Terms of service

1. Who we are

The service is run by Adria Technologies Limited, trading as Linesteward, a company registered in England and Wales, company number 17543235, registered office 66 Paul Street, London, EC2A 4NA ("we", "us").

These terms are between us and the business that signs up ("you"). If you are a homeowner posting a job for trades, section 12 is the part that applies to you.

2. Who the service is for

The service is for businesses, sole traders and organisations, for use in their trade or work. By signing up you confirm that you act for a business and may agree to these terms for it.

One part is also for the public: on Linesteward for Trades (at /trades) homeowners can post a job for free, ask a listed trade for a quote and search the trades listed there. Section 12 sets out the terms for homeowners; nothing in these terms takes away the rights a homeowner has as a consumer.

3. The service

An AI receptionist that answers your business's phone calls. It:

• says it is an AI at the start of every call, and that the call is transcribed, as the EU AI Act (Article 50) asks. You cannot switch this off;
• answers questions from the facts you checked (for example from your website);
• takes messages and texts them to the mobile number you give;
• takes bookings in its own diary, or in a booking system you connect;
• can pass urgent calls to a person, on the number you give, while you are open;
• shows each call, with a summary and transcript, in your dashboard.

You can forward your own number to it, or ask for a new UK local number. A new number is in your business's name, so our phone network provider checks your business details and the details of the person responsible for the number first, and we email you once the number is ready.

Our website and dashboard also have a chat helper that answers questions about the service. It is an AI and can make mistakes; for anything about your bill or your account, email us.

We may add, change or remove features over time. We will not remove a main feature you pay for without telling you first.

4. Before you pay

• You can hear your receptionist in your browser before you pay: a few short test calls, with a small limit on the minutes in total.
• We set up your phone number, and the receptionist answers real calls, only after you choose a plan.
• Plans are paid in advance, monthly or yearly. You can cancel any time.

5. Plans and payment

You pay monthly, or yearly. Each plan includes a number of call minutes each month, with a price for each extra minute:

• Paying yearly. A yearly plan costs 12 times the monthly price, less 20%, paid at the start of the year. Its minutes are still a monthly allowance: they reset each month of the year, and unused minutes do not carry over. On a yearly plan, extra minutes are prepaid minutes only (below): when a month's minutes and your prepaid minutes are used up, calls are not answered by the receptionist until the next month starts or you buy more. A new local number on a yearly plan costs £47.90 a year, paid with the plan.
• Enterprise. You choose your minutes and your receptionist lines (1 to 50, 3 included, each one more £12 a month). The minutes cost 5.4p each for the first 10,000, 5.0p for the next 15,000, 4.7p for the next 25,000 and 4.5p over 50,000; your dashboard shows the price before you pay. More minutes or lines start at once and you pay the difference for the rest of that month; fewer apply from your next renewal, with no refund for the current month. Extra minutes are limited each month to as many as the minutes you chose.
• Prepaid minutes. You can buy packs of extra minutes at your plan's extra-minute price, paid once. They are used before extra minutes, last 12 months from purchase (or until used) and are not refunded if unused, unless the law says otherwise.
• Your phone number. Keeping your own number (call forwarding) is free. A new local number costs £4.99 a month on top of your plan. You pay for the rest of that month when you ask for it, then it is charged with your plan. If you go back to your own number, it stops being charged, with no refund for the part month.
• Languages. Every plan includes English. Other call languages are an add-on, Extra languages, for £9 a month on top of your plan (£86.40 a year on a yearly plan); Enterprise includes them. You pay for the rest of that billing period when you add it, then it is charged with your plan. If you take it off, it stops being charged, with no refund for the part period, and your receptionist then speaks English, plus any languages you chose before the add-on started, which you keep at no extra cost. The price shown in your dashboard before you pay is the one that applies.
• No VAT. We are not registered for VAT, so no VAT is charged. If we register, we will tell you at least 30 days before VAT is added.
• The prices in your dashboard, shown before you pay, are the ones that apply to you.
• Payment is taken by Stripe, our payment provider. We do not see or store your full card details.
• The monthly price is charged at the start of each billing month, and the yearly price at the start of each billing year. Extra minutes on a monthly plan are charged on your next bill.
• Changing plan. A bigger plan starts straight away: you pay the difference for the rest of that billing month (or year, on a yearly plan), plus any extra minutes used so far that month, when you change. A smaller plan starts at the start of your next billing month (or year).
• Monthly to yearly. Moving from monthly to yearly, on the same plan or a bigger one, starts your year straight away: you pay the yearly price, less the unused part of your current month, and your minutes start again for the new month. Moving from monthly to a smaller plan paid yearly starts at your next renewal. Moving from yearly to monthly starts at the end of the year you paid for.
• Calls passed to a person count towards your minutes for as long as that part of the call lasts. Test calls count too.
• If a payment fails, Stripe tries again. If it stays unpaid, we may pause the service until it is paid. Pay as you go has its own steps (section 6).
• We may change prices with at least 30 days' notice by email. The new price applies from your next month after the notice ends.

6. Pay as you go and Direct Debit

Pay as you go has no monthly fee. You pay 35p for each minute the receptionist handles, rounded up for each call and counted the same way as on every plan. We bill you weekly, after the week.

• Weekly bills. At the end of each week, Stripe makes a bill for that week's minutes. If a week comes to less than £2.00, we do not collect it: its minutes are added to a later week's bill instead. When you cancel, everything still owed is on your last bill, even if it is less than £2.00.
• Direct Debit. You pay by Bacs Direct Debit, collected through Stripe, or by card if you choose. Stripe emails you before each Direct Debit is taken, with the amount and the date it will be taken.
• The Direct Debit Guarantee. Your Direct Debit payments are protected by the Direct Debit Guarantee. If an error is made in the amount or date of a payment, you are entitled to a full and immediate refund from your bank. You can cancel a Direct Debit at any time with your bank.
• Backup card. If you pay by Direct Debit, you add a backup card when you sign up. Until you add it, the receptionist handles your first 100 minutes only. You agree that we may charge it for a weekly bill if the Direct Debit for that bill fails, or if your Direct Debit is cancelled. We use it for nothing else.
• Before your first payment. Until your first weekly payment for minutes goes through, the receptionist handles up to 100 minutes in all. After that, calls are put straight through to your own number until the payment goes through. A Direct Debit is taken only once a bill is £2.00 or more, after Stripe's advance notice, and reaches us about a week after the bill is made.
• Weekly limit. Up to 3,000 minutes a week. After that, calls go to your own number, or the receptionist says it can't take the call, until the next week.
• A new local number. On Pay as you go a new local number costs £1.15 a week, on your weekly bill from the week after you ask for it. If you choose Pay as you go again for a line that already has a new number, its first week is on your first bill, and the service starts when that payment goes through. Keeping your own number is free.
• If a payment fails. If a Direct Debit fails, we try your backup card. If that fails too, or your Direct Debit is cancelled and you have no backup card, we email and text you. You then have 48 hours to add a new Direct Debit or card in your dashboard, and we take the amount owed with it. If it isn't paid by then, we suspend the service: your calls are put straight through to your own number (no receptionist, no messages, no bookings), up to 2 hours of calls a day, so callers are not turned away; past that, the line says it can't take the call. The service starts again once everything that failed is paid (by card straight away, by Direct Debit once your bank has paid it, about a week after you add it). Adding a new Direct Debit or card does not restart the 48 hours or the 30 days below.
• Unpaid after 30 days. If a bill is still unpaid 30 days after the payment failed, we close your account and end your plan. The amount owed remains a debt you owe us. We may take steps to recover it, including through a debt recovery agency or the courts, and as this is a business contract we may claim interest and compensation under the Late Payment of Commercial Debts (Interest) Act 1998. Until it is paid, a new account can't be opened for the same business or the same people.
• Disputed payments. If a payment that was taken correctly is reversed by a dispute (including an indemnity claim under the Direct Debit Guarantee, or a card chargeback), we close the account at once, and the amount stays owed as above. If we made a mistake, tell us and we will put it right.
• After closing. For two weeks after an account closes, calls to your receptionist line are put through to your own number. Please turn off call forwarding to us before then. If we gave you a new number, you may ask to move (port) it to another provider before it is released; money owed does not stop you moving it, and stays owed.

7. Cancelling

You can cancel any time in your dashboard. There is no contract term and no cancellation fee.

• A cancelled plan runs until the end of the month you paid for (or the year, on a yearly plan), then stops. Pay as you go runs until the end of that week.
• No refunds. All payments are final and non-refundable: plans (monthly or yearly, including a discounted first month), add-ons, prepaid minutes and credit packs. Cancelling stops future payments; it does not refund what you have already paid. We do not refund part months or part years, and extra minutes already used are still charged.
• This does not change: credits put back on your account for a dead number or fake job (section 11), which are credits, not money; putting right a payment we took by mistake; the Direct Debit Guarantee; or any right you have by law that cannot be excluded.

8. Fair use and minute limits

To keep costs fair and stop misuse, the service has limits. These include:

• the minutes in your plan, plus a limit on extra minutes each month (none on a yearly plan, which uses prepaid minutes instead), and the test minutes before you choose a plan;
• a longest length for one call (10 minutes by default);
• a limit on the time calls can spend passed to a person;
• a limit on browser test calls each day, and on the number of businesses in one account.

When a limit is reached, the receptionist stops answering: calls go to your own number if you gave one, or the caller hears a short message. We may suspend an account that is used in a way that harms the service, the phone network or other people.

9. What you must do

• Use it lawfully. Follow the law that applies to your business and your calls, including UK GDPR, the Privacy and Electronic Communications Regulations (PECR) and Ofcom rules.
• Tell your callers. The receptionist tells callers it is an AI and that the call is transcribed. You must also explain this in your own privacy notice, with how you use their details.
• Have a lawful basis for the personal data your callers give, and an extra condition if they may give health or other special category data (for example at a clinic).
• Give true details. Your business details, the facts the receptionist uses, and the details the phone network asks for must be true and kept up to date.
• Check its work. Check bookings and messages, and the facts it answers from.
• Keep your sign-in safe. You are responsible for what happens in your account.
• Emergencies. The receptionist is not an emergency service. Do not rely on it for urgent safety or medical matters.

10. No cold calling

You must not use the service for cold calling, marketing calls or marketing texts, or to contact people who did not ask to be contacted.

The service only answers calls to your business. Texts go only to you, or to a caller about their own booking or request. We never make marketing calls or send marketing texts, for ourselves or for you.

11. Trades plans and leads (Linesteward for Trades)

A trades plan gives you credits each month for jobs homeowners post on Linesteward for Trades and for Job line calls you accept, and the AI receptionist with a number of minutes each month. You pay monthly, or yearly:

What credits buy. A Job line call you accept costs 1 credit. A website lead costs 2 credits when the job's budget is under £1,000 or not set, and 3 credits when it is £1,000 or more. So 20 credits are up to 10 website leads for jobs under £1,000, or up to 20 Job line calls. A change in the credits a plan gives applies from your next monthly payment.

• Paying yearly. A yearly trades plan costs 10 times the monthly price, paid at the start of the year (2 months free). Its credits still come every month: the first month's when the yearly payment goes through, then one month's at the start of each month of the year. Its receptionist minutes are a monthly allowance, as on any yearly plan (section 5): extra minutes are prepaid minutes only. It renews each year at the normal yearly price, unless you cancel. Cancelling and refunds are as in section 7: a yearly plan runs to the end of the year you paid for, and part years are not refunded.
• Free trial. While we offer it, a trades plan (Trades Starter, Pro or Team) paid monthly is free for the days shown before you pay (for example 14 days), with the free job credits shown, which end when the trial ends. We take your card at checkout and charge nothing in the trial; we email you a reminder before the first payment. Cancel any time before the trial ends and you pay nothing. If you do not cancel, you then pay the plan's normal monthly price, and the plan's monthly credits come when that payment goes through. It is for one free trial per business, ever: not if your account, or another account of yours, has had a free trial or a trades plan before. It is not offered on a yearly plan, and not with a partner's link (the partner's price applies instead). We may change or end the trial for new sign-ups at any time; this does not change a trial already started. The earlier first-month price is no longer offered; a first month already started at that price is unchanged.
• Free trial links. If you start from a free trial link we sent you, the plan named in it is free for the days shown before you pay (for example 14 days), with the free credits shown, which end when the trial ends. We take your card at the start and charge nothing in the trial; we email you a reminder before the first payment. Cancel any time before the trial ends and you pay nothing. If you don't cancel, you then pay the plan's normal monthly price, and the plan's monthly credits come when that payment goes through. One free trial per business; it takes the place of the free trial above (its days and credits may differ) and of any partner price.
• Finish-your-sign-up trial. If you checked your mobile to sign up as a trade but did not finish, we may send you one text with a link to finish (never between 9pm and 8am, and never after you text STOP). The link works once, for 7 days, and signs you in by that phone. If you finish through it, Trades Starter paid monthly is free for 14 days, with 5 free job credits that end when the trial ends. We take your card at checkout and charge nothing in the trial; we email you a reminder before the first payment. Cancel any time before the trial ends and you pay nothing. If you do not cancel, you then pay £35 a month (the normal Trades Starter price, cancel any time), and the plan's monthly credits come when that payment goes through. It is for one free trial per business, ever; it takes the place of the free trial above on Trades Starter (never both), and is not given with a partner's link (the partner's price applies instead). On Trades Pro or Trades Team the free trial above applies.
• Leads. You choose your trades and the postcode districts you cover. You see a matching job (the trade, the description, the budget, the timing and the postcode district) before you spend anything. Unlocking a job costs 2 or 3 credits, by its budget as above; nothing is spent if you have too few credits. Unlocking gives you the homeowner's name, phone number and email, and the job's address when they gave it. Use the address only to quote for and do this job. A job goes to 3 trades at most, and takes new trades for 30 days or until the homeowner closes it.
• Credits. Your plan's credits are added each month when its payment goes through. Unused credits roll over while you stay on a trades plan, and can be used only while you are on an active trades plan. If your trades plan ends (you cancel, move to a receptionist plan, or a payment fails and is not paid), your credits are kept for 30 days: on a trades plan again within that time, you have them back; after it, they end. You can buy more credits in bundles, paid once: 20 credits for £40, 50 for £90 and 100 for £160 (a single credit can't be bought). Until the end of 31 December 2026 (UK time) the 50 credits are £75, a launch price; from 1 January 2027 they are £90. Credits have no cash value and are not refunded, unless the law says otherwise. A bigger trades plan starts straight away and adds the difference in credits for that month.
• Credit back. If a lead's phone number does not work or the job is not real, report it in your dashboard no later than 30 days after taking it. The first 3 reports each calendar month get the credits spent on that lead back at once; a person looks at any more. We may stop credits back, or end your plan, if reports are misused.
• Job line. Homeowners ring one number and our AI can put them through by phone to up to 3 local trades at the same time for a quote, text them up to 3 prices, or post their job. It is included in Trades Pro and Trades Team; on Trades Starter it is an add-on at £29 a month (£290 a year on a yearly plan). A call you accept costs 1 credit; there is no other fee per job. The rules are under The Job line (for trades) below.
• Receptionist minutes. These work as on any monthly plan (section 5): when a month's minutes are used up, calls are still answered and extra minutes are charged on your next bill at the price above, up to the most extra minutes a month shown above. On a yearly trades plan, extra minutes are prepaid minutes only (section 5).
• Your listing. Any account on a paid plan (a trades plan or a receptionist plan) can be listed. While it is and you choose to be listed, homeowners can find your business name, logo, trades, areas, description and the phone number you choose. Keep it true and up to date, and upload only a logo you have the right to use. The order of search results is distance, then rating from reviews of jobs taken through us; paying more never changes it. Job leads need a trades plan.
• Quote requests. If you switch them on, homeowners can ask you, and only you, for a quote from your page. A request is free: it uses no credits. It comes to your account's sign-in email and to Jobs in your dashboard, with the homeowner's name, phone number and email, which you may use only to reply about that request (as below).
• Using a homeowner's details. You may use a homeowner's details only to contact them about the job they posted or the quote they asked you for, in a reasonable way. You must not sell or pass them on, add them to a marketing list, or send them marketing. For the details you receive you are a controller under UK GDPR yourself, and must keep them safe and delete them when you no longer need them for the job. We remove trades who break this.
• The work. Any contract for the work is between you and the homeowner; we are not part of it. You must hold any registration, qualification and insurance the law requires for the work (for example the Gas Safe Register for gas work), and do the work with reasonable care and skill.
• Reviews. You must not write reviews of yourself, ask anyone to write a false review, or offer anything for a review. You can report a review that breaks our reviews policy; a person decides.
• A receptionist plan and a trades plan are separate plans: moving from one to the other takes effect at your next renewal.

The Job line (for trades)

• What it is. Homeowners ring our Job line for any job. We ring up to 3 trades who switched it on, at the same time; each one who presses 1 talks to the customer in turn. We may also ask you by an AI call for a price for a job wanted in the next 72 hours. Our AI assistant always says it is an AI.
• Price. The Job line is included in Trades Pro (£89 a month, 45 credits a month) and Trades Team (£229 a month, 150 credits a month). On Trades Starter (£35 a month, 20 credits a month) it is £29 a month extra (£290 a year on a yearly Starter), charged with your plan; the rest of the month (or year) is charged when you add it, and there is no refund when you take it off. In the first month at the first month's price, it is free until that month ends. A Job line call you accept costs 1 credit: charged once, when you are put through to the customer after pressing 1, and only once per job. A call you pass on, miss or that never connects costs nothing. With no credits left, the Job line does not ring you; we text you about it at most once a day. A connected call lasts up to 10 minutes: you both hear a notice about a minute before it ends.
• You choose. You get calls only once you switch the Job line on, for the trades and areas you choose, outside your quiet hours and up to your calls a day. Text STOP to our texting number to stop the calls at once.
• Your own phone. Job line calls come straight to your own phone, not to your AI receptionist, so you speak to the customer yourself. Your receptionist still answers your normal calls. The phone must be your own UK mobile, checked by a texted code; we refuse a number that one of our receptionist lines answers or that forwards to one.
• Prices are yours. Any price you give is your own estimate; say what is included. The contract for the work is between you and the customer, and the same rules for a homeowner's details apply as for leads above.
• No promise of calls. We do not promise any number of calls or jobs. Who is rung first is set out on How we rank trades: nearest first, then taking turns; paying more never moves you up.

Partner links and partners

• For trades. If you sign up from a partner's link, a partner price may apply to the plan named in that partner's offer (for example a lower first month), shown before you pay. It takes the place of the trial above: offers never stack, and it is once per business. A trade from a partner's link gets no trial; other plans are their normal price. The first partner link you used counts; it can't be changed later.
• For partners. A partner shares a personal link to Linesteward for Trades, under a deal we agree and may edit in writing (which plans, the price for the partner's audience, the commission and the campaign dates). We pay a partner weekly, only for trades who signed up from their link inside the campaign dates and whose payment to us actually went through. A payment that is refunded or disputed is taken back, from a later week if it was already paid. A partner must label every post about us as an ad (#ad or "Paid partnership"), must not promise earnings or results, must say only what is true about the service, and must not send messages, calls or texts nobody asked for. A partner sees counts and amounts only, never a trade's details. We may pause or end a partnership at any time, for example if these rules are broken; what was already earned under them is still paid.

12. Posting a job (homeowners)

• Free. Posting a job and searching trades is free, and you don't have to hire anyone. Trades pay us to see jobs and contact homeowners.
• What happens. We email you a code that confirms the job (or text it to your UK mobile, if you choose). Trades who do the work and cover your area then see it without your contact details. Up to 3 of them can take it and get your name, phone number and email, for this job only. You can close or delete your job at any time with the link in our email. Our Privacy notice explains how your details are used.
• Asking one trade for a quote. On a trade's page you can ask that trade, and only that trade, for a quote. Once you type the code we send you, your request and your contact details go to that trade only. It is free for you and for the trade.
• Give true details, for a real job at an address in the area you give, and only your own contact details.
• We don't check trades yet. We show only trades who signed up with us, but we don't check their qualifications, registrations or insurance. Look them up before you hire, for example on the Gas Safe Register for gas work or a competent person scheme for electrical work.
• The work is between you and the trade. Any contract, price and warranty for the work is agreed between you and the trade you choose; we are not part of it and are not responsible for the trade's work. Your rights as a consumer against the trade (for example under the Consumer Rights Act 2015) are not affected.
• Reviews. If a trade took your job, we email you a link to review it. Write about your own experience, honestly. We may take down a review that breaks our reviews policy.
• The Job line. You can also ring our Job line, free apart from your phone provider's charge for the call. Our AI assistant asks about the job and offers three choices: put through now to up to 3 local trades, prices from up to 3 trades for a job in the next 72 hours, or posting the job. We try to connect you, but we can't promise a trade is free or that you get any prices. Prices are the trades' own estimates; the final price is agreed with the trade. Your details go to at most 3 trades, only after you say yes. For a gas smell, hang up and call 0800 111 999; for danger to life, call 999.
• We may take down a job that looks false or breaks the law. Section 13 (availability) applies to homeowners too.

13. Availability and mistakes

• We work to keep the service running, but we do not guarantee that it is always available or free of faults. It depends on phone networks and other providers.
• The receptionist uses AI. It can make mistakes: it may mishear, misunderstand or give a wrong answer. Check your bookings and messages, and keep a way for customers to reach you.
• We may do maintenance, and will try to do it at quiet times.

14. Your data

• Your callers' details belong to you. For call content we act as your processor under UK GDPR, and our Data Processing Agreement is part of these terms.
• For your account and billing details, and for what you type into the chat helper, we are the controller. See our Privacy notice.
• For jobs homeowners post on Linesteward for Trades, we are the controller; a trade that takes a job is a controller of the homeowner's details it receives (section 11).
• We do not use your callers' calls or transcripts to train AI models. Our providers may not use them to train their models.

15. Liability

• Nothing in these terms limits liability for death or personal injury caused by negligence, for fraud, or for anything else the law does not allow to be limited.
• We are not liable for loss of profit, business, revenue or goodwill, or for any indirect or consequential loss.
• We are not liable for missed calls, wrong bookings, wrong messages or wrong answers given by the receptionist or the chat helper, since you are told to check its work (sections 8 and 10).
• Our total liability to you in any 12 months is limited to the fees you paid us in those 12 months.
• For homeowners using Linesteward for Trades, nothing in this section limits the rights you have as a consumer.
• You will cover our losses if you use the service unlawfully, for example for cold calling, or without a lawful basis for your callers' data.

16. Ending the service

• We may suspend or end your account if you break these terms in a serious way, or do not pay. Where we can, we will warn you first.
• When the service ends, we delete your callers' data as the DPA says. You can read and copy what you need from your dashboard before then.

17. Changes to these terms

We may change these terms. We will email you at least 30 days before an important change takes effect. If you do not agree, you can cancel before then.

18. Law

These terms are governed by the law of England and Wales, and the courts of England and Wales decide any dispute. If you are a homeowner (a consumer) living in Scotland or Northern Ireland, you can also bring a claim in your local courts.

19. Contact

Email support@linesteward.com. Post: Adria Technologies Limited, 66 Paul Street, London, EC2A 4NA.