Terms of Service

1. The short version

RankSmith is operated by Tapnet Solutions (Pty) Ltd. We deliver the work we scope, in the time we quote, for the price we agree in South African Rand. You pay on the schedule in the statement of work. We both act in good faith. If anything goes wrong we talk first and escalate second.

2. Parties

These terms apply between Tapnet Solutions (Pty) Ltd, trading as RankSmith ("RankSmith", "we", "us"), and any individual or company that submits a brief, enters into a statement of work, or uses any RankSmith service ("you", "the client").

3. Scope of work

Every engagement is governed by a signed statement of work ("SOW") that lists the deliverables, the timeline, the price in South African Rand, the payment schedule, and the named RankSmith lead. This website and these terms do not replace the SOW, they sit underneath it. If there is a conflict between the SOW and these terms, the SOW takes precedence for the items it covers.

4. Pricing and payment

• All pricing is in South African Rand (ZAR) and is exclusive of VAT unless stated otherwise.
• Website builds are invoiced 50 percent on signature and 50 percent on launch, unless a different schedule is agreed in the SOW.
• Monthly care retainers are billed monthly in advance, with the first month invoiced alongside the launch milestone.
• Add on services (blog posts, audits, landing pages) are invoiced once off in advance.
• Invoices are due inside 14 days of issue. Late payment incurs interest at the prime lending rate plus 2 percent per month.
• Extra development hours outside the monthly allowance are billed at R575 per hour and logged in a shared tracker.

5. What the monthly care retainer includes

• Application hosting on Vercel with uptime monitoring
• Monthly security and dependency updates
• Core Web Vitals monitoring and monthly reports
• Backups and disaster recovery
• A fixed pool of development and content update hours each month
• Response to urgent issues inside one working day

The retainer has a three month minimum commitment. After the minimum, either party can cancel with one month written notice. On cancellation RankSmith hands over the full codebase, deployment credentials, and any hosted assets you own.

6. Client responsibilities

• Provide content, brand assets, and access to existing systems inside agreed timelines
• Respond to approval requests within 5 working days to avoid schedule slip
• Pay invoices inside the terms
• Act in good faith and treat the RankSmith team with respect

7. Ownership

On final payment for a build, you own the resulting codebase, the content, and the creative assets RankSmith produces for you. RankSmith retains ownership of its internal tooling, code libraries, and design system foundations. RankSmith retains the right to describe the engagement in public case studies only with your written consent.

8. Confidentiality

Both parties treat confidential information shared during an engagement as confidential and will not share it outside of the engagement without written permission. This obligation survives termination of the engagement for a period of three years.

9. Third party services

RankSmith uses a small set of third party operators to deliver its services. The full list, their locations, and the contractual protections in place are published on our Operator Agreements page. By engaging RankSmith you consent to the processing of personal information by those operators for the purposes described.

10. Warranties and limitation of liability

RankSmith warrants that the work will be delivered with reasonable skill and care in line with industry standards. RankSmith does not warrant any specific search engine ranking, traffic level, or commercial outcome, because those depend on factors outside our control, including search engine algorithms and client side business decisions.

To the maximum extent permitted by South African law, RankSmith's total liability under any engagement is limited to the total fees paid under that engagement in the twelve months preceding the event that gave rise to the claim. RankSmith is not liable for indirect, incidental, or consequential losses including lost profits or lost data.

11. Termination

Either party can terminate an engagement for material breach if the breach is not cured inside 14 days of written notice. On termination you pay for all work delivered up to the termination date and RankSmith hands over the work in progress in the state it is in.

12. Privacy and POPIA

The handling of personal information is governed by our Privacy Policy. Tapnet Solutions (Pty) Ltd is the responsible party under POPIA for all personal information processed in the course of delivering RankSmith services.

13. Governing law

These terms are governed by the laws of the Republic of South Africa. Any dispute is subject to the non exclusive jurisdiction of the South African courts.

14. Contact

• Legal entity: Tapnet Solutions (Pty) Ltd
• Phone: 079 174 8357
• Email: wynand@tapnet.co.za
• Registered office: 594 Bombani Street, Elarduspark, Pretoria, 0181, South Africa