Terms of Service

These Terms of Service ("Terms") govern your access to and use of the Hidayah madrasa management software, our website at hidayah.me, and any related services (together, the "Service") operated by Hidayah Ltd ("Hidayah", "we", "us", "our"), a company registered in the United Kingdom.

By creating an account or using the Service, you agree to these Terms. If you do not agree, do not use the Service.

1. Definitions

• "Customer" means the organisation (typically a madrasa, Islamic school, or Quran academy) that has signed up for the Service.
• "Authorised User" means an individual authorised by the Customer to use the Service — including administrators, staff, teachers, and parents.
• "Customer Data" means data uploaded to the Service by the Customer or its Authorised Users — including student records, attendance, fees, and communications.
• "Subscription" means the paid plan under which the Customer accesses the Service.

The Service is intended for organisations and businesses, not individual consumers. To the extent any Customer qualifies as a "consumer" under the Consumer Rights Act 2015, statutory rights that cannot lawfully be excluded continue to apply.

2. Eligibility & account registration

To create a Customer account you must be at least 18 years old and have legal authority to enter into a contract on behalf of your organisation. You are responsible for the accuracy of the registration information you provide and for keeping your account credentials confidential. Notify us immediately at [email protected] if you suspect any unauthorised access.

3. The Service

Hidayah is a software-as-a-service platform that helps madrasas manage student records, attendance, fees, parent communication, and related operations. Specific features available depend on your Subscription tier.

We may add, remove, or modify features over time. We will not materially reduce the core features included in your existing Subscription during a paid term without giving you reasonable notice.

4. Subscriptions, fees, and billing

4.1 Pricing

Subscription pricing is tiered by the Customer's active student count and is published at hidayah.me/#pricing or as quoted in writing. If the Customer's active student count exceeds the cap of its current tier for two consecutive billing cycles, Hidayah may move the Customer to the next tier on at least 30 days' written notice. Downgrades are applied automatically at the next renewal. We may change prices for new Subscriptions at any time; for existing Subscriptions, we will give at least 30 days' notice before any price increase takes effect.

4.2 Billing cycle

Paid Subscriptions are billed monthly or annually in advance, depending on the cycle selected. Subscriptions automatically renew at the end of each cycle unless cancelled.

4.3 Payment

Customer subscription payments are processed by our payment processor, Stripe Payments UK Ltd. By providing payment information you authorise us (and Stripe) to charge the relevant amounts to your payment method. If a payment fails, we may retry the charge or suspend the Service until payment is received.

4.4 Taxes

Subscription fees are exclusive of applicable taxes (e.g. VAT) unless stated otherwise. The Customer is responsible for any taxes payable on top of the Subscription fee.

4.5 Refunds

Subscription fees are non-refundable except where required by law or as expressly stated by us. If you cancel mid-cycle, you continue to have access for the remainder of the paid period, but are not entitled to a pro-rata refund.

5. Parent fee collection (Stripe Connect and GoCardless)

The Service allows Customers to collect fees from parents online. Card payments are processed through Stripe Connect; UK Direct Debit via GoCardless is on the roadmap. The following terms apply to online fee collection:

• The Customer must complete the relevant payment processor's onboarding (including Know Your Customer / KYC checks) before collecting parent fees online. Until onboarding is complete, the relevant online payment method will be disabled.
• The Customer is the merchant of record for parent fee transactions. Funds settle directly into the Customer's nominated bank account, less any processor fees and any Hidayah platform surcharge.
• The Customer is responsible for issuing refunds to parents where appropriate, for handling chargebacks and disputes, and for complying with all consumer-protection rules applicable to its relationship with parents.
• Card processing is governed additionally by Stripe's Connected Account Agreement, which the Customer accepts as part of Stripe onboarding. Direct Debit (when available) will be governed by the relevant GoCardless agreement.
• Hidayah does not see or store full card numbers or bank account credentials. All such data is handled by the relevant payment processor.

5.1 Hidayah platform fee

In addition to the Subscription fee and any payment-processor fees, Hidayah charges a platform fee of 0.3% on the gross amount of each online payment processed through the Service (the "Platform Fee"). The Platform Fee:

• applies to all online payments processed through the Service, including card payments and BACS Direct Debit (and any other online payment rail Hidayah may integrate from time to time, including GoCardless when launched);
• applies regardless of the Customer's Subscription tier;
• is collected at the time of the transaction, alongside the payment processor's fees, and is deducted from the settlement to the Customer;
• does not apply to cash, cheque, or bank-transfer payments recorded in the Service offline;
• may be absorbed by the Customer or passed on to the payer at the Customer's discretion, where applicable law allows.

Hidayah may change the Platform Fee rate from time to time on at least 30 days' written notice to the Customer. The current rate will be published at hidayah.me/#pricing.

6. Customer responsibilities

The Customer is responsible for:

• The accuracy, legality, and quality of all Customer Data uploaded to the Service.
• Obtaining all consents (including parental consent for student data) required under applicable law.
• Configuring user roles and permissions appropriately. Each Customer is solely responsible for who it grants access to within the Service.
• Communicating clearly and accurately with parents about fees, refunds, and academic matters. Hidayah is not a party to the Customer's contract with parents.
• Complying with all laws applicable to its operation of a madrasa or school — including safeguarding, data protection, and charity law.

7. Acceptable use

You agree not to:

• Use the Service for any unlawful purpose, including processing payments for goods or services prohibited by Stripe's Restricted Businesses list.
• Upload or transmit malware, harmful code, or content that infringes intellectual property rights.
• Attempt to gain unauthorised access to the Service or to other customers' data.
• Reverse-engineer, decompile, disassemble, or attempt to derive the source code, algorithms, file formats, or non-public APIs of the Service, except to the extent expressly permitted by applicable law (including sections 50A, 50B, and 50BA of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988).
• Use the Service to send unsolicited bulk communications (spam) to parents or third parties.
• Rent, lease, lend, sell, sublicense, assign, distribute, publish, transfer, or otherwise make available access to the Service to any third party.
• Impersonate any person, falsify records, or facilitate fraud.
• Access or use the Service for benchmarking, competitive monitoring, or competitive intelligence purposes.
• Use any automated means — including bots, scrapers, spiders, or crawlers — to access, copy, or extract content from the Service.
• Publish, distribute, or make available any benchmark, performance result, screenshot, or comparative analysis of the Service to any third party without our prior written consent.

We may suspend or terminate accounts that breach these rules, particularly where Customer activity puts the integrity of the Service or other customers at risk.

8. Customer Data

The Customer retains all ownership of its Customer Data. The Customer grants Hidayah a limited, worldwide, non-exclusive licence to host, store, transmit, and process Customer Data solely as necessary to provide and improve the Service.

The Customer may export its Customer Data at any time during the Subscription term using the in-product export functionality. On termination, we will allow up to 30 days for export and then delete Customer Data within 90 days, except where retention is required by law or for backup-cycle reasons described in our Privacy Policy.

9. Privacy & data protection

Our handling of personal data is described in our Privacy Policy. For Customer Data that constitutes personal data uploaded by the Customer, the Customer is the data controller and Hidayah is the data processor. The terms of our Data Processing Addendum (available on request) apply to that processing.

10. Intellectual property

10.1 Ownership

The Service — including all source code, object code, design, layout, user interfaces, graphics, logos, text, databases, database rights (including under the Copyright and Rights in Databases Regulations 1997 and any equivalent legislation in other jurisdictions), underlying technology, trademarks, and other materials (other than Customer Data and Customer logos) — is and shall remain the exclusive property of Hidayah or its licensors and is protected by intellectual property laws. The Service may incorporate open-source software components, which are subject to their respective licence terms.

10.2 Licence grant

Subject to the Customer's compliance with these Terms and payment of applicable fees, Hidayah grants the Customer a non-exclusive, non-transferable, non-sublicensable, revocable licence to access and use the Service during the Subscription term, solely for the internal business purposes of operating the Customer's madrasa, school, or academy. No rights are granted other than those expressly stated.

10.3 Restrictions

The Customer shall not, and shall not permit any third party to:

• (a) copy, reproduce, modify, adapt, translate, or create derivative works of the Service or any part of it;
• (b) reverse-engineer, decompile, disassemble, or attempt to derive the source code, algorithms, file formats, or non-public APIs of the Service, except to the extent expressly permitted by applicable law (including sections 50A, 50B, and 50BA of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988);
• (c) remove, alter, or obscure any copyright, trademark, or other proprietary notices appearing on or in the Service;
• (d) use the Service, or any information obtained from or through it, to build, develop, design, or improve any product or service that competes with the Service, whether directly or indirectly;
• (e) circumvent, disable, or otherwise interfere with any technical, security, or access-control measure that Hidayah uses to protect the Service or its content;
• (f) use any part of the Service, its outputs, or its underlying content or data structures to train, fine-tune, or improve any machine-learning or artificial-intelligence model, system, or application, without Hidayah's prior written consent.

10.4 Feedback

If the Customer or any Authorised User provides feedback, suggestions, ideas, or feature requests relating to the Service, the Customer assigns to Hidayah all rights in such feedback, and Hidayah may use it for any purpose without restriction or compensation.

10.5 Trademarks

"Hidayah" and any associated names and logos are trademarks of Hidayah Ltd. These Terms grant no right to use any Hidayah trademark. Any such use requires Hidayah's prior written consent.

11. Confidentiality

"Confidential Information" means any non-public information disclosed by one party to the other that is identified as confidential, or that a reasonable person would understand to be confidential given its nature or the circumstances of disclosure. Hidayah's Confidential Information includes (without limitation) the source code, system architecture, security measures, technical documentation, pricing, product roadmap, unreleased features, and non-public APIs of the Service. The Customer's Confidential Information includes Customer Data.

Each party agrees to (a) keep the other's Confidential Information confidential, (b) use it only as needed to perform under these Terms, and (c) disclose it only to its employees, contractors, and professional advisers who need to know it and who are bound by confidentiality obligations at least as protective as those in these Terms.

These obligations do not apply to information that is or becomes public through no fault of the receiving party, was independently developed without reference to the disclosing party's information, was lawfully known to the receiving party before disclosure, or is required to be disclosed by law (provided the receiving party gives prompt notice to the disclosing party where lawful).

12. Suspension & termination

12.1 By the Customer

You may cancel your Subscription at any time from within the Service. Cancellation takes effect at the end of the current billing cycle.

12.2 By Hidayah

We may suspend or terminate the Service (with or without notice) if:

• You materially breach these Terms.
• You breach sections 7 (Acceptable use), 10 (Intellectual property), or 11 (Confidentiality) — in which case we may terminate immediately, without notice or opportunity to remedy.
• Payment is overdue beyond 14 days.
• Required by law, regulator, or our payment processor.
• Your activity poses a security, legal, or reputational risk to Hidayah, our customers, or third parties.

Termination by Hidayah under this section 12.2 carries no entitlement to any refund of Subscription fees paid.

12.3 Effect of termination

On termination, your access to the Service ends. We will retain Customer Data per the retention rules in section 8 and our Privacy Policy. Sections that by their nature should survive termination — including IP, confidentiality, liability, indemnity, and governing law — survive.

13. Risk acknowledgement — the Customer accepts these risks

By using the Service, the Customer expressly acknowledges and accepts the following risks. The Customer agrees that Hidayah shall have no liability whatsoever in respect of any of these risks except where liability cannot lawfully be excluded under English law.

• Software is imperfect. The Service may contain bugs, errors, defects, or vulnerabilities. The Customer accepts that no software is, or can be made, free of all defects.
• The internet is hostile. The Service is delivered over the public internet, which is subject to attack, interception, congestion, and outage. The Customer accepts that no system delivered over the internet can be guaranteed against attack or eavesdropping.
• Third-party services may fail. The Service depends on third parties (including Stripe, GoCardless, hosting providers, email gateways, DNS, internet service providers). Failures, errors, downtime, or breaches of those third parties may affect the Service. Hidayah does not control those parties and is not liable for their acts or omissions.
• Data may be lost. Despite our security measures, data loss, corruption, or unavailability can happen. The Customer is responsible for keeping its own independent backups of any data it considers business-critical.

14. No warranties — the Service is provided "as is"

To the maximum extent permitted by law, the Service is provided "AS IS" and "AS AVAILABLE", with all faults, and without any warranty, representation, or condition of any kind — whether express, implied, statutory, or otherwise.

Without limiting the foregoing, Hidayah specifically disclaims and the Customer specifically waives any warranty:

• of merchantability, satisfactory quality, fitness for a particular purpose, accuracy, completeness, reliability, or non-infringement;
• that the Service will meet the Customer's requirements or expectations;
• that the Service will be available, uninterrupted, timely, secure, or error-free;
• that any information, output, calculation, report, or feature provided by the Service is accurate, complete, current, or reliable;
• that defects in the Service will be corrected, or corrected within any particular timeframe;
• that the Service is free of viruses, malware, or other harmful code;
• that any data stored or transmitted by the Service will be preserved, retained, recoverable, or accessible;
• arising from course of dealing, course of performance, or trade usage.

No availability or uptime guarantee. Unless a written service-level agreement signed by an authorised officer of Hidayah expressly states otherwise, Hidayah makes no commitment, warranty, or guarantee regarding uptime, availability, response time, or service levels. The Service may be suspended or interrupted at any time, with or without notice, for maintenance, upgrades, security, legal, technical, or any other reason.

No accuracy guarantee. The Customer acknowledges that information presented by the Service — including financial figures, fee balances, attendance records, reports, exports, and any calculation — may contain errors. The Customer must independently verify any information before relying on it for any decision. The Service is not a substitute for the Customer's own records, accounts, audits, financial controls, safeguarding processes, regulatory filings, or professional advice.

Nothing in these Terms excludes or limits liability for matters that cannot lawfully be excluded under English law — including death or personal injury caused by negligence, fraud, or fraudulent misrepresentation.

15. No liability for security incidents, data loss, or third-party acts

To the maximum extent permitted by law, Hidayah shall have zero liability in respect of, and the Customer expressly releases Hidayah from any claim arising out of or in connection with:

• any unauthorised access, disclosure, alteration, deletion, exfiltration, ransom, encryption, or destruction of Customer Data, including by hackers, malicious actors, current or former employees, sub-processors, or any other third party;
• any data breach, security incident, malware infection, phishing attack, social engineering attack, account takeover, or denial-of-service attack affecting the Service, the Customer, the Customer's users, or parents;
• any loss, corruption, deletion, unavailability, or inaccessibility of Customer Data, regardless of cause;
• any act or omission of a third-party service provider on which the Service depends (including but not limited to Stripe, GoCardless, payment processors, hosting providers, telecommunications carriers, email gateways, domain registrars, DNS providers, certificate authorities, and ISPs);
• any failure of, or delay in, processing payments or settling funds;
• any chargeback, dispute, or refund claim by parents or other payers;
• any communication (or failure of communication) sent or not sent by the Service, including failed or delayed fee reminders, notifications, or emails;
• any decision the Customer or any of its users takes in reliance on information presented by the Service;
• any matter relating to the Customer's own compliance with safeguarding, child protection, charity, regulatory, or data-protection obligations — which remain the Customer's sole responsibility;
• any dispute between the Customer and a parent, student, staff member, trustee, regulator, or other third party.

16. Limitation of liability

To the maximum extent permitted by law, and without limiting sections 13–15:

• No indirect or consequential loss. Neither party shall be liable for any indirect, incidental, special, consequential, exemplary, or punitive damages, or for any loss of profit, revenue, business, contract, opportunity, anticipated savings, goodwill, reputation, or data — even if advised of the possibility of such loss.
• Aggregate cap. Hidayah's total aggregate liability arising out of or in connection with these Terms, the Service, or any related matter — in contract, tort (including negligence), breach of statutory duty, or otherwise — shall not exceed, in any 12-month period, the lesser of (a) the total Subscription fees actually paid by the Customer to Hidayah in the 12 months immediately preceding the event giving rise to the claim, or (b) one hundred pounds sterling (£100).
• Single cap, not per-claim. The cap above applies to all claims in aggregate, not per claim. Multiple claims do not increase the cap.
• Exclusive remedy. The Customer's sole and exclusive remedy in respect of any dissatisfaction with the Service, or any claim the Customer has against Hidayah, is to stop using the Service and cancel its Subscription.

Nothing in this section 16 limits Hidayah's right to seek injunctive or other equitable relief in respect of breaches of sections 7, 10, or 11, and the limitations in this section 16 do not apply to such relief.

The Customer acknowledges that these limitations are an essential basis of the bargain between the parties, that the Subscription fees would be materially higher without them, and that the limitations apply even if any limited remedy is found to have failed of its essential purpose.

17. Force majeure

Hidayah shall not be liable for any failure or delay in performance caused by circumstances beyond our reasonable control — including acts of God, natural disasters, fire, flood, earthquake, pandemic or epidemic, war, terrorism, civil unrest, riot, sanctions, government action, court order, regulatory action, labour dispute, strike, internet or telecommunications failure, power outage, cyberattack, denial-of-service attack, failure of third-party providers, or any other event of force majeure. While such circumstances persist, our obligations are suspended.

18. Indemnity

The Customer agrees to defend, indemnify, and hold harmless Hidayah, its directors, officers, employees, contractors, agents, and affiliates from and against any and all claims, demands, actions, proceedings, liabilities, losses, damages, fines, penalties, costs, and expenses (including reasonable legal fees) arising out of or relating to:

• Customer Data — including any claim that Customer Data infringes any intellectual-property right, violates any privacy or data-protection law, or is unlawful, defamatory, or otherwise objectionable;
• the Customer's failure to obtain consents (including parental consent) required for the lawful processing of personal data uploaded to the Service;
• the Customer's breach of these Terms, the Privacy Policy, or any applicable law;
• the Customer's use of, or inability to use, the Service;
• the Customer's relationship with parents, students, staff, trustees, regulators, or any other third party — including any dispute, claim, or complaint relating to fees, refunds, attendance, safeguarding, employment, or academic matters;
• any chargeback, dispute, refund, or fraudulent payment relating to fees collected through the Service;
• the Customer's tax, accounting, or regulatory obligations;
• any negligent, wilful, or unlawful act of the Customer or its Authorised Users.

Hidayah may, at its option, control the defence and settlement of any matter for which the Customer owes indemnity.

19. Changes to these Terms

We may update these Terms from time to time. The "Last updated" date reflects the most recent change. For material changes, we will give at least 30 days' notice by email or in-app notice. Continued use of the Service after a change takes effect means you accept the updated Terms.

20. Governing law & disputes

These Terms are governed by the laws of England and Wales. The courts of England and Wales have exclusive jurisdiction over any dispute arising under or in connection with these Terms.

The parties acknowledge that any breach of section 10 (Intellectual property) or section 11 (Confidentiality) would cause irreparable harm to Hidayah for which monetary damages would be inadequate, and that Hidayah is therefore entitled to seek emergency or interim injunctive or other equitable relief, in addition to any other remedies available at law or in equity, without the need to post a bond. Hidayah may seek such relief in any competent jurisdiction.

The parties expressly waive any right to a jury trial and to participate in any class, collective, or representative action.

21. Miscellaneous

• Entire agreement. These Terms — together with the Privacy Policy and any order form — constitute the entire agreement between the parties on this subject and supersede all prior agreements.
• Severability. If any provision is held invalid, the remaining provisions remain in effect.
• No waiver. Failure to enforce a provision is not a waiver of the right to enforce it later.
• Assignment. The Customer may not assign these Terms without our written consent. We may assign in connection with a merger, acquisition, or sale of assets.
• No third-party beneficiaries. No one other than the parties has any rights under these Terms.
• Notices. Notices to Hidayah should be sent to [email protected]. We will notify Customers via the email associated with their account.

22. Contact

For questions about these Terms, email [email protected].