Terms of Service

The Service is provided by Aku Online Limited, 167-169 Great Portland Street, London, W1W 5PF, United Kingdom (“DoulaOne”, “we”, “us”, or “our”). We are a company incorporated in the United Kingdom supplying the Service to customers in Canada.

Contact: contact@doulaone.com

You must be at least the age of majority in your province or territory and legally able to enter a binding contract to use DoulaOne. The Service is intended for professional birth workers (including doulas and related perinatal practitioners) and their authorized team members.

You are responsible for:

• Providing accurate registration information
• Keeping your login credentials secure
• All activity that occurs under your account
• Ensuring anyone you invite to your workspace complies with these Terms

Notify us immediately at contact@doulaone.com if you suspect unauthorized access to your account.

DoulaOne is a software platform that helps birth workers manage their practice, including client records, scheduling, notes, contracts, birth preferences, invoices, receipts, documents, team collaboration, and client-facing portal features.

Not clinical care, and not medical or legal advice. DoulaOne is administrative software. It does not provide medical, clinical, or legal advice, does not perform clinical assessment or monitoring, and is not a substitute for professional judgment, certification or insurance requirements, or the care provided by physicians, midwives, nurses, or other regulated health professionals. You remain solely responsible for the scope of your practice and for working within it, including any federal, provincial, or territorial requirements and any standards set by your certifying organization. Contract and form templates are starting points only, are not legal advice, and should be reviewed for your practice and province before use.

Invoicing and payments. DoulaOne lets you create and track invoices and record payments you collect outside the platform, such as Interac e-Transfer, cash, or cheque. You may also optionally enable online card payments through our payment partner, Stripe. When you enable online payments, you connect a Stripe account (Stripe Connect) — one we help you open, or one you already have — and become the merchant for payments your clients make to you. Stripe processes payment details directly; DoulaOne does not store full card numbers. Your use of Stripe is subject to the Stripe Connected Account Agreement and Stripe's other terms. You are responsible for refunds, chargebacks, disputes, and all tax obligations relating to payments you collect. Fees depend on how that account is connected. They are shown before you turn card payments on, taken from the payment, and not added to what your client pays. If you set up card payments now, or connect a Stripe account you already have, DoulaOne takes 1.4% of each invoice and event card payment and 3.4% of each marketplace sale, and Stripe charges its card fee separately. If your account is still on the earlier Express setup, one fee that includes Stripe's card processing is taken from your payout: 3.4% + C$0.30 on invoices and event payments, and 4.9% + C$0.30 on marketplace sales. If you sell digital products, you remain the seller and merchant of record. Buyers are asked to confirm they want immediate access, which ends the 14-day cancellation right for digital content where that right would otherwise apply.

GST/HST, QST, and receipt tools. DoulaOne can apply GST, HST, and QST rates, display your GST/HST and QST registration numbers, and produce payment receipts that your clients may submit to an insurer or benefits plan. These are formatting tools based on the settings you enter. They are not tax advice, we do not verify your registration status or whether a tax applies to your services, and we do not file anything with the Canada Revenue Agency or Revenu Québec on your behalf. We do not guarantee that any insurer, benefits plan, or health spending account will reimburse your clients.

AI assists. DoulaOne offers optional AI features (for example, drafting contracts, packages, intake forms, and birth-plan narratives) that are off by default and only run when a workspace owner enables them. AI output may be inaccurate or incomplete. You are responsible for reviewing, editing, and verifying any AI-generated content before relying on or sharing it, and for deciding what information you submit to these features. See our Privacy Policy for how AI data is handled.

Your content.You retain ownership of the data, documents, notes, and other content you upload or create in DoulaOne (“Customer Data”). You grant us a limited licence to host, store, process, and display Customer Data solely to provide and improve the Service.

Your responsibilities. For personal information about your clients that you store in DoulaOne, your practice is the responsible organization. You must collect it lawfully, identify your purposes, and obtain meaningful consent — which for health information should be express consent — under PIPEDA or the provincial privacy law that applies to you. Your clients should be told that their information is stored in a practice-management platform hosted outside Canada. We handle that information on your behalf as described in our Privacy Policy and Data Processing Agreement.

You represent that you have the right to upload Customer Data and that doing so does not breach any law or third-party rights.

You agree not to:

• Use the Service for any unlawful purpose
• Upload malware, attempt unauthorized access, or interfere with the Service's security or performance
• Access another workspace's data without authorization
• Reverse engineer or scrape the Service except as permitted by law
• Resell or sublicense the Service without our written consent
• Send commercial electronic messages through the Service without the consent, identification, and unsubscribe requirements of Canada's Anti-Spam Legislation (CASL), or otherwise send spam
• Use the Service to create, host, promote, or share abusive, hateful, or otherwise harmful content, or to harass others
• Store or process data you are not authorized to hold, including information obtained without proper consent

Automated client emails include your business address (when you add it in Settings) and an unsubscribe link, and we honour unsubscribe requests automatically. You remain responsible for having consent to send the messages you set up.

We may suspend or terminate accounts that breach these rules or pose a security risk.

The Service relies on and integrates with third-party providers, including Supabase (hosting and data), Vercel (application hosting), Brevo (email), Stripe (subscription billing and optional online payments), and Mapbox (directory maps). Optional integrations you can connect include Google (Sign-in, Calendar, and Meet), Zoom (meeting links), Calendly (booking import), and OpenAI (AI assists, only when you enable them). Your use of those integrations may be subject to the third party's own terms and privacy policies.

We are not responsible for third-party services outside our reasonable control, but we select providers with appropriate security and data-protection practices.

DoulaOne offers a free tier and paid subscription plans, available on monthly or annual billing. Prices shown on our Canadian pages are in Canadian dollars. Any sales taxes that apply to your purchase will be shown before you pay. Paid subscriptions may include a free trial; if you start a trial, you may be asked to provide a payment method, and unless you cancel before the trial ends your subscription will begin and the applicable fee will be charged.

Automatic renewal. Unless otherwise stated, subscriptions renew automatically for successive billing periods at the then-current price until you cancel. We will charge your payment method at the start of each renewal period. You can cancel or manage your subscription at any time through the billing portal in your account. Cancellation takes effect at the end of the current billing period, and fees already paid are not refunded except where required by law, including provincial consumer protection legislation. We may change pricing with reasonable prior notice for future billing periods.

Online payment fees.If you enable online client payments via Stripe Connect, the fee depends on how your account is connected and is disclosed before you turn the feature on. It is taken from the payment and is not added to the amount your client pays. On accounts set up now, and when you connect a Stripe account you already have, DoulaOne takes 1.4% of each invoice and event card payment and 3.4% of each marketplace sale, and Stripe charges its card fee separately. On the earlier Express setup, one fee that includes Stripe's card processing is taken from your payout: 3.4% + C$0.30 on invoices and event payments, and 4.9% + C$0.30 on marketplace sales.

Refunds of client payments. You choose when to refund a client, except where the law requires a refund. On a marketplace sale, the buyer is refunded the full price. On an invoice or event ticket, the client is refunded the payment minus Stripe's card fee. DoulaOne's fee is not returned. On accounts set up now, and when you connect a Stripe account you already have, the refund comes from your Stripe balance. On the earlier Express setup, you return the amount that was paid out to you.

Referral credits. Where we offer a referral program, any account credits are provided at our discretion under the program terms in effect and have no cash value.

We aim to keep DoulaOne available and reliable, but subject to Section 12 the Service is provided on an “as is” and “as available” basis. We do not guarantee uninterrupted or error-free operation. Planned maintenance and unforeseen outages may occur.

Support is available at contact@doulaone.com. Response times may vary based on plan and volume, and our team works primarily in the United Kingdom time zone.

We treat Customer Data as confidential and use it only to provide the Service, as described in our Privacy Policy. You are responsible for maintaining the confidentiality of sensitive client information within your workspace, including controlling team access and using features such as private notes appropriately.

DoulaOne, including its software, design, branding, and documentation, is owned by us or our licensors and protected by intellectual property laws. These Terms do not grant you any rights to our trademarks or brand assets except as needed to use the Service.

Except as expressly permitted by these Terms or by applicable law that cannot be excluded, you must not, and must not permit others to: (a) copy, reproduce, republish, or redistribute the Service or any part of it; (b) reverse engineer, decompile, disassemble, or attempt to derive the source code, structure, or underlying ideas of the Service; (c) extract, scrape, or harvest our content, code, data, or designs; (d) create derivative works from, or use, our intellectual property outside the limited licence granted to use the Service; or (e) remove, obscure, or alter any proprietary notices. All rights not expressly granted to you are reserved by us and our licensors.

If you provide feedback or suggestions, you grant us a perpetual, royalty-free licence to use them without obligation to you.

You may stop using the Service at any time. You can delete your account in Settings, or request deletion by contacting contact@doulaone.com.

We may suspend or terminate your access if you breach these Terms, fail to pay applicable fees, or if continued provision poses a legal or security risk. Where practicable, we will give notice before termination.

Upon termination, your right to access the Service ends. We will delete or return Customer Data within a reasonable period, subject to legal retention requirements. Export your data before closing your account.

DoulaOne is designed for use in the course of a business or professional practice. If, however, a consumer protection law of your province or territory applies to your use of the Service — for example Quebec's Consumer Protection Act or Ontario's Consumer Protection Act, 2002— nothing in these Terms excludes, restricts, or modifies any right or remedy you have under that law that cannot lawfully be excluded, restricted, or modified.

Sections 13, 14, 15, and 16 apply only to the extent permitted by those laws and are read subject to this Section 12. Some provinces do not allow certain warranties to be excluded or certain liability to be limited, so parts of those sections may not apply to you.

Subject to Section 12, and to the fullest extent permitted by law, the Service is provided “as is” and “as available”, and we exclude all warranties, conditions, and representations, express or implied, that are not set out in these Terms, including implied conditions of merchantable quality and fitness for a particular purpose. We do not warrant that the Service will meet your specific professional requirements or regulatory obligations, or that it will be uninterrupted, secure, or error-free.

You are responsible for determining whether the Service meets the record-keeping, privacy, tax, insurance, and professional requirements that apply to your practice.

Subject to Section 12, and to the fullest extent permitted by applicable law, DoulaOne and its directors, employees, and suppliers will not be liable for any indirect, incidental, special, punitive, or consequential loss, or for any loss of profits, data, goodwill, or business opportunity, arising from or related to your use of the Service.

Subject to Section 12, our total aggregate liability for all claims arising from these Terms or the Service, including any claim relating to privacy or our handling of Customer Data under the Data Processing Agreement, is limited to the greater of (a) the amount you paid us in the twelve months before the claim, or (b) C$150.

Our liability is reduced to the extent that your own act or omission caused or contributed to the loss.

You agree to indemnify and hold harmless DoulaOne and its directors, employees, and suppliers from claims, damages, losses, and expenses (including reasonable legal fees) arising from your use of the Service, your Customer Data, your breach of these Terms, or your breach of any law or third-party rights — including claims relating to client information you control. This indemnity is reduced to the extent our own act or omission caused the loss.

Informal resolution. Before starting a proceeding, you agree to try to resolve the dispute informally by contacting us at contact@doulaone.com. We will try to resolve it within 60 days of your notice.

Governing law. These Terms and any dispute arising out of them or the Service are governed by the laws of England and Wales, and the courts of England and Wales have jurisdiction. Nothing in this section limits any right you have under the laws of Canada or of your province or territory that cannot be excluded, or prevents you from bringing a claim in a Canadian court or tribunal where that law gives you the right to do so.

Privacy complaints. Complaints about how we handle personal information are dealt with under our Privacy Policy, which includes the escalation route to the Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada and the provincial commissioners.

We may update these Terms from time to time. We will post the revised version on this page and update the effective date. If changes are material, we will provide notice through the Service or by email. Continued use after changes take effect constitutes acceptance of the updated Terms.

These Terms, our Privacy Policy, and our Data Processing Agreement are currently available in English. We are preparing French versions. If your practice is located in Quebec, please contact us at contact@doulaone.com before accepting these Terms if you would like to receive them in French.

• Entire agreement: These Terms, our Privacy Policy, and our Data Processing Agreement constitute the entire agreement between you and DoulaOne regarding the Service.
• Severability: If any provision is unenforceable, the remainder stays in effect.
• No waiver: Failure to enforce a provision is not a waiver of that provision.
• Assignment: You may not assign these Terms without our consent. We may assign them in connection with a merger, acquisition, or sale of assets.
• Force majeure: We are not liable for delays or failures caused by events beyond our reasonable control.

Questions about these Terms:

contact@doulaone.com

See also our Privacy Policy.