confirms the order; issuing the invoice or opening the dashboard counts as confirmation. The provider may decline an order without giving a reason.

The provider sends the sign-in to the owner's e-mail. At the first sign-in the dashboard asks the customer to confirm these terms and does not open before that. The confirmation is recorded and is made by the customer alone; a salesperson cannot make it.

A salesperson may take an order and pass it on. A salesperson cannot change the price, change these terms, or promise any result.

The customer is responsible for the details in the order, above all for naming the right listing. The provider watches the listing the customer named.

5. What the provider does

For the licence year, the provider will:

• run the location's tap screen so that reading the QR code or tapping the card shows the link to the listing and the message box;
• deliver every guest message to the dashboard and send an e-mail alert about it;
• run the dashboard with the features the price list described when the year was bought;
• once a day ask Google's public interface for the listing, store the reading, compare it with the previous one, and e-mail the customer about the changes the service watches, subject to section 9;
• keep guest messages and listing readings for the periods stated in section 18 and on the privacy page;
• invoice the agreed price.

Doing these things is performing the agreement. The provider has no other obligation. The provider owes an effort, not a result: the subject of the agreement is running the service described, not any business outcome.

6. What the provider does not promise

The provider does not promise, guarantee or answer for any of the following, and none of it is part of the agreement:

• the number, content, tone, rating or pace of reviews the location receives;
• the location's average rating, keeping it, raising it, or stopping it from falling;
• search ranking, visibility, traffic, guest numbers, revenue, profit or any other business result;
• how many guests use the card, or the split between those who go to the listing and those who write to the owner;
• any decision by Google about a review, a listing or an account;
• catching every fake, paid or otherwise improper review; the rules work on what Google publishes and can flag a genuine review or miss a bad one;
• the outcome of any report the customer files, or any reaction to the evidence the service prepares;
• catching every change to the listing; a change Google's interface does not publish, or one that comes and goes between two readings, stays uncaught;
• delivery of e-mail; the customer's mail provider decides what lands in the inbox, in spam, or is refused;
• the NFC chip working in a particular phone, a particular camera or browser, or the data connection at the location;
• uninterrupted availability, any availability percentage, or any response time;
• the permanent availability of features that depend on third parties, above all Google Maps Platform;
• legal advice of any kind. The evidence, descriptions and explanations in the service are recorded data and general information. They are not legal advice and do not replace it.

The listing belongs to Google, follows Google's rules, and the provider has no say over its content or over decisions about it.

7. Availability, maintenance, and the only remedy for downtime

The provider runs the service with care and makes reasonable efforts to keep it available at all times. It gives no availability percentage, no credit, no discount and no penalty for downtime.

The provider may take the service down for maintenance, updates or security. A planned outage longer than thirty minutes is announced by e-mail in advance, unless it is needed to prevent imminent harm or to close a security hole.

If the tap screen or the dashboard is completely unavailable for more than 72 hours in a row for a reason on the provider's side, the licence year is extended by the number of whole days the outage lasted. This extension is the customer's only remedy for downtime. The customer asks for it by e-mail within thirty days after the outage ends; otherwise the claim lapses.

Any other defect the customer reports by e-mail without undue delay. The provider fixes it within a reasonable time; if it does not, the licence year is extended by the whole days the affected feature did not work after it was reported. The customer has no other remedy for defects.

Announced maintenance, outages caused by the customer, and time while the customer is behind on payment do not count as downtime. Outages at the hosting provider and force majeure do count.

8. Changes to the service

The provider may develop the service, change how it looks and works, add features, replace them and remove them. Removing a feature the customer uses is announced by e-mail at least thirty days ahead.

For the whole paid licence year the tap screen, delivery of guest messages to the dashboard, and the daily reading of the listing with alerts on changes stay in place, subject to section 9. Everything else may change during the year. Removing another feature gives no right to cancel, to a discount or to a refund.

9. Third parties the service stands on

The service uses Google Maps Platform to read the public listing, a hosting provider, and an e-mail delivery provider. The provider is not affiliated with Google and cannot act for it. Listing data is Google's content under Google's rules; the provider does not answer for its accuracy or for outages, changes, limits or the ending of any third party's service.

If a third party's interface becomes unavailable, changes its terms, prices or scope, or refuses the provider access, the provider may limit or pause the features that stand on it. The rest of the service keeps running. This gives no right to a discount, a refund or damages.

10. Rules for collecting reviews

The service is built so that every guest who uses the card gets the same offer. The customer agrees not to break that, and in particular not to:

• offer, promise or give guests a reward, discount, gift, goods or service for a review or for its content;
• choose which guests to show the card to by their expected or known satisfaction, or put any question about satisfaction in front of the offer to review;
• pressure a guest to write a review, or ask for particular words, an employee's name or a particular number of stars;
• set employees a quota of reviews or pay them for reviews;
• write, order, buy or otherwise obtain reviews that do not come from a real guest, for its own location or anyone else's;
• alter the card or the tap screen, add text or instructions to them, change where the QR code or the chip points, cover the card, or show it only to some guests.

These rules follow Google's review policies and the law on unfair and deceptive practices, including the Federal Trade Commission's rule on consumer reviews. Breaking them can get reviews removed, the listing limited or removed, and the customer penalised by a regulator; the provider does not answer for any of that. Breaking any of these rules is a material breach: the provider may end the agreement with immediate effect, the price is not refunded, and the customer pays the contractual penalty in section 17.

11. Other duties of the customer

• Keep the contact e-mail and billing details correct and current, and report a change within ten days. The e-mail in the dashboard is where the provider delivers notices.
• Protect the sign-in, share it with nobody outside the business, and change the password at once if it may have leaked. The customer answers for what is done under its sign-in.
• One licence year is tied to one location. Using the card, the tap screen or the dashboard for another location is not allowed.
• Do not resell the service, lend it to a third party, sublicense it or bundle it into a service of your own.
• Do not reverse engineer the service, bypass its security, access it automatically, bulk-download data from it, or load it in a way that could endanger it for others.
• The customer answers for being entitled to have the listing it named watched.
• Use guest messages and the contact details in them only to handle that message, never for marketing, and comply with the law that applies to them.
• Report defects and outages without undue delay.

If the customer breaks section 10 or this section, the provider may suspend access until the breach is remedied. Suspension does not extend the licence year and gives no right to a discount or refund.

12. Price and payment

• One location for one licence year: $599.
• Each extra card at the same location: $19 per year.

Prices are in United States dollars and do not include any sales or use tax that may apply.

The price is paid in advance against an invoice sent by e-mail. The customer pays it directly; the provider does not use a payment processor. The invoice is due seven days after it is issued unless it says otherwise. The price is paid the day the payment settles. The customer agrees to receive invoices electronically at its contact e-mail.

If the customer is late, the provider may suspend access; suspension does not extend the licence year. This does not apply to the invoice for the next licence year under section 13, which is an offer and not a debt.

The customer may not set off its own claims against the provider's, withhold payment over a dispute, or assign a claim or the agreement without the provider's written consent.

The provider may change the price list. A change does not touch a licence year already paid; it applies to the offer of the next one.

13. Licence year, renewal and ending

The service is bought for one licence year. The year does not renew itself and nothing is charged automatically when it ends. The provider stores no card details.

Thirty days before the year ends the provider sends a summary of the year and an invoice for the next year. That invoice is an offer. Paying it extends the licence by a year; not paying it ends the agreement when the paid year runs out, and the unpaid invoice is voided and creates no debt. That is how the customer stops the service: by not paying the next invoice, with no other step required.

The customer may stop using the service at any time. That does not shorten the licence year, change the price, or cancel an invoice already issued for the running year.

The provider never shortens a paid year. If it decides to stop providing the service without any breach by the customer, it tells the customer at least thirty days before the year ends, performs in full until then, and does not offer the next year.

The provider may end the agreement with immediate effect if the customer materially breaches it, above all sections 10 or 11, gives a false statement under section 2, is more than thirty days late paying, or becomes insolvent. The price is not refunded in that case. Ending the agreement works forwards only; what was performed before is not returned or settled.

When the agreement ends, the dashboard and the tap screen are closed without undue delay. Guest messages are deleted automatically ninety days after they were sent, so at the latest ninety days after the end the provider holds none of them; on request they are deleted sooner. Invoices are kept for as long as accounting law requires, as described on the privacy page. Other retention periods are on the privacy page. On written request within thirty days of the end, the provider sends the customer its guest messages once in an ordinary machine-readable format. Cards the customer received stay the customer's; after the end they point at no working screen.

14. Refunds

The price paid is not refunded under any circumstances. That includes the customer stopping use, changing its mind, closing, pausing or selling the location, being unhappy with the results, not reaching a hoped-for number of reviews or rating, rejecting a change of these terms under section 21, or the provider ending the agreement for the customer's breach. No pro-rated part is refunded either.

Against that stands the provider's promise in section 13: a paid licence year runs in full. The provider never shortens it or ends it early, and if it stops the service it performs to the end of the paid year first. The only early end is for the customer's own breach. Force majeure under section 23 does not entitle the provider to cut a paid year short. The customer always gets the whole year it paid for, so there is nothing to refund.

15. Cards and other physical things

The card is handed over at the location or sent by post. The customer checks it on receipt and reports visible defects at once, hidden ones within six months of receipt; later claims lapse. The remedies for a defective card are repair, replacement or a discount, at the provider's choice. Wear, damage after receipt, and a card altered by the customer are not defects.

16. Liability and its limits

The provider's liability for breach of the agreement is capped at the amount the customer actually paid for the affected location in the twelve months before the breach. The cap covers all claims under the agreement together.

The provider does not compensate lost profit, lost revenue, lost opportunity, harm to reputation, loss or damage of data, the cost of substitute services, penalties imposed by an authority, or any other indirect or consequential loss.

The provider does not answer for loss arising from the conduct of the customer or its staff, from a breach of sections 10 or 11, from a decision by Google, from an outage or change at a third party under section 9, from force majeure, or from the customer not receiving an e-mail the provider sent.

These limits do not apply to loss caused intentionally or by gross negligence, or to personal injury, where the law does not allow them.

A claim for damages is made in writing within sixty days of the customer learning of the loss and its amount; otherwise it lapses. Both sides agree that claims under this agreement expire one year after they arise.

If a third party, including a guest, an employee or an authority, brings a claim against the provider in connection with how the customer used the service or with the customer's breach, the customer reimburses the provider for everything it paid that party, including reasonable legal costs.

17. Contractual penalty

For each breach of section 10, and for each breach of the bans on reselling, lending, using the service for another location or automated access in section 11, the customer pays the provider a penalty equal to one year of the licence at the price list in force on the day of the breach, which today is $599. Penalties for breaches of the same duty in one licence year do not exceed five times that amount.

The penalty is due fifteen days after the provider asks for it. Paying it does not remove the duty to end the breach, does not affect the provider's right to end the agreement, and does not reduce the provider's right to full damages on top.

18. Personal data

For guest messages the customer is the controller and the provider the processor. The provider processes them only to receive a message from the tap screen, deliver it to the dashboard, alert the customer by e-mail, keep it for the agreed period and delete it. The data is the message text, the guest's optional phone or e-mail, the time, and the card's label. The provider acts only on the customer's documented instructions, which are these terms and the settings in the dashboard.

The customer, as controller, answers for the lawfulness of the processing, for informing guests, and for handling their requests; the provider shows guests the notice about processing on the tap screen on the customer's behalf.

Everyone the provider lets process data is bound to confidentiality. The provider uses encrypted transport, password-protected access, separation so that each customer reaches only its own location's data, and regular backups. The provider uses a hosting provider and an e-mail delivery provider as further processors, named on the privacy page, and announces a change of them by e-mail at least thirty days ahead; the customer may object within that time and end the agreement on the day of the change if the provider insists on it. The provider notifies the customer of a data breach without undue delay after learning of it.

Guest messages are deleted automatically ninety days after they are sent, or sooner on request. Backups expire on the schedule stated on the privacy page and are not restored for any purpose other than restoring service.

The provider processes the data in the European Union. For listing readings and dashboard sign-ins the provider is the controller; the privacy page describes that processing, its retention and the rights of the people concerned.

19. Confidentiality and references

Both sides keep confidential what they learn about the other in connection with the agreement and what is not public, including after the agreement ends, except where the law or an authority requires disclosure.

The provider may name the customer and show its logo in its customer list and sales material. The customer may refuse this at any time in writing, and the provider then removes it without undue delay.

20. Intellectual property

The application, its code, screen designs, texts, the card's artwork and the evidence it assembles belong to the provider or its licensors. The customer gets a non-exclusive, non-transferable licence for the licence year to use them for its own location within the features bought. The licence does not include changing them, copying them beyond ordinary use, or passing them to others.

Guest messages and the customer's own details stay the customer's. The provider may use aggregated, anonymised usage data to improve the service and for statistics; such data identifies neither the customer nor a guest.

21. Changes to these terms

The provider may change these terms within reason, above all because of changes in law, in the rules of the platforms the service stands on, in the technology, or in the scope of the service. A change is announced by e-mail at least thirty days before it takes effect. The customer may reject it within thirty days and end the agreement with one month's notice.

A change never touches a running paid licence year: that year keeps the terms in force on the day it began, whether or not the customer rejected the change. The change applies from the next licence year the customer orders, so the customer need do nothing about it.

22. Agreements accepted expressly

Both sides are businesses. With that in mind, they agree that the customer bears the risk of a change of circumstances; that the United Nations Convention on Contracts for the International Sale of Goods does not apply; that the agreement and these terms are the whole agreement and replace everything said before; and that the provider may transfer the agreement to a party that will provide the service to the same extent, announced by e-mail.

The agreement is changed only in writing; e-mail under section 24 counts as writing.

By confirming at first sign-in, the customer expressly accepts these clauses in particular and declares that it had them available before ordering, read them, and considers them reasonable given the nature and price of the service and its position as a business:

• section 8: features other than the tap screen, message delivery and the daily reading may change or go during the year;
• section 12: no set-off, no withholding, no assignment without consent;
• sections 13 and 14: no refund under any circumstances, against the provider's promise never to shorten a paid year;
• section 15: hidden defects of a card are reported within six months and remedies are repair, replacement or discount;
• section 16: liability capped at twelve months of payments, no indirect loss, claims within sixty days, one-year limitation, and the customer covers third-party claims caused by its conduct;
• section 17: a penalty of one year's price for breaking the review rules or reselling the service, on top of damages;
• section 21: the provider may change the terms for the next licence year;
• section 25: Czech law and Czech courts.

23. Force majeure

Neither side answers for a failure caused by an extraordinary, unforeseeable and insurmountable obstacle outside its control, such as a natural disaster, war, strike, epidemic, power or internet failure, a large outage at the hosting provider, or an act of an authority. The affected duties pause while the obstacle lasts and neither side owes damages for it.

If the obstacle stops the tap screen or the dashboard, the licence year is extended by the whole days it lasted, as in section 7. The provider may not end the agreement for force majeure, and the paid year runs its course. If the obstacle lasts more than sixty days the customer may end the agreement with immediate effect; the price is still not refunded, because the provider remains ready to perform and the year would be extended by the time lost.

24. Notices

Notices go by e-mail: to the provider at the address in section 1, to the customer at the address in the dashboard. A notice counts as delivered the next business day after sending unless the sender receives a bounce. The customer keeps its address working and makes sure the provider's domain is not blocked or filtered away.

Ending the agreement and a demand for a penalty go by e-mail and also by post to the other side's registered address.

25. Governing law and disputes

The agreement and these terms are governed by the law of the Czech Republic, where the provider is based, without its conflict-of-law rules. Both sides first try to settle a dispute by negotiation; if there is no agreement within thirty days, the courts of the Czech Republic decide it, and the court of first instance is the one for the provider's registered office unless the law requires another.

26. Final provisions

If a clause is invalid or unenforceable, the rest stands, and the sides replace it with a valid clause closest in meaning. The customer takes on the risk that the agreement does not bring the benefit it hoped for and confirms that it understands the nature, scope and limits of the service described in sections 5 to 9. Sections 14, 16, 17, 19, 20, 22, 25 and 26 survive the end of the agreement. These terms take effect on the date in the heading and replace all earlier versions.

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