1. Who we are, and what this covers
Porchlight Marketing (ABN 43 160 574 931) is a registered Australian business name, trading from Canberra. "We" and "us" mean that business. "You" means the business buying from us.
These terms cover the products and services shown on our price pages and order summary. You accept them when you place an order.
- Campaign period
- A stated 28-day Burst, 60-day Pilot Light campaign, three-burst Season, three-month Nightlight block, or custom campaign of 28, 56 or 84 days.
- Advertising money
- The part of what you pay that goes to Google or Meta as your ads.
- Management fee
- Our fee for setting up, running and reporting on a campaign. It is shown separately from advertising money.
- Contact
- A call tap or quote-form submission counted by the report.
2. What you are buying
A website in your name, built for a phone. Advertising that runs for a set period and then stops. Reports that count contacts.
Website and Studio builds are one-off orders. Campaign orders commit to the advertising budget and period stated in your order, which set the management fee. The management fee is paid before the campaign starts. Google ad spend can be paid through Porchlight or billed by Google directly; choosing direct Google billing does not change the agreed management fee or package saving. They stop at the end of that period unless you choose another order. No later purchase is made for you.
Pilot Light is a website with a 60-day Google campaign. Founding 10 is Pilot Light with a set website price for the first 10 businesses we approve: you ask us for a code, we check your business and its ABN, and the code is applied when you pay. Each code can be used once. A refund does not reopen a Founding 10 place.
Porchlight Studio is a custom website design and build. It covers up to 8 pages and 2 rounds of changes. Contact us about availability; we confirm a place before you pay. The Studio upgrade is available with Pilot Light or Founding 10. Portfolio is not available for purchase.
3. Prices, GST and payment
3.1 All amounts are Australian dollars, and every price shown excludes GST. Before you pay, your order summary shows each component's price, the GST and the total charged. GST is calculated for each line.
3.2 Campaign orders show advertising money and Porchlight's management fee as separate lines. The management fee is shown before you buy and on each invoice.
3.3 These orders begin with a deposit:
- Site, Pilot Light and Founding 10 orders
- $250 + GST
- Studio and eligible Studio upgrade orders
- $500 + GST
The deposit is credited against your order total. The balance is the total less the deposit.
3.4 For Site, Pilot Light and Founding 10 orders, the balance becomes payable once we have finished reviewing your website and tell you it is ready for final approval. For a Studio order it becomes payable when we tell you the Studio build is ready. We charge the balance only when you choose to pay it, and paying it approves that exact version of the website for publication. If you decide not to pay, we do not charge the balance and no debt is created. Campaign orders are paid in full before their campaign starts.
3.5 Your deposit pays for the initial build and review, which begin after payment. You can choose not to proceed before paying the balance. The deposit is not refunded for change of mind once that work has begun; your rights under the Australian Consumer Law are unaffected.
3.6 Payments are processed through Stripe. No campaign starts until payment has cleared. No further charge is due unless you place another order or continue hosting after the first year (clause 4.5).
3.7 Website and campaign options are priced in the order summary. The order snapshot records the chosen components and the amount you approved before Checkout.
3.8 A tax invoice is emailed automatically on payment. It shows our ABN and the GST included in the amounts shown.
4. What we guarantee, and what we don't
4.1 We do not guarantee campaign results or promise a number of contacts, calls, quote requests or booked work.
4.2 We do guarantee the work. Your site is built and instrumented. Your campaign runs as designed. Your reports are accurate and reflect what happened.
4.3 Nothing in these terms excludes, restricts or modifies any guarantee, right or remedy you have under the Australian Consumer Law. Clause 4.1 is about outcomes we cannot control, not about the quality of our work, for which we remain responsible.
4.4 Any figure we show you before you buy, such as expected contacts, cost per contact or typical ranges, is an estimate based on Google's forecasts and published benchmarks. It is not a promise and not part of this contract.
4.5 We host and manage your site on Porchlight’s own AWS environment while your package is active. Hosting is included for your first year, then $99 a year.
5. Your website, email and web address
5.1 Your website is yours once the final payment is complete. You can ask for a copy of it at any time.
5.2 Your website stays live after a campaign ends. If you leave Porchlight, we stop maintaining it and hand over the website infrastructure and your domain to you.
5.3 The number of pages and revision rounds included in a Studio order is shown before purchase. The at-launch limits are in clause 2. New pages, layouts and integrations need a separate quote before work starts. Corrections to defects in delivered work are not paid content updates.
5.3a An additional website update session covers one submitted batch of up to five small text edits or ten supplied photo replacements, with one review. Its price is:
- Additional website update session
- $150 + GST
New pages, layouts and integrations need a separate scope. Corrections to defects in delivered work are not paid content updates.
5.4 Where we register a domain for you, it is registered in your name from day one. It transfers to any registrar you choose, on request, with no release fee and no conditions. Domains are bought a year at a time. If yours is organised through us, we remind you before it is due.
5.5 Where we set up Google Workspace for you, it is yours. You pay Google directly for the ongoing service.
5.6 Where you have not supplied real photographs of your own work, we use licensed stock images and record them as stock. We replace them free of charge whenever you send real ones.
6. What we will not say about your business
We will not publish a licence number, insurance status, rating, review, credential or price that you have not given us or that we cannot otherwise verify. If you do not tell us, it does not go on your site. This is not negotiable, including if you ask us to.
7. Advertising accounts, Pages and tracking
This section says who owns what. It matters, so it is written plainly rather than buried.
7.1 Unless you choose to own your Google Ads account (clause 7.7), each Google Ads account is set up for your business and run by Porchlight. It stays with us by default when you leave. You can ask for its Google Ads customer ID at any time. To take over the account, ask us in writing; we hand it over within three business days. You then pay Google directly. Meta ad accounts, pixels and audiences stay with Porchlight. Your Facebook Page or Instagram account remains yours.
7.2 Your website and domain are yours, and your Facebook Page or Instagram account stays yours. We use shared access; you can remove our access at any time. Meta ad accounts, pixels and visitor audiences stay with Porchlight. Meta campaigns run from a Facebook Page or professional Instagram account you own, and we confirm the access needed before a campaign starts.
7.3 Meta pixel data and visitor audiences stay in Porchlight's business account and do not transfer. You can ask us to remove the tracking tags from your website at any time.
7.4 When you leave, you keep your website, domain, Google Workspace, Facebook Page or Instagram account and every contact we passed to you. You receive a final report of Google and Meta charges by account, our fee shown separately, plus impressions, clicks and contacts. Ask us for the full history as a spreadsheet.
7.5 Tracking tags do not run before the consent wording in clause 13 is live on your site.
7.6 You are never asked to put a card into Meta, or into Google unless you choose to pay Google directly (clause 7.7). Otherwise we pay the platforms out of your advertising money.
7.7 If you choose to pay Google directly, you open your own Google Ads account, in your business's name, and Google charges your card for the ad spend as the ads run and invoices you for it, with GST. That account is yours from day one: you add Porchlight as a manager, you can see everything we do, and you can remove our access at any time. Our management fee is the same either way. Google decides whether you are eligible for any offer for new advertisers, and how much it is. We don't promise any credit. While a Google credit is active, we won't move the account's billing, because doing so would cancel the credit.
8. Reporting
8.1 Your campaign order states when reporting is provided. Reports include impressions, clicks and contacts such as call taps and quote-form submissions.
8.2 A tap to call is reported as a tap to call. We never describe it as a completed call, because we cannot see whether you answered.
8.3 For Google, reports show the exact charges Google made for your ads, excluding our fee. The fee is shown separately on each invoice. You can ask for the Google Ads customer ID at any time.
8.4 Meta charges and Porchlight's management fee are also reported separately.
9. Money, credit and refunds
9.1 Advertising money already paid to Google or Meta for ads that ran is spent. We cannot recover it, so it is not refunded if you change your mind. Any platform credit for invalid clicks or billing errors is credited to your balance. If money was wasted through our mistake, clause 11 and your Australian Consumer Law rights apply.
9.2 Advertising money not spent by the end of a period carries forward to your next period. If you do not buy another period, or you stop early, we pause your ads within one business day and refund the unspent amount within 10 business days.
9.3 You can cancel any paid period before it starts. We refund the period in full, including our fee and the advertising money.
9.4 If you stop part-way through a period because you changed your mind, that period's management fee is not refunded because most of that work happens at the start. Every later period that has not started is refunded in full, with any unspent advertising money. Your Australian Consumer Law rights are unaffected.
9.5 On a custom plan where part of our management fee is a percentage of advertising money, that percentage is earned only on money actually spent. When unspent advertising money is refunded, the matching percentage is refunded with it.
9.6 If your ads have not started within 10 business days of the agreed start, you can cancel that period and we refund it in full. If our service fails a consumer guarantee, we fix it or pay for someone else to, where the law allows. For a major failure, you can cancel and receive a refund of what you paid for anything not yet supplied.
9.7 None of this limits your rights under the Australian Consumer Law. If a service we supply fails to meet a consumer guarantee, you have the remedies the law gives you, including a refund for services not yet supplied. Clause 11 says more.
10. When we say no
If advertising is unsuitable for your business or budget, or an existing website cannot be measured, we say so before you buy. We would rather decline than sell you advertising we cannot report on honestly.
11. Liability
11.1 Nothing in this clause limits your rights under the Australian Consumer Law.
11.2 Where the law allows it, our liability for a failure to meet a consumer guarantee is limited to supplying the service again, or paying the cost of having it supplied again. That limit does not apply where it would not be fair or reasonable for us to rely on it, and it never applies to our own negligence.
11.3 To the extent the law allows, and other than for our own negligence or breach, we are not liable for indirect or consequential loss, or for loss of profits or business opportunity.
11.4 We are not responsible for the acts of Google or Meta: their pricing, their policies, their approval decisions or their outages. Where a platform's decision affects your campaign we tell you promptly and, where we can, adapt the campaign at no extra charge.
11.5 You are responsible for the accuracy of what you tell us about your business, and for holding the licences and insurances your trade requires.
12. Ending the engagement
12.1 Either of us may stop at the end of any period, for any reason, with no notice period and no exit fee. A finite product does not need a termination clause; this one exists only to say plainly that there is nothing to escape.
12.2 We may end the engagement immediately if we are asked to publish something untrue, if a payment for work already delivered fails and is not made good, or if continuing would put us in breach of an ad platform's policies or of the law. We tell you why in writing, and clauses 9.2 and 9.3 apply.
12.3 When you leave, we pause your ads within one business day and remove you from our reporting tools. You keep the website, domain, Google Workspace, Facebook Page and contacts we passed to you. Clause 7.1 explains the Google Ads account handover on request and what stays with Porchlight. If you own your Google Ads account, it stays yours, with its history, and we remove our access.
13. Your customers' data, and privacy
13.1 When someone enquires through your site, we receive and store that enquiry and pass it to you. Both of us handle it.
13.2 The consent wording shown to your customer at the moment they submit is fixed, versioned and not editable, not by you and not by us for a single client. We record which version was displayed with every enquiry, so we can always say exactly what a person was shown when they gave their details.
13.3 Your site's privacy policy names us, and names the ad platforms that receive data, including that some process it overseas.
13.4 Adding a new recipient means a new version of the consent wording, never a quiet edit to the existing one. Your site does not run an ad platform's tracking until the wording that names it is live.
13.5 When the engagement ends we keep the contacts we passed you for up to 12 months, then delete them. Ask sooner and we delete them sooner.
13.6 We do not sell your customers' data, and we do not use it for any client but you.
13.7 What this website collects about you, and how an AI model may read your draft's wording, is in our privacy policy.
14. Changes to these terms
We may change these terms for new purchases. Changes never apply to a period or a website you have already paid for. We tell you what changed before you buy again. This page is dated at the bottom.
15. General
15.1 These terms are governed by the law of the Australian Capital Territory.
15.2 If any clause is unenforceable, it is severed and the rest stands.
15.3 These terms and the pack or website you bought are the whole agreement. Anything said in conversation is not part of it. If it matters to you, ask us to put it in writing.