The deal, in plain English.

Who you are dealing with

Cobalt Automation Services, run by Leon Smith. The website is cobaltautomationservices.com and the address for anything to do with these terms is [email protected]. Where these terms say we, that is us. Where they say you, that is the business named on the invoice.

These terms apply from the day your account is set up. Nothing in them replaces anything we have agreed with you in writing; if the two disagree, what we wrote to you wins.

What you are buying

A running service, not a piece of software you install. We build your account, connect it to your number and your website, load it with your prices and your rules, and then it works every day without you doing anything to it. There are two levels.

Cobalt Core A customer record system with the answering built into it. Every enquiry in one place whichever way it arrived, calls answered in your business's name, missed calls texted back, appointments booked, confirmations and reminders sent, seven days of automatic follow-up, and a pipeline showing what each job is waiting on. 100 receptionist minutes a month.	£297 / month
Cobalt + Sitebooks Everything in Core, plus the paperwork: quotation drafts from a voice note and photographs, your margin kept private, then invoices, receipts and job records. 200 receptionist minutes a month.	£497 / month

Standard setup is included in both. If you want something built that is outside the standard setup, we will quote it separately and you will have it in writing before we start.

What it costs, and what is metered

• All prices exclude VAT. VAT is charged where applicable.
• The monthly fee is payable monthly in advance. The first payment is due before the service goes live.
• The included 100 or 200 minutes are AI receptionist minutes. They reset each month and do not roll over.
• Additional receptionist minutes, telephone-network usage and text messages are metered separately on every plan. The rates are in the next section.
• If a payment fails we will tell you and try again. If it stays unpaid the service can be suspended until it is settled. Suspension does not end the agreement and does not stop the monthly fee.
• If we change the price, you get at least thirty days' notice in writing. If you do not want to pay the new price you can leave at the end of that thirty days, and the notice period below does not apply.

What the metered charges are

The monthly fee covers the system and your included receptionist minutes. Anything that costs money to send or to carry is charged on top of it, at our cost plus twenty per cent. These are the rates in force today. They move only with thirty days' written notice, the same as any other price on this page.

Receptionist minutes over your allowance Per minute of answered call, rounded to the nearest minute.	10p / minute
Calls coming in to your number The network cost of carrying the call itself.	3p / minute
Calls going out from your number Call-backs, transfers and any outbound dialling.	2p / minute
Text messages Per segment. A long message counts as more than one.	6p / segment
Each telephone number we provide A number you already own and move across to us costs nothing.	£1.50 / month

All of the above exclude VAT, and are billed monthly in arrears and itemised, alongside the following month's fee.

How long you are tied in for

Three months minimum, then monthly. The three months is there because the first month is the one where we are still tuning it to your business, and judging the service on that month alone would not be fair to either of us.

After the minimum term it runs month to month until somebody stops it. To stop it, give us one month's notice in writing, by email, at any time. The last month is charged as normal and the service runs to the end of it.

We can end it on the same terms: one month's notice, in writing. We would also end it immediately, without the notice, if the service were being used for something unlawful, or to contact people who have asked not to be contacted.

Paying for a year up front

You can pay for twelve months in advance and get the twelfth month free. Cobalt Core is £3,267 for the year instead of £3,564. Cobalt + Sitebooks is £5,467 instead of £5,964.

The year is paid for, and it is not refundable. If you stop using the service part way through, the rest of the year is not returned. The discount exists because the year is paid, and we would rather say that here than surprise you with it later. If that is not a risk you want to take, pay monthly. It costs one month more across the year and you can leave on a month's notice.

Your price and these terms are fixed for the year. A price rise, or a change to this page, does not reach you until your renewal. The thirty days' notice above applies to that renewal rather than to the year you have already bought.

It renews automatically, and we email you a month before. Twelve months after you start, the year renews at the price then in force and the card on file is charged. You will get an email one month ahead telling you the date and the amount. If you would rather not renew, reply to that email before the date and we will stop it.

The one exception to the refund rule. If the service repeatedly fails to do its job, the cause is ours, you have told us in writing, and we have not put it right in a reasonable time, we will refund the whole months you have not used. That covers our system. It does not cover the telephone network, the messaging services or the hosting platform going down, which is dealt with below.

What happens when you leave

This is the part worth reading twice, because it is deliberate and it is not reversible.

Your account is not archived when you leave. It is deleted, and everything in it goes with it: contacts, conversations, call recordings and transcripts, pipelines, quotations, invoices, receipts, job records, reporting. The slot is then given to another business.

It is your responsibility to take out anything you want to keep, before your last day. Ask us and we will help you export it while the account is still open. Once it is gone we cannot get it back, and we will not be able to answer questions about what was in it.

If a law requires us to hold on to something for longer, we hold that one thing for as long as the law says and nothing else. Anything we are required to keep is covered in the privacy notice.

Your telephone number stays yours. If the number was ported to us, tell us before your last day and we will port it back out.

What we need from you

• Accurate answers during setup. The receptionist only knows what you tell it. Your prices, your hours, the areas you cover and the jobs you will not take on all have to come from you, because there is nowhere else for it to get them.
• Telling us when something changes. If your prices go up and we are not told, it will quote the old ones.
• The right to use what you give us. Your logo, your photographs, your documents: by handing them over you confirm you are allowed to.
• That the people you upload into the system are people you are allowed to contact.

You keep ownership of everything you give us and everything the system produces for you. We keep ownership of the system itself, including Sitebooks, and of anything we build to make it work. Using it does not transfer it.

What the service will and will not do

It is an assistant, not a member of staff with judgement. It answers from an approved knowledge base and says so when it does not know. It takes details, books appointments and hands over to a person when it should.

Quotation drafts are drafts. Nothing goes to your customer until you have read it and sent it. We do not check your figures, your measurements or your margins, and a quotation the system produced is your quotation once you send it.

The service depends on other people's networks and platforms: the telephone network, the messaging services, the hosting platform. We keep it running and we fix what breaks, but we cannot promise that nothing outside our control will ever go down, and we do not accept liability for lost business when it does. What we will do is tell you, and fix it.

Nothing here limits any liability that cannot lawfully be limited.

Your data

What we collect, why, where it goes and how to get it back is set out in the privacy notice, which forms part of these terms. The short version: we process your customers' details so that the service can do its job, on your instructions, and for nothing else.

Changes to these terms

If we change them, we will tell you in writing and the changed version takes effect thirty days later. If you do not accept a change you can leave at the end of those thirty days without the notice period. The date at the bottom is the date this version took effect.

Getting hold of us

Email [email protected] for anything on this page, including notice to leave. If something has gone wrong, say so plainly and we will deal with it rather than route you somewhere.

These terms are written in plain English on purpose. They are an honest description of the arrangement. In force from 20 September 2026.