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Legal

Terms of Service

Last updated [date we publish]

These terms cover your use of 10minutebids.com and everything we deliver to you. By creating an account or placing an order, you agree to them. Please read section 3, "Estimates, not guarantees", before you rely on a bid.

1. Who we are

10 Minute Bids is run by [company legal name], [mailing address], Washington (called "we", "us" and "our" here). You can reach us at [contact email].

2. What we do

You upload a set of house plans as a PDF. Our software reads the plans, with the help of artificial intelligence (AI). It builds a 3D model of the house and measures the trades you order. For each trade we deliver quantities, a draft bid and a supplier order sheet.

The "10 minutes" in our name is your time: about how long you spend checking the 3D model and the bid against your plans before you send it. It is not a promise about how fast you get your bid. How long an order takes depends on the plans and how many orders are ahead of yours.

3. Estimates, not guarantees

Everything we deliver is an estimate made from the plans you upload. It is not a quote, a measurement of the building, or a promise of what a job will cost.

Plans don't show everything. Pony walls, framing built on site, changes made during construction, site grades, existing conditions and anything built differently from the drawings are not in the plans. We don't know about them, so they are not in the numbers.
A site visit is recommended to confirm measurements and conditions before you price a job, sign a contract or order materials.
Check the quantities before you order. A supplier order sheet is a starting point for your supplier, not a guaranteed list.
We don't give professional advice. We don't provide engineering, architecture, code compliance, permitting or legal advice. Nothing we deliver is a stamped, approved or permit-ready document.
Your prices are yours. Draft bids leave the pricing to you. You decide what to charge and what to sign.
We read what the plans say. If the plans are wrong, unclear, missing pages or out of date, the estimate will be too.

4. Your account

You must be at least 18 years old.
Give us your real name, email and phone number, and keep them up to date.
Keep your password private. You are responsible for what happens in your account.
An account is for one person. Don't share it or make accounts for other people without their permission.
To keep the service working for everyone, we limit how many accounts and uploads can come from one network in a day.

5. Your plans

Only upload plans you have the right to use. That means you own them, or the owner, designer or architect has allowed you to use them for this project.
Your plans stay yours. Uploading them doesn't give us ownership of them.
You give us permission to use them to do the work. That means storing, copying and reading them, including with our AI and hosting providers. We use them to deliver your order, support it, keep our records and fix our mistakes. We don't sell your plans.
We don't show your project to anyone else. We won't use your plans, model or address as a public example without your written permission.

6. Orders, prices and payment

You see the price before you pay. Each trade has its own price, with the 3D model of the house included. On a trade order, a plan set over 120 pages adds 50 cents a page. The whole-house package is one flat price for plan sets up to 120 pages, and 50 cents a page over that.
Launch offer. The first 100 accounts get their first trade bid for $10, with the 3D model included. If that first order has more than one trade, the most expensive one is $10 and the rest are full price. It isn't used on the whole-house package. One per person. We may end the offer early. It can't be resold or transferred.
Prices can change, but never for an order you have already paid for.
Payments are handled by Stripe. We don't see or store your full card number.
Prices are in US dollars. Sales tax is added where the law requires it.
If we can't read your plans well enough to price an order, we'll tell you before we charge you, or refund you.

7. Fixes and refunds

If we can't deliver, you get a full refund. That includes plans we can't read and trades the plans don't show enough of.
If a bid misses something that is shown on your plans, tell us within [14] days of delivery. We'll fix it at no charge. If we can't fix it, we'll refund that trade.
We don't refund because you changed your mind after delivery, or because the building or the site turned out different from the plans (see section 3).
To ask for a fix or a refund, email [contact email] with your order and what's wrong.

8. Using what we deliver

You may use the model views, quantities, draft bids and order sheets we deliver for your own project. You can use them to plan, price, bid and build it, and share them with your customers, contractors and suppliers.

The website, our software, the 3D viewer, our videos and our example houses belong to us or to the companies we license them from. Using the service doesn't give you any rights to them beyond what these terms say.

9. What you agree not to do

Upload plans you don't have the right to use, or anything illegal, harmful or containing malware.
Resell our service, or offer our deliverables to others as your own plan-reading service.
Scrape the site, copy the 3D viewer, or try to reverse-engineer our software.
Get around our security or our limits, or use bots to make accounts or uploads.
Use the service in a way that breaks the law or harms other people.

10. Changes

We may change, add or stop features. We may also update these terms. When we do, we'll change the date at the top of this page, and email you if the change is important. If you keep using the service after the change, you accept the new terms. Changes never apply to an order you have already paid for.

11. No warranties

We work hard to get the numbers right, but the service and everything we deliver are provided "as is" and "as available". As far as the law allows, we make no promises beyond what these terms say. That includes promises that the service will be free of errors or always available, or that it fits a particular purpose.

12. Limits on our liability

As far as the law allows:

For any claim about an order, the most we will owe you is the amount you paid for that order.
We are not responsible for indirect or consequential losses. That includes lost profits, lost bids or jobs, materials ordered in the wrong amount, delays, and work that has to be redone.

Some states don't allow some of these limits. Where that's the case, they apply as far as that state allows.

13. Your responsibility for claims

If someone makes a claim against us because of plans you uploaded without the right to use them, or because you broke these terms, you agree to cover our reasonable costs of that claim.

14. Ending

You can close your account at any time by emailing us. We may suspend or close an account that breaks these terms. If we close your account without a good reason, we'll refund any order we haven't delivered. Sections 3, 5, 8, 11, 12, 13 and 15 still apply after an account is closed.

15. Governing law

These terms are governed by the laws of the State of Washington. Any dispute will be decided in the state or federal courts for Whatcom County, Washington, unless the law says otherwise.

16. Contact us

[company legal name]
[mailing address]
[contact email]