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Terms of Service

SwitchBoard Cloud-Based SaaS Phone System
Effective date: 20 August 2026 - Last updated: 21 August 2026

These Terms of Service ("Terms") are an agreement between STARTcloud, Inc. ("SwitchBoard", "we", "us"), a Delaware corporation with its registered office at 500 Westover Dr #4574, Sanford, NC 27330, and the person or organisation that creates an account or uses the Service ("Customer", "you").

By creating an account, launching an instance, or using SwitchBoard Cloud you accept these Terms. If you are accepting on behalf of an organisation, you confirm you have authority to bind it.

01. What the Service is

SwitchBoard Cloud™ ("the Service") is a cloud-hosted business phone system (PBX). When you sign up we provision a dedicated virtual server ("your Instance") in the cloud region you choose and install the SwitchBoard software on it, together with its own database and its own sign-in service. Your Instance is not shared with other customers.

The Service includes the SwitchBoard web application, the web and desktop softphones, call routing and IVR, voicemail, call recording, call records, and the optional features described in your plan.

The Service is software. It is not a telephone company. Calls and messages reach the public telephone network through a telecommunications provider (see section 6).

02. Accounts

You must be at least 18 years old and provide accurate registration details. You are responsible for:
 

  • keeping your sign-in credentials confidential;

  • everything that happens under your account and on your Instance;

  • the accounts and permissions you grant to your users ("Agents");

  • enabling two-factor authentication where it is available, which we strongly recommend.
     

Tell us promptly at security@switchboard.cloud if you believe an account has been compromised.

03. Free trial

We may offer a free trial (currently 30 days, 5 seats, no payment card required). During a trial:

  • we may apply usage limits, including limits on how many instances can be launched per account and per day, and may queue or decline a launch for review;

  • we may change, suspend, or end the trial, or delete a trial Instance and its data, at any time and without liability;

  • no service level commitment applies.

After your trial ends. If you have not subscribed, we keep your Instance and its data for at least 5 business days, so you still have time to subscribe. We delete them after that, and never later than 30 days after your trial ended.
 

Inactive trials. A trial Instance consumes dedicated infrastructure. If a trial Instance shows no activity — no sign-in, and no calls placed or received — for 2 consecutive business days, we may email the account owner and, if there is still no activity 2 business days after that notice, suspend or delete the Instance and its data before the trial period ends. Where an Instance is terminated for inactivity in this way, the notice above takes the place of the grace period that applies when a trial runs to its end date.

04. Fees, term, renewal and cancellation

​Paid plans are billed in advance at the prices shown at the time of purchase. Fees are exclusive of taxes; you are responsible for any applicable sales tax, VAT or GST.

Your order prevails. The payment page or order you accept states your price, billing interval, minimum term, seat count and any included allowances (for example included storage, support and IVR configurations). Where that order and this section differ on any of those, your order applies.

Your term. Your order or plan selection states which of these applies:

  • Monthly plans run for one month at a time.

  • Annual plans commit you to a minimum term of 12 months, paid in monthly instalments. Paying monthly does not shorten the commitment — you are committing to the full 12 months.

Automatic renewal. At the end of the current term your subscription renews automatically for a further term of the same length: a further month on a monthly plan, a further 12 months on an annual plan.

Cancelling a monthly plan. You may cancel at any time. Cancellation takes effect at the end of the month you have paid for.

Cancelling an annual plan. To stop an annual plan renewing you must cancel at least 45 days
before the anniversary date, unless your order states a different notice period. You may cancel with effect from the end of your committed 12-month term. Cancelling during a committed term does not end your payment obligation: the instalments remaining for that term stay payable, and we will continue to invoice them at your normal billing interval until the term ends. We will stop providing the Service at the end of the term, or earlier if you ask us to. We may agree an early exit, but only in writing.

How to cancel. Email support@switchboard.cloud from your account address, stating that you want to cancel and which plan it concerns.

Your payment method. You confirm that the card or other payment method you give us is valid, and that it will remain valid and funded for the future payment dates shown on your order. If a payment is declined you must give us an alternative valid payment method within a reasonable time, and we may charge a late fee.

Except where the law requires otherwise, fees already paid are not refundable, including for partial periods and unused seats — including where we suspend or stop the Service because a payment failed.

If payment fails we may suspend the Service after reasonable notice, and may delete your Instance and its data if the account remains unpaid for 30 days. We may also refer a delinquent account to a credit reporting agency or a collections agency.

We may change prices for a renewal term with at least 30 days' notice before that term begins.

05. Acceptable use

​You must not, and must not permit anyone to:

  • make unlawful calls or send unlawful messages, including calls or texts that breach telemarketing, robocalling, auto-dialling or do-not-call rules (for example the US TCPA, CAN-SPAM, or equivalent laws where you or the called party are located);

  • send spam, or send messages to recipients who have not consented where consent is required;

  • record, monitor or intercept a call unlawfully (see section 8);

  • misrepresent the originating number ("spoofing") or the identity of the caller, other than lawfully displaying a number you are authorised to use;

  • resell, sublicense or provide the Service to third parties as a service of your own, unless we have agreed in writing;

  • attempt to gain unauthorised access to the Service or to another customer's Instance, or run penetration tests, vulnerability scans or load tests against our systems without our prior written consent;

  • upload malware, or use the Service to store or distribute unlawful content;

  • use the Service in a way that damages the Service, the network, or another customer;

  • exceed or circumvent usage limits, or automate account creation.

We may suspend the Service immediately, without prior notice, where we reasonably believe there is unlawful use, fraud, a security threat, a risk to the network, or a risk of significant cost or liability to us. We will tell you why as soon as we reasonably can.

06. Telephony, carriers and charges

Voice and messaging connectivity is provided by a third-party telecommunications provider (currently Twilio).

Where you connect your own carrier account (the usual arrangement): the contract for those telecommunications services is between you and that provider. You are responsible for their charges, their terms, the numbers on that account, and the configuration of that account. We are not a party to it and are not responsible for their service, outages or billing.

Where we provide telephony as part of your plan or trial: the applicable allowances and charges are those stated in your plan, and fair-use limits may apply.

You are responsible for all charges arising from traffic on your Instance, including charges caused by fraud, toll fraud, compromised credentials or misconfiguration on your side. We recommend strong SIP credentials, restricting international destinations you do not need, and reviewing call records regularly.

07. Emergency calls — important limitations

Read this section carefully. Internet-based phone service does not work like a traditional phone line in an emergency.

  • Emergency calling (911, 112, 999 or the local equivalent) depends on your telecommunications provider, your number, and the emergency address registered with that provider. We do not independently provide emergency call routing.

  • Emergency calls may not work at all if: your internet connection or power is down; your Instance is unreachable; your carrier account is unfunded, suspended or misconfigured; or no valid emergency address is registered for the number you are calling from.

  • Emergency services may receive the address registered for the number, not the place you are actually calling from. If your people work remotely, travel, or use the softphone from different locations, the address delivered may be wrong. It is your responsibility to keep registered addresses accurate with your provider and to tell your users about this.

  • Callback may not be possible: an emergency operator may not be able to call you back on the number displayed.

You must maintain an alternative means of calling emergency services (for example mobile phones) and inform every user of the Service of the limitations in this section. You accept these limitations on behalf of all your users, and you agree to indemnify us in relation to any claim arising from an emergency call made, or not completed, through the Service, to the extent permitted by law.

08. Call recording, monitoring and consent

The Service can record calls, store voicemail, transcribe audio, and generate summaries and sentiment analysis. You decide whether to switch these features on and who they apply to.

Recording and monitoring laws differ by country and by state, and many require the consent of every party to the call. You are solely responsible for:

  • determining what notice or consent is required where you and the other parties are located;

  • obtaining that consent and giving any required announcement or notice;

  • configuring the Service accordingly, and telling your users what is recorded and retained;

  • handling recordings, transcripts and voicemail lawfully once created.

We do not provide legal advice on recording, and switching a recording feature on is not our confirmation that doing so is lawful in your circumstances.

09. Your data

You own your data. "Customer Data" means everything you and your users put into, or generate on, your Instance — accounts and extensions, contacts, call records, recordings, voicemail, transcripts, summaries, messages, and configuration.

You grant us the limited right to host, process, transmit, back up and display Customer Data as needed to provide and support the Service, and as instructed by you through the Service's settings. We do not sell Customer Data, and we do not use the content of your calls, recordings or transcripts to train machine-learning models.

You are responsible for having a lawful basis to process the personal data you put into the Service, and for the rights of the people it concerns. Where we process personal data on your behalf we act as your processor; our Privacy Policy explains how, and if you need a data processing agreement, ask us at support@switchboard.cloud and we will put one in place.

​Optional features that send data to third parties. Transcription, summarisation, sentiment analysis and contact synchronisation send Customer Data to the provider you select (for example a speech-to-text or AI provider, or a CRM). These features are off unless you enable them, and where you supply your own provider credentials, your use of that provider is governed by your agreement with them. The current list of providers we can send data to is in the Privacy Policy.

10. Availability, maintenance and support

We aim to keep the Service available and will give reasonable notice of planned maintenance where practical. Emergency maintenance may happen without notice.

The Service is provided without a specific uptime commitment, and no service credits apply.

Support is provided via support@switchboard.cloud, 9:00-17:00 US Central Time, Monday to Friday.

Your Instance runs on infrastructure operated by a cloud provider (currently Amazon Web Services) in the region you choose. Outages or failures at that provider may affect the Service.

11. Suspension and termination

You may cancel as described in section 4. Monthly plans may be cancelled at any time, effective at the end of the month you have paid for. Annual plans run for a committed 12-month term: cancelling during a term does not end your obligation to pay the instalments remaining for it.

We may suspend or terminate the Service if you materially breach these Terms and do not fix the breach within 10 days of notice, immediately in the circumstances in section 5, or if you become insolvent.

On termination: your right to use the Service ends and we may delete your Instance. Export anything you need before termination. Where practical we will keep your data for 30 days after termination so you can request an export, then delete it. We may keep data longer where the law requires. We also keep a short-lived copy of your Instance, taken before releases and significant changes so that a faulty change can be reversed. A copy holds the data present when it was taken, so data you have deleted may remain in a copy until we remove it, normally within a month.

12. Intellectual property

We (and our licensors) own the Service, the SwitchBoard software, and all associated intellectual property, including the "SwitchBoard", "SwitchBoard Cloud" and "STARTcloud" names and logos. These Terms grant you a non-exclusive, non-transferable right to use the Service during your subscription, and nothing more.

You must not copy, decompile or reverse-engineer the Service except to the extent that law expressly permits, and must not remove proprietary notices.

​If you send us feedback or suggestions, we may use them without obligation or payment to you. Third-party open-source components remain subject to their own licences.

13. Confidentiality

Each party will protect the other's non-public information disclosed in connection with the Service, use it only for the purpose of the agreement, and not disclose it except to people who need it and are under similar obligations. This does not apply to information that is public, independently developed, or required to be disclosed by law — in which case the disclosing party will be given notice where legally possible.

14. Disclaimers

Except as expressly stated in these Terms and to the fullest extent permitted by law, the Service is provided "as is" and "as available", and we disclaim all other warranties, express or implied, including merchantability, fitness for a particular purpose, and non-infringement.

We do not warrant that the Service will be uninterrupted or error-free, that every call or message will connect or be of a particular quality, that transcription, summarisation or sentiment output will be accurate, or that the Service will detect or prevent every fraudulent or unlawful use.

Automated output is not advice. Transcripts, summaries and sentiment scores are generated by software and may be wrong or incomplete. Do not rely on them where accuracy matters without checking the underlying recording.

15. Limitation of liability

To the fullest extent permitted by law:

  • neither party is liable for indirect, incidental, special, consequential or punitive damages, or for lost profits, lost revenue, lost business or lost or corrupted data, even if advised of the possibility;

  • our total liability arising out of or relating to the Service in any 12-month period will not exceed the fees you paid us for the Service in the 12 months before the event giving rise to the claim. Where no fees have been paid (for example during a free trial), our total liability will not exceed USD 100.

Nothing in these Terms limits liability that cannot be limited by law, including for death or personal injury caused by negligence, or for fraud.

16. Indemnity

You will defend and indemnify us against claims, losses and reasonable costs arising from: your or your users' use of the Service; the content of your calls, messages, recordings or Customer Data; your breach of section 5 (acceptable use), section 7 (emergency calls) or section 8 (recording and consent); or your infringement of a third party's rights.

17. Changes

We may change these Terms. For material changes we will give at least 30 days' notice by email to your account address or by notice in the Service, and the change takes effect at the start of your next renewal term, or on the stated date for free-trial users. Continuing to use the Service after a change takes effect means you accept it.

We may also change or discontinue features. We will not materially reduce the core functionality of a paid plan during a term without offering you a pro-rata refund of the unused portion.

18. GENERAL

  • Governing law and venue. These Terms are governed by the laws of the State of Illinois, excluding its conflict-of-laws rules and the UN Convention on Contracts for the International Sale of Goods. The state and federal courts located in Illinois have exclusive jurisdiction, and each party consents to that venue.

  • Assignment. You may not assign these Terms without our written consent. We may assign them to an affiliate or in connection with a merger or sale of assets.

  • Force majeure. Neither party is liable for delay or failure caused by events beyond its reasonable control, excluding payment obligations.

  • Severability and waiver. If a provision is unenforceable, the rest stands. Not enforcing a right is not a waiver of it.

  • Entire agreement. These Terms, together with any order form and the Privacy Policy, are the entire agreement and supersede prior discussions. Your purchase-order terms do not apply.

  • Notices. To you: by email to your account address. To us: support@switchboard.cloud, with a copy to 500 Westover Dr #4574, Sanford, NC 27330.

  • Relationship. The parties are independent contractors; nothing creates a partnership, agency or employment relationship.

19. Contact us

STARTcloud, Inc.

500 Westover Dr #4574
Sanford, NC 27330

General: support@switchboard.cloud
Legal: support@switchboard.cloud
Privacy: support@switchboard.cloud

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