Terms and Conditions

1. About these Terms

StayBind is a software platform operated by Stay Bind Technologies Private Limited, a company incorporated in India (CIN U62090TS2024PTC188422) with its registered office at AA Heights, Survey No. 93, Plot Nos. 25, 26 and 27, Indira Nagar, Gachibowli, Hyderabad, Telangana 500032, India ("Company", "we", "us", or "our"). These Terms form a binding agreement between the Company and the person or business that registers for or uses the service ("Operator", "you", or "your"). They are an electronic record under the Information Technology Act, 2000 and need no physical or digital signature.

The service is built for businesses that run homestays, villas, guest houses, serviced apartments, boutique hotels and other short-stay accommodation in India. It is a business tool and is not offered to consumers for personal use. If you do not agree with these Terms, do not use the service.

These Terms work together with our Privacy Policy, our Refund and Cancellation Policy, our Shipping and Delivery Policy and the prices on our pricing page. Where one of those says something more specific about its subject, it applies.

2. Definitions

• "Platform" or "Service" means the StayBind web and mobile applications, storefronts, APIs, integrations and related services we provide.
• "Operator" means the business or individual that holds a StayBind workspace and uses the Platform to run one or more properties, together with the team members it invites.
• "Guest" means a person who enquires about, books or stays at a property run by an Operator.
• "Traveller account" means an account a Guest creates on the Platform, for example on a storefront, to see their trips and saved stays.
• "Storefront" means a booking website the Platform publishes for an Operator, on a StayBind address or on the Operator's own domain.
• "Subscription" means the paid plan, made up of a charge for each switched-on property and any add-ons, under which you use the Platform.
• "Payment Provider" means a regulated payment aggregator or gateway the Platform works with, currently Razorpay Software Private Limited ("Razorpay").
• "Payment Account" means an account in your own name with a Payment Provider, into which Guests pay you.
• "Guest Payment" means money a Guest pays an Operator for a booking, a deposit, a stay or anything sold with it.
• "Channel" means an online travel agency or other third-party sales channel connected to the Platform.

3. Eligibility and your account

You must be at least 18 years old and able to contract under the Indian Contract Act, 1872. If you register for a business, you confirm that you are authorised to bind it. The information you give us, including your business name, contact details, tax details and property details, must be true, complete and kept up to date.

You are responsible for your login credentials and for everything done in your workspace, including by team members you invite and the roles you give them. Tell us at contact@staybind.com as soon as you suspect unauthorised use. We may ask you to verify your identity or your business before enabling features that move money or publish to the public.

4. The service

The Platform provides operational software for accommodation businesses. Depending on your plan it can include a property and booking system, calendars and rates, synchronisation with Channels, storefronts, guest messaging, guest identity verification and Form C preparation, housekeeping and maintenance tasks, payment collection through your own Payment Account, invoicing, reports, and an optional AI assistant. Features change over time as we improve the product.

We provide software. We do not own, rent out, manage or control any property; we are not a travel agent and not a party to any contract between you and a Guest; and we do not set your prices or policies. Every stay offered through the Platform is offered and supplied by the Operator.

5. Subscription, trial and billing

Prices

Subscriptions are charged per switched-on property per month, by the number of rooms in the property, plus any add-ons you choose. The current prices are on our pricing page. Prices exclude GST, which we add at the applicable rate and show on every invoice. We will give you at least 30 days' notice by email before a price increase applies to your existing Subscription.

Free trial

A new workspace starts with a free trial (currently 14 days). No card or mandate is needed to start it, and nothing is charged during it. Each person may use one free trial; we may extend a trial once while a Channel connection is being completed. When a trial ends without a paid plan, the workspace stays visible but becomes read-only: you can see your data, and bookings from connected Channels keep arriving, but you cannot make changes until you choose a plan.

Paying for a plan

• When you choose a plan, you approve a recurring payment (a UPI AutoPay or card mandate) with Razorpay, and the first month is charged at that moment. If you subscribe during a trial, the paid month starts when the trial ends, so you keep the trial days you have left.
• Your Subscription renews automatically each month and is charged through the mandate until you cancel. By approving the mandate you authorise those monthly charges for the plan you approved.
• If more is switched on than your plan covers, we ask you to approve the new amount. If it is not approved within 7 days, changes pause until it is; switching a property off, or anything else that lowers the bill, is always allowed.
• If a renewal payment fails, we retry and tell you. If it is still unpaid 7 days after it was due, the workspace becomes read-only until the amount is paid.
• Every charge comes with a GST invoice from the Company, emailed to the workspace owners and available in your billing settings.

Cancelling

You can cancel at any time from your billing settings. Cancelling stops future charges; the plan you paid for runs to the end of the period. Fees already paid are refundable only as our Refund and Cancellation Policy says, or where the law requires it.

No commission on your bookings

We do not charge you a commission on bookings, whether they come through your storefront, a Channel or your own desk. Channels and Payment Providers charge you their own fees under their own terms.

6. Guest payments and your Payment Account

6.1 To take Guest Payments online, you connect a Payment Account in your own name with a Payment Provider. You may connect an existing Razorpay account or create one during connection, in which case you complete Razorpay's own verification (KYC). Your Payment Account, its fees, its settlement times and its verification are governed by the Payment Provider's terms, which are between you and the Payment Provider. We are not a party to them.

6.2 When you connect, you authorise the Platform to act on your Payment Account on your instructions and on the settings you choose: to create orders and payment links for your bookings, to issue refunds you or your authorised team members approve, and to read payments, refunds, disputes and settlements so that bookings, receipts and reports stay accurate. We never see your bank login, your card details or your Payment Provider password, and we cannot change your bank account or your settlement details.

6.3 Guest Payments are paid into your Payment Account and settled by the Payment Provider to your bank account. You are the merchant of record and the seller of the stay. The Company does not receive, hold, pool or transfer Guest Payments, and is not a payment aggregator or an escrow agent.

6.4 You can disconnect at any time from your Payment Provider's dashboard or from the Platform. Disconnecting stops online payments on your storefront; it does not cancel or refund bookings already paid.

6.5 You consent to the Company sharing with the Payment Provider, and receiving from it, the information, documents and consents needed to open, verify, operate and support your Payment Account. This includes your business details, contact details, website, verification status and transaction records. You confirm you may give this consent for your business and for the people whose details you provide.

6.6 The Payment Provider may pay the Company a fee or commission on payments processed through Payment Accounts connected to the Platform. It does not change the price you pay the Payment Provider, and it does not come out of your Guest Payments.

6.7 As merchant of record you are responsible for: your booking, cancellation, refund and deposit policies; refunding Guests to the original payment method within the time your policy states; tax invoices or receipts to Guests; chargebacks and disputes; and complying with your Payment Provider's terms, including its list of prohibited goods and services. You may also record payments taken outside the Platform, such as cash or bank transfer; those are your records and we do not verify them.

7. Storefronts

If you publish a storefront, it is your shop and you are the seller of every stay on it, under your own name. The Platform runs it and may show "Powered by StayBind". To publish and to take payments on it, you must keep these accurate and current:

• your legal name and, if different, your trading name;
• the address of your principal place of business;
• a phone number and an email address that you answer;
• the name of a person who handles complaints (your grievance contact);
• your GSTIN, if you are registered for GST;
• for every bookable property, a cancellation and refund policy, house rules, and check-in and check-out times;
• prices that include every compulsory charge, with taxes shown before the Guest pays.

The Platform shows these on your storefront's About, Contact, Terms, Privacy, Cancellation and Refunds, and Booking pages, which are generated from what you enter. They are your terms with your Guests. You must not charge a Guest a cancellation fee that you would not bear yourself if you cancelled the booking, you must honour refunds within the time your policy states, and you must acknowledge a Guest's complaint within 48 hours and resolve it within one month.

You must not use a storefront, a listing or a message to mislead Guests: no false scarcity or urgency, no hidden charges added at the end, no pre-ticked consent, no fake or paid reviews, and no claims about a property that are not true.

8. Channels, messaging and other connections

When you connect a Channel, a messaging service or another third party, you authorise us to exchange data with it for you: rates, availability, restrictions, bookings, guest details and messages. Your relationship with each Channel and provider is governed by its own terms, which you must follow. Channels can reject, delay or change what we send; we report what happened but cannot guarantee any Channel's behaviour, and you remain responsible for your listings and prices on it.

Messages you send to Guests through WhatsApp, SMS or email must follow the rules that apply to them, including Meta's WhatsApp Business policies and the TRAI commercial communication rules. Promotional messages need the Guest's consent; booking-related messages are sent because the Guest has a booking with you.

9. Explore listings

You may choose to list a property on Explore, where signed-in travellers browse stays from many Operators. A listing shows your property's public details, your Operator name and a starting price. Explore does not take bookings or payments; it links travellers to you. Listings matching a traveller's search and filters are shown most recently listed first. We do not sell placement. We may remove a listing that is inaccurate, misleading or in breach of these Terms. You can unlist at any time.

10. The AI assistant

The assistant drafts replies, answers questions about your data and can take actions in your workspace. Its output can be wrong. Actions that move money ask for your approval first, and automatic replies to Guests are sent only if you switch them on. You are responsible for what you approve or let it send. To produce answers, the relevant data is sent to the AI model provider we use, which processes it to answer the request.

11. Guest identity and Form C

The Platform can collect Guests' identity documents, check them through providers such as DigiLocker, and prepare Form C for foreign nationals. You decide whether to ask for identity, you remain responsible for any registration, record-keeping or filing the law requires of you (including Form C to the FRRO), and you must use identity data only for those purposes. Raw Aadhaar numbers are never stored; documents are kept privately, every viewing is logged, and images are deleted automatically 365 days after review.

12. Your responsibilities

• Keep property, pricing, availability, tax and business information accurate.
• Hold every licence, registration and permission your property needs, and comply with the laws that apply to your business, including GST, state homestay or tourism rules, police and FRRO reporting, consumer protection and data protection.
• Have a lawful basis to give us Guest data, tell Guests that you use software providers to run your property, and answer their requests about their data.
• Publish your own cancellation and refund policy for Guests and honour it.
• Use Channel, messaging and payment connections in line with the rules of the third party concerned.

13. Acceptable use

You will not, and will not let anyone else: break the law or help anyone else to; offer anything on a storefront that your Payment Provider prohibits; infringe anyone's rights; publish content that is obscene, defamatory, hateful, misleading, or harmful to children; upload malware or try to gain unauthorised access; interfere with or overload the Platform; scrape, copy or resell it; send spam or unlawful messages; or impersonate any person or business. We may remove content or restrict features that breach this section.

14. Your data and how we process it

You own the data you put into the Platform. You give us the rights we need to host, copy, process and display it to provide the service. For personal data about your Guests, you decide why and how it is processed and we process it on your behalf: only on your instructions and to provide the service; with access limited to people who need it and who are bound by confidentiality; with the security measures in our Privacy Policy; using service providers that are bound to protect it; telling you without delay if we become aware of a personal data breach affecting it, and helping you meet your own duties to notify; helping you answer Guests' requests to see, correct or erase their data; and deleting or returning it when you ask or when your account closes, except what the law requires us to keep. Our Privacy Policy explains the rest.

15. Confidentiality

Each of us will keep the other's non-public business information confidential, use it only to perform these Terms, and share it only with people who need it and are bound to keep it confidential. This does not cover information that is public through no fault of the receiver, that the receiver already had, or that the law or a court requires to be disclosed (after notice to the other, where lawful).

16. Intellectual property

The Platform, its software, design, content and trademarks belong to the Company or its licensors. During your Subscription we give you a limited, non-exclusive, non-transferable, revocable right to use it for your own business. If you send us feedback, we may use it without obligation to you.

17. Availability and changes

We work to keep the Platform available and secure but do not promise it will be uninterrupted or error-free. We may carry out maintenance, and we may change, add or remove features; if we remove something material to your paid plan, we will tell you in advance and you may cancel.

18. Disclaimers

Apart from what these Terms expressly say, the Platform is provided "as is" and "as available". To the extent the law allows, we disclaim all other warranties, including merchantability, fitness for a particular purpose and non-infringement. We are not responsible for the acts, omissions or outages of Channels, Payment Providers, messaging services or other third parties, or for the results of your own settings.

19. Limitation of liability

To the extent the law allows, neither party is liable for indirect, incidental, special, consequential or punitive loss, or for loss of profit, revenue, data or goodwill. The Company's total liability arising out of or relating to the service in any twelve months is limited to the Subscription fees you paid the Company in those twelve months. Nothing in these Terms limits liability for fraud, or any liability that cannot be limited by law.

20. Indemnity

You will indemnify the Company and its officers and employees against claims, losses, penalties and reasonable legal costs arising from your properties and stays, your dealings with Guests, Channels and Payment Providers, your content, or your breach of these Terms or of the law.

21. Suspension and termination

You may close your workspace at any time. We may suspend or end your access, with notice where practicable, if you breach these Terms, do not pay, or use the Platform in a way that creates legal, security or payment risk, or if a regulator, court or Payment Provider requires it. Before closure you can ask us for a copy of your data. After closure we delete or anonymise your data under our Privacy Policy, keeping only what the law requires (for example tax and payment records).

22. Changes to these Terms

We may update these Terms. For a material change we will update the "Last updated" date and email the workspace owners at least 15 days before it takes effect, except where a change is required sooner by law. Continuing to use the Platform after a change takes effect means you accept it; if you do not, you may cancel.

23. General

• Force majeure: neither party is liable for delay or failure caused by events beyond its reasonable control, such as natural disasters, epidemics, war, government action, or failures of networks, power or third-party services.
• Assignment: you may not transfer these Terms without our written consent. We may transfer them to a group company or a successor to our business, with notice to you.
• Notices: we send notices to the email address of your workspace owners; you send them to the address in the Grievance and contact section.
• Entire agreement: these Terms and the policies they refer to are the whole agreement about the Platform and replace earlier understandings.
• Severability and waiver: if a provision is unenforceable, the rest still applies; not enforcing a right is not a waiver of it.
• Independent parties: nothing here creates a partnership, agency or employment relationship.

24. Governing law and disputes

These Terms are governed by the laws of India. The parties will first try to resolve a dispute in good faith within 30 days of written notice. If they cannot, it will be finally resolved by arbitration by a sole arbitrator appointed by agreement, under the Arbitration and Conciliation Act, 1996, seated in Hyderabad and conducted in English. Subject to that, the courts at Hyderabad, Telangana have exclusive jurisdiction.

25. Grievance and contact

For a question, complaint or notice about these Terms or the Platform, contact our Grievance Officer:

Grievance Officer

Praneeth Reddy Kuraparthi, Founder and Director

Email

contact@staybind.com

Phone

+91 8977629009

Post

Grievance Officer, Stay Bind Technologies Private Limited, AA Heights, Survey No. 93, Plot Nos. 25, 26 and 27, Indira Nagar, Gachibowli, Hyderabad, Telangana 500032, India

Response times

We acknowledge every grievance within 24 hours, give you a reference and a copy of the complaint as we recorded it, and resolve it within 15 days.