Acceptable Use and Messaging Policy

Recoatly sends email and text messages, publishes websites and takes payments for the businesses that use it, over email and text-messaging services they all share. When one business misuses them, the people receiving the messages are harmed, and email providers and mobile carriers can block messages for every business on Recoatly. These rules protect your customers, the other businesses on Recoatly, and your own ability to reach the people you work for.

Don't use Recoatly, or let anyone use your account, to:

• break the law, or help anyone else break it;
• message people who haven't agreed to hear from you where the law requires consent, or use contact lists that you bought, rented, scraped or got from someone else;
• mislead people — for example, by impersonating another business, sending fake invoices, making false claims about your licenses, insurance or qualifications, or advertising prices you don't intend to honor;
• post fake reviews, pay for or offer incentives in exchange for positive reviews, review your own business, or ask for or display reviews in a way that breaks the law or a review site's rules — including rules against asking only satisfied customers to post public reviews;
• upload or send content that is unlawful, defamatory, harassing, threatening, hateful, sexually explicit or violent, or that infringes anyone's intellectual property, privacy or publicity rights;
• store information Recoatly isn't designed to hold, such as payment card numbers, bank account details, government identification numbers or health information, or take card details anywhere other than Stripe's payment pages;
• track anyone's location without their knowledge or outside their working hours, or record calls without the notice and consent the law requires;
• probe, scan or test the security of Recoatly other than as described on our Security page, get around authentication, permissions or limits, access another business's data, or interfere with the service — for example, with malware or excessive automated requests;
• copy, reverse engineer or decompile Recoatly, except where the law allows it, or use it to build a competing product; or
• resell or sublicense Recoatly, share logins or API keys, or create accounts automatically or to get repeated free trials.

When you email or text your customers through Recoatly — one at a time, through automations or as campaigns — your business is the sender, and you are responsible for following the law. Wherever you are:

• Only message people who gave you their details, and get consent before sending marketing where the law requires it. Keep a record of when and how each person agreed.
• Know which messages are marketing. Messages about work a customer asked for — estimates, appointment confirmations and reminders, invoices and receipts — are generally transactional. Promotions, offers, seasonal reminders, newsletters and win-back campaigns are marketing. If in doubt, treat a message as marketing.
• Say who you are. Every message must clearly identify your business. Emails Recoatly sends for you show your business name, replies go to you, and the footer includes the address and contact details in your company settings, so keep them accurate.
• Make opting out easy, and honor it. Don't remove or hide the unsubscribe link or the STOP instructions Recoatly adds, and never add someone back after they have opted out unless they clearly opt in again.
• Be honest. Use accurate sender names and subject lines, and don't disguise marketing as something else.
• Respect people's time. Don't send marketing texts before 8 a.m. or after 9 p.m. in the recipient's time zone (some US states set narrower hours), and don't send more messages than people expect.

• United States: CAN-SPAM Act. Don't use false or misleading header information or subject lines; identify commercial email as an advertisement unless the recipient opted in; include a valid physical postal address; and provide a clear way to opt out, honoring opt-outs within 10 business days. You remain responsible even though Recoatly sends the email for you.
• Canada: CASL. You need express or implied consent before sending a commercial electronic message. Implied consent from an existing business relationship generally lasts two years from a purchase, or six months from an inquiry. Every message must identify you, include your mailing address and one other way to contact you, and include an unsubscribe mechanism that you honor within 10 business days.
• United Kingdom: PECR and the UK GDPR. You need consent to send marketing emails and texts to individuals, including sole traders, unless the "soft opt-in" applies: you got their details while selling, or negotiating to sell, them something; you are marketing your own similar services; and you gave them a simple way to opt out when you collected their details and in every message.
• Ireland: ePrivacy Regulations and the GDPR. Similar rules apply. You need consent for electronic marketing to individuals, with a limited exception for marketing your own similar products and services to existing customers who were given the chance to opt out.
• Australia: Spam Act 2003. Commercial emails and texts need consent (express or inferred), must identify your business and must include a working unsubscribe facility. You must honor unsubscribe requests within five working days.
• New Zealand: Unsolicited Electronic Messages Act 2007. Commercial electronic messages need consent (express, inferred or deemed), accurate information about who sent them, and a working unsubscribe facility. You must honor unsubscribe requests within five working days.

These summaries are a starting point, not legal advice. If you are unsure, ask a lawyer where you work.

Text messages are more tightly regulated than email, and mobile carriers enforce rules of their own on top of the law.

• Registration. Before Recoatly can send texts for your business, mobile carriers require it to be registered — in the United States, through A2P 10DLC brand and campaign registration or toll-free verification. The information you give for registration must be accurate, including how you collect consent. Text messaging is switched on for your business once the registration is approved.
• United States: TCPA and carrier rules. Get the recipient's prior express consent before texting them, and prior express written consent before sending marketing texts. Tell people what they are signing up for: who is texting, what kind of messages and how often, that message and data rates may apply, and that they can reply STOP to opt out and HELP for help. Honor opt-out requests made in any reasonable way, not only the word STOP, and follow the CTIA Messaging Principles and carrier codes of conduct, which ban some content entirely.
• Canada, the United Kingdom, Ireland, Australia and New Zealand. The rules for marketing email above also apply to marketing texts: you need consent (or the relevant exception), must identify your business, and must offer a free and easy way to opt out.
• Replies to STOP. When someone replies STOP to a text from your business, Recoatly stops texting them from your business. You cannot text that number again unless they opt back in, for example by replying START.

If you make or receive calls through Recoatly, follow the do-not-call rules where you operate, such as the National Do Not Call Registry in the United States, the National Do Not Call List in Canada, the Telephone Preference Service in the United Kingdom and the Do Not Call Register in Australia. If you record calls, or calls are answered by an automated or AI assistant, tell callers at the start of the call and get any consent the law requires: some US states require everyone on a call to agree to it being recorded.

Recoatly includes safeguards that help you follow these rules:

• Your business can message customers only after an owner or administrator has confirmed their email address.
• Automated and marketing emails include an unsubscribe link and a one-click unsubscribe header, and are not sent to people who have unsubscribed from your business.
• Automations and campaigns skip customers you mark as do-not-contact.
• Email is not sent to addresses that bounced or marked an earlier email as spam.
• The first text your business sends to a customer, and every marketing text, tells them to reply STOP to opt out, and nobody who replied STOP is texted again.

These safeguards reduce mistakes, but they cannot tell whether you have consent. That is your responsibility.

We don't routinely monitor the content of your account, but we may review it when we receive a complaint, when a provider or carrier raises a concern, or when automated signals — such as unusually high bounce, spam-complaint or opt-out rates — suggest a problem. If we believe this policy has been broken, we may remove content, pause automations or campaigns, suspend text messaging or email, or suspend or close the account, as described in our Terms of Service. Where we reasonably can, we will contact you first. We may report illegal activity to the authorities and cooperate with carriers and providers that investigate abuse.

To report abuse, such as unwanted messages sent through Recoatly, contact us through the contact page at https://recoatly.com/contact.

We may update this policy as laws and carrier rules change. We will give notice of significant changes as described in our Terms of Service.