Refund and Engagement Terms
What you are buying, when money is refundable, and what happens when either side wants to stop. Written before you need it rather than negotiated after.
The short version
You are buying work performed, not results promised. Retainers are billed monthly in advance and are not refundable once a cycle has started, because research, planning and writing are allocated at the beginning of it. Cancel any time with 30 days' written notice and you keep everything paid for. Where we got something wrong, we rework it at no charge rather than refund it ... you end up with the deliverable instead of your money back and nothing to show.
Section 05 sets out the narrow circumstances in which we do refund, and Section 06 covers what happens if you are simply unhappy.
The thing being sold
This is the clause that decides every refund question, so it goes first.
You are buying professional time, judgment and deliverables. Research, strategy, technical work, written content, and the reporting that shows what happened. Those are things we can guarantee and be held to.
You are not buying a ranking position, a traffic number or a revenue figure. Search visibility is decided by third-party systems nobody controls and which change without warning. An agency that guarantees a ranking is either misleading you or planning to blame an algorithm update later.
Why this matters for refunds
"The work was not delivered" and "the work did not produce the result I hoped for" are different claims. The first is our failure and we fix it. The second is the ordinary risk of marketing, and it is not grounds for a refund of work that was performed properly.
Everything in this page sits alongside our Terms of Use. Where the two cover the same ground, this page governs on money and engagement structure.
Two ways of working
Monthly retainer
Ongoing work billed each month in advance. Rolling, with no minimum term beyond the notice period. This is how most SEO and content programmes run, because the work compounds.
Fixed-scope project
A defined deliverable with a defined price. An audit, a topical map, a migration plan, a set number of articles. Billed 50% to start and 50% on delivery.
Which one applies to you is set out in your proposal. Where this page refers to a "cycle", it means a calendar month for retainers and a project phase for fixed-scope work.
No minimum contract, and no discount for signing one
We do not ask for six or twelve-month commitments. If the work is good you will stay because it is working, and if it is not, a contract keeping you is worth less to us than the reputation cost of holding someone in place.
When money moves
First invoice on engagement
Payable before work begins. It covers onboarding, access setup, the opening audit and the first cycle of delivery.
Monthly on the 1st
Retainer invoices are issued for the coming month. We plan, brief and commission ahead of the cycle, which is why billing runs in advance rather than in arrears.
Payment window
Invoices are due on receipt and considered late after 7 days. Prices are in USD unless agreed otherwise in writing.
If payment is late
Work pauses at 7 days overdue and we tell you before it does. At 30 days overdue we may end the engagement and pursue what is owed, including reasonable recovery costs.
Transfer fees. Charges your bank or payment provider applies at your end are yours. Charges applied at our end are ours. Please send the full invoice amount rather than net of fees.
Price changes. Existing clients receive at least 30 days' written notice before any increase, and may cancel before it takes effect.
Why fees are not refundable once a cycle starts
Fees paid for a cycle that has begun are not refundable. That is the default position and it applies whether you cancel on day 2 or day 28.
The reason is how the work is actually allocated. On day one of a cycle we commit research hours, brief writers, schedule technical work and block calendar time that cannot be resold. By the time a cancellation arrives mid-month, most of that month's cost has already been incurred even if the output has not yet reached you.
What is genuinely consumed at the start of a cycle
- Query and competitor research for the topics scheduled that month.
- Content briefs written and issued to writers.
- Writer and specialist time reserved, and in many cases already paid.
- Technical work planned against your site's current state.
This is not a penalty and it is not designed to trap anyone. It is the honest cost structure of work that is planned in advance. A refund policy that ignores it would simply be priced into everyone's retainer.
The exceptions, stated plainly
A no-refund default with no exceptions would be unreasonable. These are the circumstances where money comes back.
Refunds are returned by the same method you paid. Where a payment provider's fees cannot be recovered, the refund is net of those fees and we tell you the exact figure before processing.
Beyond this list
We will still consider a refund in genuinely exceptional circumstances ... serious illness, a business closing, something neither of us could have anticipated. That is discretionary rather than a right, and the answer depends on the situation. Ask.
What happens when the work misses
If a deliverable is wrong, off-brief, poorly researched or below the standard we describe, we redo it at no charge. That is the remedy, and in almost every case it is the better outcome for you ... a refund leaves you with money and no deliverable, and you still need the deliverable.
How rework runs
Tell us what is wrong
Email or raise it on a call. You do not need to diagnose the cause ... "this is not right" is enough to start.
We work out whether it was us
Sometimes the brief was wrong, sometimes the execution was, sometimes expectations were never aligned. We say which honestly, including when the answer is that we misread what you wanted.
We redo it
Rework where it was our error costs you nothing and does not come out of the current cycle's allocation. You are not paying twice for one deliverable.
Revisions included as standard
Every written deliverable includes two rounds of revision within its cycle. That covers ordinary editorial preference ... tone, emphasis, structure, a section you want expanded.
Rework for our errors is separate and unlimited. It does not consume your revision rounds, because a mistake on our side should not cost you the changes you were entitled to anyway.
A change of direction after approval ... a new audience, a different angle, a rewritten brief ... is new work rather than a revision, and we will say so before starting rather than after.
Ending a retainer
Thirty days' written notice to sharia@evariko.com. Email is required so both sides have a record and a date. A verbal mention on a call is not notice, though raising it on a call and confirming by email afterwards is fine.
What happens in the notice period
- Service continues in full. We do not wind down, reduce effort or deprioritise you.
- Work already in progress is completed and delivered.
- Your next invoice covers the notice period and is payable as normal.
- We hand over anything that needs handing over, and answer questions from whoever takes it on.
No cancellation fee. There is no exit charge, no penalty for leaving early, and no clause that makes cancelling more expensive than staying.
Tell us why, if you are willing
Not to talk you out of it. We do not run retention offers and we will not make you justify the decision. But knowing the actual reason is the most useful information we get all year, and most people leave without giving it.
An alternative to cancelling
If cash flow tightens, a busy season hits, or something else takes priority, you can pause for up to 60 days instead of cancelling.
- No billing during a pause. You are not charged for a month you are not receiving.
- Two weeks' notice to arrange one, so we can rearrange the schedule rather than leave commissioned work stranded.
- Your place is held. Strategy, topical map and momentum stay in place, and resuming costs no onboarding fee.
- After 60 days the engagement closes and restarting is treated as a new engagement.
Pausing is almost always better than cancelling and restarting. The work compounds, and a gap costs you more than the months you skipped.
When the work changes shape
Scope creep is the most common way agency relationships turn sour, usually because nobody names it until someone is annoyed. So:
Within scope. Anything in your proposal, plus the ordinary judgment calls we make while doing it. Ask freely, no invoice appears.
Outside scope. A new service line, a second website, a migration mid-engagement, a volume increase, or a redirection that discards approved work. We tell you it is out of scope before doing it, with a price, and you decide.
We will never do out-of-scope work and invoice you for it afterwards. If we did not flag it in advance, it is absorbed.
Reducing scope is available too. If a retainer is larger than you need, tell us and we will reduce it from the next cycle rather than quietly deliver less at the same price.
When we are the ones to stop
Occasionally we end an engagement. Honest reasons, stated in advance:
- The work has moved outside what we do well, and continuing would mean charging you for guesswork.
- Repeated direction we believe actively harms your site, after we have raised it and been overruled.
- Abusive or threatening behaviour towards anyone on the team. No notice period applies to this one.
- Non-payment beyond 30 days.
Except in the abuse case, we give 30 days' notice, complete work in progress, refund any unused portion of a paid cycle pro rata, and hand over cleanly. Where we can point you to someone better suited, we will.
Please talk to us first
If you believe a charge is wrong, email us. Genuine billing errors are refunded within five business days with no argument, which is faster than any chargeback process.
A chargeback raised without contacting us first is treated as a payment dispute. We will respond to the provider with the engagement record and delivered work, and we reserve the right to suspend service while it is open.
This is not a threat, it is a request for sequence. Almost every chargeback we have seen in this industry started as a misunderstanding that one email would have resolved.
Ownership on exit
Everything you paid for is yours. Published content, drafts delivered within a paid cycle, briefs, audits, topical maps and reports. You keep using all of it with no restriction and no licence that expires when you leave.
We remove our access to your CMS, analytics and hosting within 14 days. Revoke it from your side as well ... two checks beat one.
What stays ours are our internal frameworks, templates and processes ... the tooling we use to produce your work rather than the work itself. You are not licensed to resell those to another agency, but nothing stops you applying the methods yourself. They are published openly in our guides for exactly that reason.
No hostage tactics. We do not retain logins, withhold deliverables, or make leaving operationally painful. If you are going, we would rather you left with a good impression than a grievance.
Common questions about money and commitment
Do you offer a trial or a money-back guarantee?
No, and here is the honest reason. Search work produces meaningful signal over months, not weeks, so a 30-day guarantee would either be meaningless or would push us toward quick wins that look good in month one and cost you later. What we offer instead is no minimum term, so you can leave at any point with 30 days' notice.
What if I cancel three days into a month I have paid for?
That cycle is not refunded, because the research and briefing for it happened at the start. But the notice period runs from your email, so you receive the full following cycle's work as well. You do not lose a month, you get one more.
What if I am unhappy with the content quality?
Say so and we redo it at no charge. That is the remedy rather than a refund, because you still need the content. Two revision rounds are included as standard, and rework for our errors does not count against them.
What if rankings do not improve?
That alone is not grounds for a refund, because you bought work rather than a ranking. What it is grounds for is a serious conversation about whether the strategy is wrong, the timeline was unrealistic, or the market is harder than we judged. We would rather have that conversation in month three than lose you in month eight.
Can I get a discount for paying six months up front?
We can discuss it, but we would rather you did not. Prepaying removes the monthly moment where you get to reassess whether this is worth continuing, and that moment is a useful discipline for us as much as for you.
What happens to work in progress if I cancel?
Anything within a paid cycle is completed and delivered. We do not down tools on notice ... partially finished work benefits nobody.
Can I pause for longer than 60 days?
Beyond 60 days we close the engagement, because the strategy goes stale and holding a slot indefinitely is not workable. Restarting later is welcome and there is no penalty for having left.
Do you charge for the initial audit?
The introductory audit we offer before you commit is free and yours to keep whether you engage us or not. Detailed technical audits commissioned as a standalone project are paid, fixed-scope work.
Questions before you commit?
If any clause here would be a problem for you, raise it now. We would rather adjust something in advance than discover the mismatch three months in.
© Evariko, 2026. All rights reserved. These terms were last reviewed on 1 October 2026.
Read alongside our Terms of Use and Feedback Policy.