Curlew terms

1. What you're signing up for

The Curlew team does the outreach you never get to. The team is a mix of people and AI agents: our people in Brisbane work out the approach with you, set the AI agents up, check their work and step in whenever something needs a person. The day-to-day writing and reply handling is done by the AI agents under their watch.

• Finding the right businesses. We find local businesses that could use what you do, and read each one before writing to it.
• Writing to them as one of your team. Each email is written for that one business. It introduces your business, says why it could be a fit, and asks if they'd like to hear more.
• A mailbox set up for the job. Emails go from a mailbox on a separate sending domain we register and hold for this work, close to your business name (for a business at urbansolution.com.au, something like urbansolutionpainting.com.au). Your own domain and your existing email address are never used, so their reputation is never on the line.
• Handling the replies. Replies come to us. We answer what we can from what you've told us and from your website. Anyone who's interested is passed straight to your inbox with the email thread. If someone asks who they're talking to, we tell them the truth: the Curlew team, people and AI agents, handling new business for you.
• Up to 50 businesses a day, Monday to Friday, once the mailbox has warmed up (see section 3).

We won't quote a price you haven't given us, offer a discount, or promise a date or a result on your behalf. Those conversations are yours.

2. Nothing goes out until you approve it

• After you sign up, one of our team gets in touch to work out the email with you: what you do, who you most want to be working with, and who you never want contacted (current customers, competitors, anyone else).
• From that, we draft the first email and send it to you. Nothing is sent to anyone until you've approved it.
• Your approval lets us send emails of that kind on your behalf. Each one is then written for the business it goes to, by our AI system working from the email you approved and what we've learned about that business. Your approval stands until you change it or stop.
• You can change what we say, who we write to, or pause everything at any time. Just tell us.

3. The first few weeks

A new mailbox has no history, and email providers don't trust a new mailbox that suddenly sends a lot. So we start at about 10 emails a day and build up over four to five weeks to 50 a day. Going slower at the start is what keeps your emails out of spam later.

Your subscription starts on the day you sign up, and that includes the warm-up weeks. We'd rather tell you now than have it be a surprise.

4. How we stay within the spam rules

In Australia, commercial email is covered by the Spam Act 2003. Here is how we work within it, on every email we send for you.

• Businesses only. We write to businesses about their business. We don't write to people at home.
• Published addresses only. We only use an email address a business has put on its own website where a visitor can see it, and only to write about something that relates to what that business does. That's the kind of address the Spam Act allows you to write to without asking first. An address that's only in a page's hidden code doesn't count, and we don't use it.
• We respect "no unsolicited email" notices. If a business's website says it doesn't want unsolicited email, we don't write to it.
• Your business is named. Every email names your business as the sender and gives a way to reach you, as the Act requires.
• Every email has a way out. Anyone can reply to say stop. We act on it straight away, well inside the 5 working days the law allows, and that business isn't written to again for you.
• One follow-up at most. If a business doesn't reply, we may follow up once, about two weeks later. Never a third email.
• No bought lists. We don't buy, sell, rent or hand over lists of email addresses.
• We watch the warning signs. If too many emails bounce, or people complain, we slow down or pause the mailbox and work out why before we send more.

5. Your part

The emails go out in your business's name, so under the Spam Act your business is one of the senders, alongside us. That's why we ask you to agree to the following.

• You're authorised to sign your business up.
• What you tell us about your business is true, and you can deliver what the emails say you offer, including any licence or insurance it needs.
• You'll tell us who not to contact. If someone asks you directly to stop hearing from us, or complains to you, you'll pass it on to us straight away.
• You won't ask us to say anything misleading, or to write to anyone who has told you they don't want to hear from you.
• You'll deal with the businesses we put you in touch with fairly and lawfully. Whatever you agree with them is between you and them.

6. What we can't promise

We'll be straight with you. Doing business always carries some risk, and this is no different. We work hard to keep that risk low, but we can't take it away completely.

• No promise of results. We can't promise replies, leads, meetings or work. Some months will be better than others.
• Not every email arrives. Email providers filter mail in ways nobody outside them can see. Some emails will land in spam or be blocked.
• Not everyone likes being contacted. Even a careful, relevant email from someone new annoys some people. Someone might reply rudely, complain to us or to you, mark the email as spam, or report it to a regulator. That's why we keep volumes sensible, warm the mailbox up slowly and stop the moment we're asked.
• The rules change. Laws and email providers' rules change. If they do, we may need to change how we work, and we'll tell you.
• We can make mistakes. If an email gets something wrong about your business, tell us. We'll fix it and, where it matters, put it right with the business we wrote to.
• This isn't legal advice. We follow the practices in section 4, but we're not your lawyer. We don't currently take on businesses in health, law or financial advice, because their advertising rules are stricter. If your industry has its own rules about advertising, talk to us before you sign up.

7. Price and payment

• $245 a month in Australian dollars, including GST. If your sign-up page shows a different offer, such as a first month at $99, the price on your page applies.
• Your card is charged through Stripe on the day you sign up, and on the same day each month after that. We never see your full card number.
• The price includes the sending domain, the mailbox, the research, the writing, the replies and passing on interested businesses. There's no setup fee and no contract.
• If we change the price, we'll email you at least 30 days before it applies to you, so you can stop first if you'd like.
• If a payment fails, we'll let you know, and we may pause sending until it's sorted.

8. Stopping

• You can cancel any time by emailing angus@curlew.com.au or telling your contact on the team. No lock-in, no exit fee.
• When you cancel, you won't be charged again. We keep working to the end of the month you've already paid for, and any reply that comes in during that time is passed on to you as usual. Those conversations are yours.
• Because you get the full month you paid for, we don't refund part of a month. That doesn't take away anything you're entitled to under the Australian Consumer Law (see section 11).
• At the end of that month the mailbox closes and the sending domain lapses at its renewal. You keep every conversation and relationship that came out of the work. We don't hand over the list of businesses or their email addresses.

9. When we can pause or stop

• We may pause sending if bounces or complaints run high, if a payment fails, or if we think an email would break the law or these terms. We'll tell you why and what happens next.
• We may end the service for any reason with 14 days' notice. If we do, we'll refund any time you've paid for that we haven't delivered.
• If you seriously break these terms, for example by asking us to send something you know is misleading, we may end the service straight away.

10. Information we hold

• About you. We keep your contact, billing and business details to run the service and send your invoices. Stripe handles your card.
• About the businesses we write to. We keep their business name, their published email address and what they said back, so we can do the work and so anyone who asked to stop is never written to again. We don't sell it or pass it to anyone outside the service. You get the details of anyone who wants to talk to you, because that's the point.
• Your business information. Anything you tell us about your business that isn't public stays confidential, and is only used to do the work for you.
• Who else handles it. The service runs on providers we use to host it, send email, take payment and run the AI agents on the team. They process this information to provide the service to us, and for nothing else.
• Questions or requests about your information go to angus@curlew.com.au.

11. Liability

• Nothing in these terms takes away rights you have under the Australian Consumer Law. Where a guarantee under that law applies and the law lets us limit it, our liability is limited to supplying the service again, or paying what it would cost to have it supplied again.
• Apart from that, and as far as the law allows, neither of us is liable to the other for indirect loss such as lost profit or lost opportunity, and our total liability to you is limited to what you paid us in the 3 months before the claim.
• If a claim is made against us because something you told us to say about your business was untrue, or because you asked us to write to someone you knew had asked not to be contacted, you're responsible for that claim.
• None of this limits liability for fraud, or anything else the law says can't be limited.

12. Changes and the law

We may update these terms as the service and the law change. We'll email you at least 30 days before a change that affects you, and you can stop before it applies. The current version is always at curlew.com.au/terms.

These terms are governed by the laws of Queensland, Australia.

Curlew is a Local Marketing Group brand, ABN 32 642 227 423, Fortitude Valley QLD 4006. Call 0489 946 704 or email angus@curlew.com.au.