Terms of Service

1. Business use only

Clairn is a service for businesses. The person placing an order must be at least 18, and the order must be for a business, not for personal, family or household purposes.

2. The service

We prepare answers to a vendor security questionnaire, such as a SIG Lite, CAIQ, HECVAT, VSA or custom spreadsheet, using your materials. One order covers one questionnaire, or one set of questionnaires that a single buyer sends for the same review, with their questions counted together.

Every order includes

• Every question answered, or explicitly flagged where the answer is a decision only you can make.
• Answers matched against your existing documented answers: trust page, prior questionnaires, MSA, and your SOC 2 report if you have one.
• Delivered in the original file format and structure, ready to send once you have reviewed it, or entered in your buyer's portal if you grant us a seat.
• Where one buyer sends overlapping questionnaires, answers cross-checked so they agree.
• A gap list of anything you would be claiming but cannot currently evidence, written plainly enough to hand to your board.
• Revisions on our answers for 30 days after delivery, and follow-up rounds for 60 days after delivery if your buyer comes back with questions on something we wrote.

No order includes

• Writing policies you do not have. We tell you which ones are missing and why they were asked for; drafting them is separate work.
• SOC 2, ISO 27001, or any audit or readiness engagement. We are not an auditor and we do not issue attestations.
• Claiming controls you do not actually operate. We will not write “yes” where the honest answer is “not yet”.
• Calls or meetings with your buyer. We draft written responses to follow-up questions; you send them.
• Legal review. We answer security questions; your counsel owns contract language.

Each tier also includes any extra features listed for it in the pricing section when you order. If something you need is on the “No order includes” list, ask us before you buy.

3. Not an audit, not legal advice

Clairn is not an auditor and does not certify, attest to or verify your security controls. Our answers describe your security program as your materials and your team describe it to us. We do not test whether your controls operate as documented.

Nothing we deliver is a SOC 2 report, an ISO 27001 certification, an audit opinion, or legal advice. We will not write that you have a control when you have told us, or your materials show, that you do not.

Our work is for you only. We make no statement of our own to your buyer, and you will not tell your buyer that we verified or vouch for your answers.

4. Your responsibilities

• Accurate information. Give us materials that are accurate and current, and answer the questions we flag for you. Our answers are only as accurate as what we are given.
• Review before you submit. Read every answer before it goes to your buyer. You decide what is submitted, and once submitted, the answers are your company’s statements to your buyer.
• Right to share. Only send materials you are allowed to share with us, including under any restrictions your auditor places on your SOC 2 report.

What not to send

Do not send us production access, passwords, API keys or other credentials for your systems (a buyer portal seat you choose to give us is the only exception), your customers’ personal data, health information, payment card data, or classified or export-controlled information. None of it is needed for this work. If any of it reaches us by mistake, we will tell you and delete it.

5. Orders, pricing and payment

Prices are per questionnaire, in US dollars, as shown in the pricing section when you order. You pay the full price upfront through Stripe. You are responsible for any taxes that apply to your purchase, other than taxes on our income.

Question count and tiers

Tiers are set by the number of questions in the questionnaire, whether it is a file or a portal assessment. Each item that needs its own answer counts as one question. A yes/no question with a box for comments or evidence counts as one. Sub-questions with their own answer fields count separately. Section headings and instructions do not count, and neither do questions the questionnaire tells you to skip because of an earlier answer.

We count the questions when we receive the questionnaire and email you the count. We wait for your reply only if the count puts you in a higher tier or over 350 questions.

• If the count falls in a lower tier than you bought, we move you down and refund the difference.
• If it falls in a higher tier, we send you a payment link for the difference. If you tell us you would rather not pay it, or have not paid it within 10 business days of our email, we refund you in full and the order ends.
• If the questionnaire has more than 350 questions, we quote the price and turnaround before starting, with what you have already paid credited against the quote. If you decline the quote, or have not accepted it and paid any balance within 10 business days of our email, we refund you in full and the order ends.

Refunds

We issue every refund under these terms within 5 business days of it becoming due, to your original payment method through Stripe. Your bank may take longer to show it. If something about a charge looks wrong, please email us before disputing it with your bank; a refund from us is faster than a chargeback.

6. Turnaround

Every tier is delivered within 5 business days. Business days are Monday to Friday, excluding US federal holidays, and each one ends at 11:59 p.m. Eastern Time.

Your deadline is the end of the fifth business day after the day we have all three of these:

1. your payment;
2. the questionnaire (for a portal assessment, a working seat or a complete export of its questions); and
3. at least one supporting document: your SOC 2 report, your ISO 27001 certificate, a written security policy (such as information security, access control or incident response), or a questionnaire you have answered before.

For example, if we have everything on a Monday and none of the next five weekdays is a federal holiday, your deadline is the end of the following Monday.

If the question count moves you to a higher tier, your payment (item 1) is complete only once you pay the difference. A move to a lower tier never delays your deadline. For a quoted order, the deadline is the one in the quote. Your deadline is set on the day we have all three items above or, for a quoted order, the day you accept the quote and pay any balance. We will email it to you, but these rules set it even if our email is late or wrong.

Open questions do not stop the clock. If something needs a decision only you can make, we deliver on time with that item flagged. If you have asked us to enter answers in your buyer’s portal and the seat is not ready, we deliver the answers as a document by the deadline.

Cancelling

• Until we have everything listed above, you can cancel by email for a full refund.
• If we miss your deadline, you can cancel by email at any time before we deliver, for a full refund.
• If we tell you we are adding a service provider that would handle your materials, you object, and we cannot accommodate the objection, you can cancel by email for a full refund at any time before we deliver.
• Otherwise, once your deadline is set, we finish the work, and the money-back guarantee applies after delivery.

7. Delivery, revisions and follow-ups

We deliver by email. The delivery date is the first day we either email you the completed answers as a document or, where we enter them in your buyer’s portal, email you that every answer we can give is entered and ready for your review (flagged items are left for you). If we send a document because the seat was not ready, or because you asked us to wait before entering answers, that email is the delivery and meets your deadline; entering the answers in the portal afterwards counts as a revision.

Revisions and follow-ups do not change the delivery date, so they never extend any of the windows in these terms.

• Revisions. Ask within 30 days of delivery and we will revise the answers in the deliverable to reflect your feedback or new information you give us.
• Follow-up rounds. If your buyer’s reviewers come back with questions about answers we wrote, send them to us within 60 days of delivery and we will draft responses for you to send.

A different questionnaire, a new version with added questions, or a questionnaire from another buyer is a new order.

8. Money-back guarantee

If the deliverable is not something you would be willing to send to your buyer, email us within 14 days of delivery and we will refund the full price. You do not need to give a reason.

• The guarantee ends once any of our answers, in whole or in part, have been submitted to your buyer. An answer is submitted when you, or we with your approval, send it to your buyer in any form or submit it in your buyer’s portal. Entering answers as drafts in your buyer’s portal, whether you do it or we do, is not submitting them.
• Once any answer has been submitted, revisions and follow-up rounds still apply, but the guarantee does not.
• Refunds are issued as described under “Orders, pricing and payment”.
• Once you are refunded, the deliverable is no longer yours to use. See “Who owns what”.

9. Confidentiality

Your materials, the deliverable, and anything you tell us about your business that is not public are your confidential information. We use your confidential information only to do your work, and we protect it with at least reasonable care. Except where the law requires it (see below), we share it only with:

• the service providers listed in our Privacy Policy, which store or carry it for us;
• our professional advisers, such as a lawyer, accountant or insurer, when they need it and are bound to keep it confidential;
• your buyer, directly or through its questionnaire portal, when you ask us to enter, submit or send answers to it; and
• anyone who takes over Clairn’s business, who must keep to this section.

We delete it on the schedule in our Privacy Policy.

This does not cover information that is or becomes public through no fault of ours, that we already knew, that we develop independently, or that we receive from someone else without a duty of confidentiality. If the law requires us to disclose your confidential information, we will tell you first if we are allowed to, and disclose only what is required.

• We do not subcontract your work. It is done by Alex Walker.
• We do not name you as a customer, use your logo, or describe your order without your written permission.
• If you want a non-disclosure agreement before you send anything, we will review yours or provide ours. If we have signed one with you, it governs confidentiality where it conflicts with this section. It changes other parts of these terms, such as the limitation of liability, only where it says so expressly.

Personal information in your materials

We process personal information in your materials only to do your work, on your instructions in these terms and your order. We do not sell it, share it for advertising, combine it with personal information we get from anyone else, or use it for any other purpose. We keep it confidential and secure as our Privacy Policy describes, using only the providers listed there. We tell you if we receive a request about it, or can no longer meet these obligations, and help you respond. We delete it on the schedule in our Privacy Policy.

These obligations continue after our work for you ends.

10. Buyer portal access

If you give us a seat in your buyer’s questionnaire portal, you are responsible for checking that your buyer’s terms allow it, and for giving us a seat limited to viewing and editing answers for your assessment where the portal allows that. We use the seat only to enter answers for your order and, with your written approval, to submit them. We will not submit the assessment, or mark anything as final, without your written approval. If your buyer can see draft answers before submission, tell us and we will wait for your approval before entering them. Please remove our access once we have delivered. If a revision, a follow-up, or a submission you want us to make needs us back in the portal, you can grant it again.

11. Who owns what

You own your materials. Once you have paid, you also own the deliverable and may use, change and share it however you like. If an order is refunded in full, your rights to its deliverable end: you agree not to use it and to delete your copies.

We keep our general skills, knowledge and methods, and any templates that contain nothing specific to you. We never put your confidential information into them.

12. Disclaimers

We do not promise that your buyer will accept the answers, that a deal will close, or any particular outcome from a security review.

Except for the commitments these terms make expressly (including turnaround, revisions, follow-up rounds and the money-back guarantee), the service and this website are provided “as is”. To the fullest extent the law allows, we disclaim all implied warranties, including merchantability, fitness for a particular purpose and non-infringement.

13. Limitation of liability

To the fullest extent the law allows:

• Neither of us is liable to the other for indirect, incidental, special, consequential or punitive damages, or for lost profits, revenue, deals or data, even if told they were possible. This does not limit your obligation to pay for an order or your indemnity below.
• Our total liability for all claims arising from or relating to an order is limited to the amount you paid for that order. Our total liability for all other claims, including claims about materials you sent us before placing an order, is limited to US$500.
• Any claim must be brought within one year after it arises.

These limits do not apply to liability for fraud, gross negligence or willful misconduct, or to any liability the law does not allow to be limited. Our prices reflect this allocation of risk.

14. Indemnity

You will defend and indemnify us against third-party claims, including claims by your buyer, that arise from: materials you gave us without the right to share them; data you sent us in breach of “What not to send”; or answers submitted to your buyer, whether by you or by us with your approval, including claims that we were negligent in preparing them. This does not cover claims caused by our fraud, gross negligence or willful misconduct.

15. Declining or ending an order

We may decline any order before your deadline is set and refund you in full, for example if the work is outside our scope.

We will not write an answer we believe is untrue, and we will decline any request to change an answer to one. Declining is not a breach of these terms and does not by itself entitle you to a refund outside the money-back guarantee.

The sections on confidentiality, ownership, disclaimers, limitation of liability, indemnity and disputes continue after an order ends.

16. Governing law and disputes

If something goes wrong, email us first. We will both try in good faith to resolve it for 30 days from that email before either of us starts a legal claim.

These terms are governed by the laws of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, without regard to its conflict-of-laws rules. Any claim must be brought in the state or federal courts located in Pennsylvania, and we both consent to their jurisdiction. Either of us may instead bring a claim that qualifies in a Pennsylvania small claims court (a magisterial district court, or Philadelphia Municipal Court).

17. Changes to these terms

We may update these terms by posting a new version with a new effective date. The version in effect when you placed an order governs that order. Changes never apply to orders already placed.

18. General

• Whole agreement. These terms, your order and any agreement we have both signed, such as an NDA, are the whole agreement between us. A separate agreement we have both signed controls where it conflicts with these terms, except that a non-disclosure agreement changes these terms only as described under “Confidentiality”. Terms in your purchase orders or vendor forms do not apply unless we sign them.
• No third-party rights. These terms are only between you and us. No one else, including your buyer, has rights under them or may rely on our work. Our answers reach your buyer only as your company’s own statements.
• Written notice and approvals. Wherever these terms say “written” or “by email”, an email is enough. We write to the email address on your order, and we act on requests and approvals from that address or from anyone it tells us in writing is authorized. You can reach us at alex@clairn.app.
• Events outside our control. Neither of us is responsible for delays caused by events beyond reasonable control. If one delays your delivery past your deadline, you can still cancel for a full refund under “Turnaround”.
• Transfer. Neither of us may transfer these terms without the other’s consent, except as part of a sale of the business or, for us, to a company we own or control, such as if Clairn becomes an LLC. Either way, the other is told first.
• Relationship. We are an independent contractor. Nothing here creates a partnership, employment or agency relationship.
• Severability and waiver. If any part of these terms is unenforceable, the rest still applies. Not enforcing a term is not a waiver of it.

19. Contact

Questions about these terms, revision requests, follow-up questions from your buyer, refund requests and cancellations all go to alex@clairn.app.