Terms of Service

Last updated: 2 September 2026

These terms govern your use of Marlaio (“the service”), operated by MARLAIO LIMITED (a New Zealand company, company number 9437276, NZBN 9429053746313), trading as Marlaio. By creating an account, you agree to these terms.

1. What Marlaio does

Marlaio generates draft marketing content (social posts, emails, Google ads) using AI, based on information you provide and public data about your business. Marlaio never publishes or sends content on your behalf; all output is a draft you review and decide what to do with.

2. Your responsibilities as the advertiser

You remain the advertiser for any marketing you publish. You are responsible for:

• Reviewing every draft for accuracy before publishing.
• Compliance with the NZ Fair Trading Act 1986, Australian Consumer Law, Spam Act 2003 (AU), and Unsolicited Electronic Messages Act 2007 (NZ).
• Ensuring any specific claims (prices, dates, availability, awards, comparative language) are accurate to your actual business.
• Holding the rights to any third-party content you upload.
• Where the AANA Code of Ethics (Australia) or other jurisdictional advertising rules require disclosure of AI-generated content, making that disclosure as the publisher. Marlaio is not the advertiser and does not make these disclosures on your behalf.

Marlaio runs an internal compliance check to flag obviously unsupported scarcity / urgency / fabricated claims, but the check is assistive — not a substitute for your own review.

By tapping “Approve” on any draft, you confirm you have reviewed the content and accept responsibility as the advertiser publishing it.

3. What we charge and how

We build custom AI systems for New Zealand businesses. Every build is different, so we don’t sell packages or subscriptions — we scope the work with you and quote on that.

• The first 30 minutes are free. That is a conversation about what you need. No card, no obligation, and you are under no commitment to continue.
• You get a written quote before any paid work starts. It sets out what we’re building, what it costs and how it’s billed. If work is going to exceed what we quoted, we tell you and get your agreement first. You will never be invoiced for work you did not approve.
• You can stop at any time. You pay for the work already done and approved up to that point, and nothing further.
• What you get is yours. Once you have paid in full, you own the deliverable we built for you. We keep our own pre-existing tools, libraries and general know-how, which we reuse across clients — that is not part of what you are buying, and we do not reuse anything specific to your business.
• Custom work depends on the third-party services it is built on (for example an AI provider, or your own systems). We are not responsible for those services changing or becoming unavailable, but we will tell you when a change affects something we built for you.
• Invoices are issued through Stripe. GST is charged and shown at the New Zealand rate. Receipts show the legal billing entity for tax compliance.

If you are engaging us for personal or household purposes rather than for a business, the Consumer Guarantees Act 1993 applies to this work, and nothing in this section takes those rights away.

5. Acceptable use

You agree not to use Marlaio for:

• Illegal goods or services (drugs, weapons, etc.).
• Spam, scams, phishing, or unsolicited bulk messaging.
• Content that infringes copyrights, harasses identifiable individuals, or targets minors with adult material.
• Misrepresenting another business as your own (using a Place ID you do not own or control).
• Attempting to exfiltrate the AI prompts or bypass rate limits.

We may suspend or terminate accounts that violate these rules without a refund.

6. Content ownership

You own any content you publish using Marlaio drafts. You grant Marlaio a non-exclusive licence to your prompts and source data (your business name, website, intent specifics) solely to generate output and improve the service. We do not train AI models on your individual content.

6a. Warranty and indemnity for third-party data

You warrant that any Google Place ID, website URL, or business details you enter belong to a business you own or are authorised to market for. You indemnify MARLAIO LIMITED against any claim arising from your input of third-party business data, including any claim under:

• The Australian statutory tort of serious invasion of privacy (Privacy Act 1988 Schedule 2, commenced 10 June 2025).
• The NZ Privacy Act 2020 (including IPP 3A indirect-collection obligations).
• The NZ Fair Trading Act 1986 or Australian Consumer Law in respect of any business representation you cause Marlaio to make.

Third parties who appear in scraped data (e.g., staff names on your website, reviewer names visible on Google) may submit a takedown request via our takedown request form; we action takedowns within 24 hours.

6b. Automated decision-making (AU APP 1.7 disclosure)

Marlaio uses an automated compliance system that may refuse to generate marketing drafts when your inputs lack support for the specific claim (e.g., a “limited to 5” headline with no quantity in your inventory specifics). The decision is automated and applies only to draft generation — it never affects your account, billing, subscription rights, or any other access to the service. If you believe a refusal was incorrect, you can request human review via our contact form. This disclosure satisfies Australian Privacy Principle 1.7 (effective 10 December 2026).

7. Refunds

Our full refund policy is at /refund-policy. In summary, because we bill for work actually done rather than for access to a product:

• You only pay for approved work. Nothing is charged before you have a written quote and have agreed to it, so there is usually nothing to refund.
• If we got it wrong — what we built doesn’t do what we agreed it would, and we can’t put it right — you get a full refund of the amount paid for that work.
• If you stop the work partway, you pay for the hours already done and approved, and nothing further. We don’t invoice for work not yet started.

To raise a refund, use our contact form (topic: Refund request) with your invoice number and the reason. We reply within 7 business days.

This policy does not limit your rights under the NZ Consumer Guarantees Act 1993 or Australian Consumer Law. If our service has a major failure you are entitled to a full refund regardless of how long you have used it.

8. Service availability

Marlaio depends on third-party services (OpenRouter, Anthropic, Google, Supabase, Stripe). We aim for uptime but make no SLA guarantee. If the service is down for more than 24 hours in a billing period, we will credit your account pro rata.

9. Liability

To the maximum extent permitted by law, Marlaio is provided “as is”. Our maximum aggregate liability to you is capped at the amount you paid us in the 12 months preceding the claim. Nothing in these terms limits liability that cannot be excluded under the NZ Consumer Guarantees Act 1993 or Australian Consumer Law.

10. Governing law

These terms are governed by the laws of New Zealand. Any dispute is subject to the exclusive jurisdiction of New Zealand courts.

11. Changes to these terms

We may update these terms by posting a new version at marlaio.com/terms. Material changes will be notified by email at least 14 days before they take effect.

Contact

For questions about these terms, use our contact form.