Terms & compliance

Approved Commerce is a done-for-you web development and infrastructure service for merchants in high-risk and regulated categories. We design and build online stores, and we help our clients obtain and connect third-party services such as payment processing, hosting, domains, and business email.

We are not a bank, a payment processor, an acquirer, a payment facilitator, or a money services business. We never take custody of your customers' funds. Money moves between your customers, your processor, and your bank, and we are not a party to it.

Every engagement is quoted in writing before work begins, with a fixed scope and a fixed price. That written quote, together with these terms, is the agreement between us. Anything outside the agreed scope is quoted separately before it is built.

On completion we hand over the site and every account we set up on your behalf. All accounts are opened in your name and remain your property. Where we hold access in order to maintain something for you, we hold it as your service provider, never as the owner, and we surrender it on request.

You are solely responsible for the products you sell and everything you say about them. Specifically, you are responsible for:

• Confirming that your products are legal to sell and ship in every market you serve.
• Holding any licence, registration, or permit your category requires.
• The accuracy of your product descriptions, labelling, and any claim about what a product does.
• Your compliance with the rules of your payment processor, acquirer, and card networks.
• Fulfilment, shipping, refunds, chargebacks, and customer service.
• The accuracy of the information you give us during onboarding and underwriting.

We will build the compliance scaffolding a category normally needs, such as age verification, required disclaimers, and research-use-only notices where they apply. Putting that scaffolding in place does not transfer responsibility for your products or claims to us.

We only take on products that are legal to sell in the markets our client ships to. We decline categories that are unlawful where they would be sold, regardless of what a platform's policy says.

We will not write or publish false or unsubstantiated health, medical, or earnings claims, and we will not present a research-use product as fit for human consumption. This is not squeamishness. Unsupported claims are one of the most common reasons a merchant account is closed, so refusing them protects your processing.

If you instruct us to publish something we believe crosses that line, we will tell you, and we may decline to publish it or end the engagement under section 08.

This is the most important section on this page.

Payment processors, acquiring banks, gateways, hosts, and registrars are independent third parties with their own underwriting standards. We introduce you, prepare your application properly, and advocate for you. We cannot guarantee that any of them will approve you, how long a decision will take, what rates or reserve they will set, or that an approval already granted will continue.

A third party may suspend, freeze, hold funds, impose a reserve, or terminate an account at its own discretion, often without notice and without explaining why. That is a defining feature of high-risk commerce and the reason we recommend a backup processor. Where such an action is taken by a third party, it is not a failure of our service and does not entitle you to a refund of work already performed, though we will help you respond and, where you have ongoing care with us, move you to a backup.

Build work is invoiced in milestones set out in your quote, typically a deposit before work starts and the balance on completion. Ongoing care plans are billed monthly in advance and can be cancelled with 30 days' notice.

Third-party costs such as hosting, domains, and processor fees are either included in your plan where your quote says so, or billed to you directly by that provider. We tell you which before you commit.

Deposits are non-refundable once work has started, because the work is scheduled and performed against them.

We provide our services with reasonable skill and care. To the fullest extent permitted by law, we are not liable for lost profits, lost revenue, lost data, or business interruption, including losses arising from a third party suspending, freezing, or terminating your account.

Our total liability for any claim is limited to the fees you have paid us for the engagement giving rise to it.

You agree to indemnify us against claims brought by third parties, including regulators and customers, that arise from your products, your claims, or your failure to hold a required licence.

Either of us may end an ongoing care plan with 30 days' written notice. We may end an engagement immediately if you ask us to build or publish something unlawful, if you make claims we have told you we cannot support, or if the information you gave us during onboarding turns out to be materially false.

However an engagement ends, you keep the site and the accounts, and we hand over any credentials we still hold.

When you submit an application we collect what you put in the form, which is your contact details and information about your business. We use it to assess and respond to your enquiry and, if you become a client, to deliver the work. We do not sell it and we do not share it with anyone beyond the providers we need to involve to do the job you hired us for.

We keep enquiry data only as long as it is useful and delete it on request. Write to the address in section 10 to ask what we hold or to have it removed.

Questions about these terms go to hello@approvedcommerce.com.

The governing law and venue for any dispute are set out in your signed engagement agreement, which takes precedence over this page if the two ever conflict.

Not legal advice. This page describes how we work. It is not legal advice and it is not a substitute for it. Your labelling, licensing, and regulatory obligations depend on your products and your markets, and you should confirm them with a qualified attorney in your jurisdiction. We build to whatever your attorney confirms.