Terms of Service
These terms are the agreement between you and CIERA for using the Ciera Solo app and its services. By creating an account you accept them. CIERA is operated from South Africa; questions go to walbertyn@ciera.co.za.
What CIERA is
CIERA is a business assistant for solo operators. It mirrors your own WhatsApp conversations and the mailboxes you connect to your device, finds what is still open with your customers, watches your calendar, and helps you create and track invoices. It is a tool for running your business; you stay the business.
You stay in control
- Every action that sends a message, charges money, or commits you to something runs through your trust settings: manual, ask-approval, or automated. The default is ask-approval.
- Answer suggestions are information shown to you only. CIERA never messages your customers without your instruction.
- You are responsible for the messages you choose to send and the invoices you choose to issue.
Your WhatsApp number
You may only connect a WhatsApp number you own and are authorised to use. CIERA is an independent product; it is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or sponsored by WhatsApp LLC or Meta Platforms, Inc. Your use of WhatsApp remains governed by WhatsApp's own terms, and you are responsible for complying with them.
Acceptable use
- No spam, bulk unsolicited messaging, or harassment through the service.
- No unlawful, deceptive, or fraudulent business activity.
- No attempts to probe, disrupt, or reverse-engineer the service.
We may suspend or close accounts that break these rules.
Payments and money
Invoices you create are between you and your customer. Payments are processed by third-party payment providers under their own terms; CIERA does not hold your funds and does not store card numbers or bank credentials. You are responsible for the accuracy of your invoices and for your own tax obligations.
Fees, the free period and cancelling
The first stage is free and asks for no card: you connect what you use, see what CIERA finds, and handle one item. If you then choose to keep CIERA running, you add a card through Paystack and start a 14-day free period. Paystack takes a R1 verification charge to put the card on file, which CIERA refunds straight away. The first charge is on day 14, at the plan you chose, and then every month on the same day. Plans are priced per business in South African rand; the current prices and what each plan includes are shown on ciera.co.za and in the app before you add a card, and may change with notice in the app.
A coupon code adds free days before your next charge. Codes have a use limit and an expiry and cannot be exchanged for money.
Each plan includes a monthly amount of reading (messages, voice notes and questions). When a limit is reached, your chats keep arriving, everything you already approved still goes out and invoices and payments keep working; only CIERA's reading pauses until the month ends or you move to a bigger plan.
You can cancel any time in the app under You → Plan. You keep access to the end of the period you paid for; there are no refunds for the rest of a period. After that you have 30 days to view and export your information, and then CIERA deletes what it holds for you, except the tax and payment records the law requires it to keep. If a payment fails, Paystack retries it; if it still fails, access ends at the end of the paid period and the same 30-day window applies.
Your content
Your messages, contacts, business data, and media stay yours. You give CIERA the limited licence needed to operate the service for you — to show your data to you, process it into suggestions, and store what the app needs to function. Handling of personal information is described in the privacy policy.
Service, warranties, liability
CIERA is provided "as is". We work to keep it accurate and available, but we do not guarantee uninterrupted service, and AI-generated suggestions can be wrong — review them before acting. To the maximum extent permitted by law, CIERA's total liability for any claim is limited to the fees you paid in the three months before the claim arose. Nothing in these terms limits rights you have under the Consumer Protection Act or other South African law that cannot be contracted out of.
Ending the agreement
You can stop using CIERA and delete your account at any time in the app (You → Delete account); that erases your data as described in the privacy policy. Cancelling a plan is separate from deleting your account and is described under Fees above. We may end the agreement with reasonable notice, or immediately for a serious breach of these terms.
Changes
If these terms change materially, we will tell you in the app before the change takes effect. Continuing to use CIERA after that means you accept the new terms.
Law
These terms are governed by the law of the Republic of South Africa.
Questions? walbertyn@ciera.co.za