Terms of service

Last updated [date]. Version 1.1.

These terms are the agreement between your agency ("you") and [Company name] (Pty) Ltd, registration number [registration number], trading as Mennula ("Mennula", "we", "us"). You accept them when you tick the box at sign-up. The person who signs up confirms they are at least 18 and allowed to bind the agency.

Please read the parts in bold carefully. They limit our responsibility, place certain risks on you, or say what you must do. If anything is unclear, ask us before you accept.

The short version

Month to month. Cancel any time in Settings, and you won't be charged again.
Your data stays yours, stored in South Africa. You can download all of it whenever you like.
Mennula suggests and prepares. You decide and approve. Nothing goes to a client or a candidate without your yes.
Scores are advice and can be wrong. Hiring decisions are yours.
You must have the right to use the CVs and contact details you put into Mennula.

1. What Mennula does

Mennula reads CVs, keeps them in a searchable CV bank, ranks people against your jobs with the reasons, prepares emails and messages for you to approve, books interviews and keeps records such as placements. The features on each plan are described on our Pricing page. We improve Mennula all the time. We may change or remove a feature, but we won't take away something central to your plan without telling you at least 30 days before.

2. Your account and your team

Each plan includes a number of people (Basic up to 3, Pro up to 10, Agency and Enterprise unlimited). Each person needs their own login. Don't share logins.
Keep sign-in links and devices secure, and tell us straight away if you think someone has got in who shouldn't have.
You are responsible for what the people you invite do in Mennula.

3. Free trial

New agencies get 14 days free on Basic limits, with no card needed. When the trial ends, your account pauses unless you choose a plan. If you don't, we delete the trial's data 30 days after the trial ends.

4. Plans, prices and payment

Prices are per agency, per month, as shown on our Pricing page. The price shown is the full amount you pay. If a tax that applies to our prices changes or starts to apply, we will tell you at least 30 days before your price changes.
You pay monthly in advance through Paystack, by card or EFT. Enterprise agencies may pay by monthly invoice.
Each plan includes a number of CVs read and AI credits each month. Monthly credits reset on your billing date and don't roll over. Top-up credits last 12 months. Running out never stops your work: matching, templates and your own emails keep working.
We never charge you automatically for going over a limit. Extra CVs and credits are only bought when you choose to.
We may change our prices with at least 30 days' notice by email. The new price applies from your next billing date after the notice ends, and you can cancel before then.
If a payment fails, Paystack retries it. After a 7-day grace period your account pauses: nothing new is read or sent, but nothing is deleted and candidates can still use their self-service links. Pay to carry on.
If an account stays paused for 6 months, we email the account owner twice, then treat the account as cancelled. Section 5 explains what happens next.

5. Cancelling

You can cancel any time in Settings. Your plan runs until the end of the month you've paid for, and you won't be charged again.
If you cancel within 7 days of your first payment, we refund that payment in full. After that, we don't refund part months.
Before your account closes, you can download everything: every CV, record and file.
30 days after your plan ends, we delete your agency's database, files and encryption key. Backups are overwritten within 35 days after that.
We may end this agreement if you seriously breach these terms and don't fix it within 10 business days of our email. We may suspend your account immediately if you use Mennula unlawfully, put other agencies at risk, or attack our systems. We'll tell you why.

6. Your data

Everything you put into Mennula belongs to you or the people it's about. You are the responsible party for candidate and client information under POPIA, and we are your operator.
Our operator agreement forms part of these terms. It says we will only use your information to do what you ask, keep it secure and confidential, tell you without delay about any breach, and delete it when you leave.
We don't sell your data, and we don't use it to train AI.
We may use anonymous statistics that can't identify any person or agency, such as how often a score was marked right, to improve Mennula.

7. What you agree to do

You are responsible for having a lawful reason to use the personal information you put into Mennula, and for using Mennula lawfully. In particular, you agree to:

only upload CVs and contact details you are allowed to use, and use them only for recruitment;
let Mennula send our standard notice to candidates you add (it can't be switched off), and answer candidates' requests about their information;
not upload information about anyone under 18 without a parent or guardian's consent, and not upload special personal information (such as health, religion or criminal records) unless the law allows it;
not use Mennula to discriminate unfairly against anyone, including by setting job requirements on grounds such as race, gender, age, pregnancy, disability or religion, unless they are an inherent requirement of the job;
meet your own legal duties as a recruitment agency, including under the Employment Equity Act, the Employment Services Act and the Labour Relations Act;
only send a client a candidate's CV when you are allowed to, and only send job alerts or marketing to people who have agreed to receive them;
not try to copy, reverse engineer, scrape or work out how Mennula's scoring works, test it in bulk, or build a competing product with it;
not upload malware, overload our systems, get around limits, or access another agency's information.

8. Scores and AI

Mennula uses AI to read CVs and job ads, compare them, and draft messages. Every score shows its working: the lines of the job, what the CV says about each one, and the exact words it came from.

Scores, reasons and drafts are suggestions, not decisions, and they can be wrong. CVs can be read incorrectly, and information can be missing. Check what matters before you act on it. You make every decision about a candidate. Mennula never rejects anyone on its own, and nothing is sent until a person at your agency approves it.

We test the scoring for accuracy and fairness, and names, contact details and other identifying details are removed before any AI reads a CV. But no system is perfect. If you think a score is wrong, use "Is this score right?" or tell us, and we will look into it.

9. Messages and the WhatsApp add-on

Emails go from your own connected mailbox, or from Mennula on your behalf. You are responsible for what you approve. After you approve a message, you have 10 seconds to undo it.
The WhatsApp add-on sends messages through Meta's WhatsApp Business service from one Mennula number that names your agency. Meta's terms apply. Only message candidates who agreed to WhatsApp messages.

10. Availability and support

We aim to keep Mennula available at least 99.5% of each month, not counting planned maintenance we announce in advance. We can't promise Mennula will never be interrupted, for example by internet, power or provider failures. Support is by WhatsApp and email. A real person reads every message and replies as soon as we can. Enterprise agencies may have a separate service agreement, which then applies.

11. Our intellectual property

Mennula, its software, scoring system, designs and content belong to us. While your plan is active, you may use Mennula for your agency's own work. If you send us ideas or feedback, we may use them freely.

12. Confidentiality

We each keep the other's confidential information private and use it only for this agreement, unless the law requires disclosure. This lasts after the agreement ends.

13. Our responsibility to you

We are responsible for losses you suffer because we breach these terms or the operator agreement. Our total responsibility for all claims in any 12 months is limited to the greater of the fees you paid us in the 12 months before the claim, or R5,000.

We are not responsible for indirect or consequential losses, such as lost placements, lost fees or lost profits, or for decisions you make using Mennula, or for services you connect that we don't run (such as your mailbox provider or a job board).

Nothing in these terms limits our responsibility for gross negligence, intentional wrongdoing, fraud, or anything else the law does not allow us to limit.

You are responsible for claims against us caused by your breach of the law or of these terms, such as uploading information you had no right to use.

14. Changes to these terms

We may update these terms. We'll email the account owner at least 30 days before a change takes effect. If you don't agree, you can cancel before then without any penalty. Earlier versions are kept, and we record which version your agency accepted.

15. If the Consumer Protection Act or ECT Act applies to you

The Consumer Protection Act protects small businesses (with turnover or assets under R2 million) and individuals. If it or the consumer sections of the Electronic Communications and Transactions Act apply to you, nothing in these terms takes away your rights under them.

16. Disputes

If something goes wrong, tell us first at hello@mennula.com and we will try to sort it out within 10 business days. If we can't, either of us may refer the dispute to mediation, or go to court. South African law applies. You and we agree to the jurisdiction of the Magistrates' Court, even if the amount would normally go to the High Court. If you are a consumer, you may also approach the National Consumer Commission or a relevant ombud.

17. Notices

We send notices by email to your account owner, and you send them to hello@mennula.com. Legal documents must be delivered to our address: [physical address]. Each of us chooses that address (for us) and the agency's address in its account (for you) for legal notices.

18. General

This agreement is these terms, the operator agreement, our Pricing page and, for Enterprise agencies, the signed quote. If they conflict, the signed quote wins, then the operator agreement, then these terms.
You may not transfer this agreement without our written consent. We may transfer it to a company that takes over Mennula, and we'll tell you if we do.
If a court finds part of these terms invalid, the rest still applies.
If we don't enforce a right straight away, we haven't given it up.
Neither of us is responsible for delays caused by events outside our reasonable control, such as load shedding, natural disasters or a major provider outage.
Accepting these terms online is as binding as signing them.