Terms of Service summary

Applies to: All plans

This article is a plain-English summary of our Terms of Service so you can see the main points at a glance. It is not the agreement itself. The full, legally binding Terms of Service are published on maxinodes.com, and those terms are what apply if anything here differs. When you place an order or use our services, you agree to the full Terms.

What are the Terms of Service?

The Terms of Service are the contract between you and Maxinodes for your hosting, domains and email, including the mailboxes that come with your plan (the Terms call them Hosted Mailboxes). They set out what we provide, what you agree to, and the rules that apply while you are a customer. They sit alongside our other policies — the Acceptable Use Policy, the Service Level Agreement, the Privacy Policy, the Data Processing Agreement and the Right of Withdrawal — which are all published on maxinodes.com and form part of your agreement.

Billing, renewal and cancellation

Your service renews automatically each term until you cancel. The key points:

You choose a billing cycle — Monthly, 12 months or 24 months — and pay in advance for that term. A plan on a 12 or 24-month term may start at a discounted first-term price, once per customer, on a new order, and then renews for a term of the same length at the renewal price shown when you order.
Invoices are paid by card or in cryptocurrency, and you choose between them each time you pay. See What payment methods can I use?.
VAT/tax is not currently charged at checkout, as we are not yet VAT-registered. You can still add a VAT number and business details to your profile now.
Services renew automatically at the end of each term unless you cancel — meaning we raise the renewal invoice for you. Payment is automatic only if you turn on automatic card payment in the client area; otherwise each renewal invoice is paid by hand before its due date. You can cancel any time from your client area — your hosting then stops at the end of the term you have paid for (or within a day, if you choose immediate cancellation); see Termination below for what happens to your data and email. If a renewal will cost more than you last paid, we email you a renewal notice at least 30 days before it, and you can cancel, or ask us to switch you to monthly billing, before the renewal date. With automatic payment on, we also email you before the charge whenever a renewal costs more or less than the last amount you paid for that service or domain. If automatic payment has already charged a renewal and you cancel that service or domain before the invoice's due date, we refund that renewal in full.
Every plan — Self-Managed and Managed — is eligible for the 30-day money-back guarantee, but the Terms limit it to a first-time, eligible plan and to your initial order — renewals are not covered. It refunds what you paid for the plan's first term, less the regular price of a free first-year domain if one came with the plan (the domain stays yours for the rest of its first year). Approved refunds under the guarantee are processed within approximately 14 days, and the amount refunded is the euro amount you were invoiced. Where the way you paid can carry a refund back to you, that is how we return it; where it cannot — and a cryptocurrency payment cannot — we agree the euro amount and the destination wallet with you first.
This guarantee is a commercial promise that sits on top of the statutory 14-day right of withdrawal for consumers, not a replacement for it: the Terms state expressly that it does not replace, reduce or limit that right. See Your right of withdrawal (EU consumers).
The Terms list what the guarantee does not refund: Managed Email (Microsoft 365 or Google Workspace mailboxes), which is non-refundable once provisioned; any other third-party items, licences or one-off charges bought through us; and renewals.
Domain fees are not refunded, with one exception in clause 9: if automatic payment has charged a domain renewal and you cancel that domain before the invoice's due date, we refund that renewal in full. Otherwise, domain registrations and renewals are non-refundable as a matter of registry and registrar practice — the fee is paid to the registry the moment the order is processed and cannot be reversed. That is also why, if your plan came with a free first-year domain, clause 11 deducts the domain's regular price from a guarantee refund.
If a payment fails, your service can be suspended and, after a further period, terminated. See Why was my payment declined or my account suspended?.

For the exact wording, see clause 9 (fees, payment and renewals) and clause 11 (the money-back guarantee) of the full Terms of Service on maxinodes.com, and Refund and money-back policy for the plain-English version.

Acceptable use

You agree to use our services lawfully and responsibly. Our Acceptable Use Policy prohibits things like illegal content, spam (including newsletters and other bulk mail from your mailboxes), abuse and excessive resource use that affects other customers on shared hosting. Breaking the AUP can lead to suspension or termination. We summarise the rules in Acceptable Use Policy summary; the full AUP is on maxinodes.com.

Service levels and availability

Managed plans carry an uptime Service Level Agreement with service credits if a target is missed (Starter 99.9%, Growth 99.95%, Business 99.99%; the Enterprise target is agreed in a bespoke Order Form). Self-Managed is self-serve and has no uptime SLA or service credits. Credits on Managed are claim-based — you submit a claim, they are not applied automatically. Managed plans also carry an initial-response target (1 hour on Starter, Growth and Business; on Enterprise it is agreed in a bespoke Order Form), but that is an operational commitment and is not used to calculate service credits. See Service Level Agreement (SLA) summary.

Backups and your responsibility

We take automated backups of your hosting account, including your mailboxes, with JetBackup to Backblaze B2 — weekly on Self-Managed Lite, daily on every other plan, with the retention period set by your plan — but the Terms make clear that keeping your own backups is your responsibility too. We are not liable for data you have not separately retained. See Our backup policy and your responsibility.

Liability

Like most hosting agreements, the Terms limit our liability — for example, capping what we are responsible for and excluding certain indirect losses. The exact wording is in the full Terms; please read it there rather than relying on this summary.

Termination

Either side can end the agreement. You can cancel from your client area at any time. We may suspend or terminate a service for non-payment, a breach of the Terms or the Acceptable Use Policy, or other reasons set out in the full Terms. If you cancel, the service is suspended on the cancellation date: your site goes offline, your mailboxes are locked, and incoming mail is held for about 4 days and then returned to the senders. 14 days after that date the hosting account, its files, databases and all mail are deleted for good; until then you can ask support to restore the service or to give you a copy. So export or move anything you need, including your email, before the cancellation date. Your DNS zone is kept rather than deleted, so the records you added are not lost; ask support if you want it removed. If you are moving your email elsewhere, point the MX record at your new provider before the cancellation date: while it still points to mx.maxinodes.com, mail sent to your domain is held and then returned to the senders once the service is suspended.

Where to read the full Terms

The complete Terms of Service — including our legal company details, governing law and the full liability and termination clauses — are published on maxinodes.com. For our registered company name, address and registration details, see Company details and imprint. If anything in this summary is unclear, start a chat and we will point you to the right section.