Services Agreement

This agreement applies whenever a buyer and a creator agree a contract on Unmetered. The buyer and the creator are the parties to the work; Unmetered is the marketplace that holds milestone payments, keeps the record, and decides disputes. Creators are independent contractors, never employees of the buyer or of Unmetered.

An offer becomes a contract when the other side accepts it on the contract page. The scope, milestones and amounts shown there are the agreement. Changes are made by countering before acceptance or by adding milestones afterwards, never by side arrangements.

Every milestone is funded by the buyer before the work on it starts. Unmetered holds the milestone amount, plus the buyer's service fee, and releases the creator's share when the buyer approves the delivery. The creator's share is the milestone amount less the marketplace commission published on the fees page; the same commission and founding promo as tool sales apply.

A creator delivers by submitting the milestone on the contract page with a note and any files. From that moment the buyer has 14 days to approve, request changes, or open a dispute. If the buyer does none of those, the milestone is released to the creator automatically, and Unmetered sends reminders before that happens.

Requesting changes restarts the 14-day window when the creator re-delivers. Change requests must stay inside the agreed scope; new work belongs in a new milestone.

Held funds are not interest-bearing and are not a deposit account. Unmetered holds them only to complete the contract as agreed, and never for longer than the contract needs plus the windows described here.

A buyer may post a request describing work they want done. Requests are shown only to creators in good standing on Unmetered, stay open for thirty days unless the buyer closes them or hires, and may be removed by Unmetered when they break these terms.

Creators propose for free: there is no fee to read requests or to send a proposal, and no way to pay for placement. A proposal is an invitation to talk, not a contract. Work begins only when the buyer sends an offer and a contract is accepted under the sections above, and the same fees, payment holds and dispute process apply.

Requests, proposals and the conversations around them stay on Unmetered and are covered by the off-platform rule: contact and payment details stay out until a contract starts. The one exception is a creator's own booking page, shared through the Propose a call button so the two sides can scope the work by video; the contract and every payment still go through Unmetered.

A buyer may ask to cancel a funded milestone that has not been delivered. The creator has 7 days to accept, in which case the buyer is refunded in full, or to open a dispute if work has already been done. No response within 7 days refunds the buyer automatically.

A creator may return a milestone's funds to the buyer at any time before it is released. If a creator has gone silent for 7 days past a milestone's due date (or 7 days after funding when there is no due date), the buyer may open a dispute.

When a funded milestone sees no activity for 90 days, both sides are notified. If it stays quiet for 14 more days, Unmetered decides where the funds go based on the record, so that no balance is held indefinitely.

A contract with nothing funded can be cancelled by either side without consequence. A contract with released milestones and nothing held is ended by either side, or automatically after 30 days of inactivity.

Work product created for the buyer under a milestone transfers to the buyer when that milestone is paid to the creator. Until then the creator owns it. Work product means the deliverables described in the scope and made specifically for the buyer.

The creator keeps everything that existed before the contract or that is not specific to the buyer: their tools sold on the marketplace, libraries, templates, know-how and methods. Where a deliverable includes such pre-existing material, the buyer receives a license to use it as part of the deliverable under the same terms as a marketplace purchase (single-organization, no resale).

Each side promises that what they contribute does not infringe anyone else's rights, contains no malware or secrets, and complies with the licenses of any third-party code it includes.

Messages, deliveries and payments for a contract stay on Unmetered for 24 months from the first contact between the buyer and the creator on the marketplace. Taking a working relationship that started here off the platform during that time is a breach; the published buyout lets either side end the exclusivity early.

Messages are monitored for policy, by rules and by review, so that both sides stay covered: contact details are held back until a contract starts, and attempts to move payment off the platform are flagged. Unmetered staff open a thread only when it is flagged or reported, or when a dispute needs it.

Contract details, deliveries and the decision record are retained as long as the contract, tax and dispute rules require.

Either side may open a dispute on a funded milestone from the contract page. Both sides then add their account and evidence. Unmetered reads the scope, the messages, the delivery record and the evidence, and decides within 7 days: refund to the buyer, release to the creator, a split, or reopening the milestone.

For contracts up to $5,000 in total value, Unmetered's decision is final and both sides accept it by agreeing to these terms. Above that amount the decision stands unless a party begins formal proceedings within 30 days; the venue and governing law will be stated with the operating entity before public launch.

Disputing a card charge with the bank instead of using this process freezes the milestone and triggers the evidence process, with the contract record submitted to the card networks.

The buyer pays the service fee shown at funding. The creator pays the commission shown in their studio; both are published on the fees page and fixed for a milestone when it is funded. Creators are responsible for their own taxes; payouts go through the same Stripe account and tax reporting as tool sales.

A buyer's first contract is limited to the per-milestone cap shown on the offer form until one contract completes cleanly. Unmetered may pause or end a contract, or an account, for breach of these terms or of the marketplace Terms of Service.

Unmetered is not a party to the work and does not guarantee its quality; the process above is the remedy. Nothing here limits liability that cannot be limited by law.