Last updated 2 October 2026. Effective 2 October 2026. Earlier versions are available on request.
These are the terms between Pickwick, Houston, Texas ("Pickwick", "we"), and the business that creates an account, forwards a line to Pickwick, or signs an order form to use Pickwick to answer its phone (the "shop", "you"). By doing any of those things you agree to these terms on behalf of the shop, and you confirm that you may bind it. Who Pickwick is, on paper, is at the end.
What the platform does
It answers the shop's published number, tells the caller it is an automated assistant and that the call is recorded, works out whether the call is an emergency or routine, takes the caller's details, offers appointment windows from the shop's hours and calendar, and asks the shop's staff — in the dashboard, or by text once business texting is live — to confirm a booking or take over a call. Nothing is booked, dispatched or promised to a caller as final until a person at the shop says so.
Two things the shop cannot change
- Every caller is told, before anything else (after the language choice, where Spanish is on), that they are talking to an automated assistant and that the call is recorded. If a caller declines recording, recording stops and what was kept so far is deleted (the caller's request itself is kept). The shop must not disable, shorten or talk over that notice.
- A caller who describes gas, carbon monoxide, smoke or sparking is told to hang up and call 911.
Not an emergency service. Pickwick is not an emergency service and does not handle 911 calls. Anyone with a suspected emergency should hang up and call 911 directly. Pickwick uses fixed wording to prompt this, and cannot guarantee it detects every hazard. The line Pickwick assigns to the shop receives forwarded calls only; it cannot place calls, including to 911.
What the shop is responsible for
- Its own facts: hours, the service fee, the service area, the supervisors and technicians to ask. Until the shop sets them, the assistant does not guess; it offers a callback.
- Complying with call-recording law where it operates and where its callers are. The platform records every call, unless the caller declines recording, and gives the notice; the shop is responsible for any further obligations where it operates, and for telling its own staff that calls the assistant hands to them may be recorded.
- Deciding on what the assistant proposes. An appointment penciled in and never decided is a slot nobody else can have.
- Its staff accounts. Invitations go to people the owner names; each sets their own password.
- Texts to its people. The shop gives Pickwick the mobile numbers of its supervisors and technicians only with their agreement to receive job, approval and emergency texts for the shop, and tells them they can reply STOP at any time; a person who replies STOP is not texted again until they reply START, and the shop will reach them another way. The missed-call text the shop writes may say only that the call was missed and the shop will call back; it may not promote, offer or price anything, and it is sent once per missed call.
- What it uses the platform for. The shop will not use the platform for information that requires a HIPAA Business Associate Agreement.
- The notice to visitors on its own website, if it puts the Pickwick chat there: that the chat is automated, that what a visitor types is sent to Pickwick's language-model provider to write the replies and kept with the shop's calls for the shop's retention period, and that the shop is the one to contact about it.
Using the platform properly
The platform is for businesses, used by people aged eighteen or over who may bind the business. The shop will not use it, and will not let anyone use it, to: break a law (including call-recording, consumer-protection, telemarketing and fair-housing law); collect debts; make or screen decisions about a person's housing, employment, credit, insurance, health care or legal rights; handle information that needs a HIPAA Business Associate Agreement; send marketing texts; record anyone without the notice the platform gives; resell the platform; probe or load-test it; or copy its prompts, voices or code. The line Pickwick assigns to the shop is for calls forwarded to Pickwick; it is not a phone service for the shop and cannot place calls, including to 911. Pickwick may suspend a shop that breaks these rules or whose use threatens the service for others, and will say why.
Chat on the shop's website
If the shop puts the Pickwick chat on its own website, what a visitor types is sent to Pickwick's language-model provider to write the replies and saved with the shop's calls, under the same retention period; card and Social Security numbers are removed before it is saved. The shop answers its visitors' questions about that chat, and is responsible for its site's notice to them.
The shop's data
Calls, recordings, transcripts, appointments and decisions belong to the shop. The shop gives Pickwick the right to store and process them only to provide the service to the shop, to keep the service secure, and to measure how fast and how reliably it runs (timings and counts, never the contents of a call). Pickwick does not use a shop's calls to train models of its own, does not sell or share them, does not combine them with another shop's, and requires the service providers it uses (described by role in the privacy notice and named on the sub-processor page) to process them only to provide their service. If Pickwick cannot meet these obligations it will tell the shop. On request Pickwick provides an archive of everything it holds for the shop and deletes the rest, helps the shop answer a caller's request about their own call, and describes its security measures and service providers. Pickwick will tell the shop within seventy-two hours of learning that its callers' data was accessed by someone who should not have had it, with what is known at the time. Where the shop or its callers are in a state with a privacy law, these paragraphs are the contract that law requires between a controller and its processor, and a data processing addendum is available on request.
The platform itself — its software, prompts, voices, designs, and the text of this website — belongs to Pickwick. The shop may use it only as these terms allow. Suggestions the shop gives Pickwick may be used without obligation.
Availability
The platform is monitored around the clock and backed up nightly. It depends on the phone carrier and the speech, language-model and voice providers described in the privacy notice, and on the shop's own number routing. Support is by email at support@pickwick.ai on business days (Central time); any service level or credits are those set out in the shop's order form.
The free trial
After-hours & overflow and Pro are free for fourteen days from the day the shop's line goes live; no card is taken. Before the trial ends Pickwick asks the shop whether it wants to continue. If the shop says no, or says nothing, the line stops answering at the end of the trial and the shop's data is handled as under "Ending the service". Nothing is charged unless the shop agrees to a plan. One trial per business. Pickwick may end a trial early if it is being used for something other than evaluating the service.
Fees
Fees are those of the plan the shop chose at sign-up, as shown on the pricing page on that day, or those in the shop's order form. Plans are billed monthly in advance, or annually in advance with two months free. Minutes over the plan's allowance are billed at the plan's overage rate in the following invoice. Fees are in US dollars and exclusive of taxes, which are added where they apply. An invoice is due on receipt; a plan unpaid fourteen days after a reminder may be paused until it is paid. Pickwick may change prices with thirty days' notice by email; a change takes effect at the shop's next renewal, and a shop that does not want it may end the service before then. Except where these terms or an offer's written conditions say otherwise, fees already paid are not refunded.
Liability
The assistant takes messages and pencils in appointments; it does not diagnose or repair, and gives no repair instructions beyond checking a thermostat setting or a tripped breaker. The shop remains responsible for the work it does, the promises its staff make, the facts it gives the assistant, and what happens at a caller's property.
To the extent the law allows, Pickwick's total liability under these terms, for any cause, is limited to the greater of the fees the shop paid in the twelve months before the claim and one hundred dollars, and neither side is liable for indirect, incidental, special or consequential losses, lost profits, or lost business, however caused, even if told they were possible. These limits do not apply to a side's indemnity obligations, to its fraud or wilful misconduct, or to anything the law does not allow to be limited.
The shop will defend and indemnify Pickwick against third-party claims arising from the shop's business, its callers and their property, the facts and messages it gives the assistant, its use of recordings, its staff's decisions, and its breach of these terms. Pickwick will defend and indemnify the shop against third-party claims that the platform, used as these terms allow, infringes a US patent, copyright or trademark, and against Pickwick's breach of its data obligations above. Each side will tell the other promptly of a claim and let it control the defence.
No warranty
The platform is provided "as is" and "as available". To the extent the law allows, Pickwick makes no warranties beyond those in these terms, express or implied, including merchantability, fitness for a particular purpose and non-infringement, and does not warrant that the service will be uninterrupted or error-free, that every call will be answered, that the assistant will understand or record every detail correctly, or that it will detect every call that needs emergency help.
Ending the service
Either side may end it with thirty days' written notice. The Pickwick line assigned to the shop is released (the shop's own number was always its own), its archive is provided, and its data is deleted after thirty days. A shop that ends the service owes fees through the end of its notice period and any overage already used. If Pickwick ends the service other than for the shop's breach, it refunds any period paid for and not used. A shop on a free trial may simply stop, and owes nothing.
The rest
Pickwick may change these terms by posting the new version here, with its date, and emailing the shop's owner at least fourteen days before it takes effect; a shop that does not accept the change may end the service before then. Notices to the shop go to the owner's email address on the account; notices to Pickwick go to support@pickwick.ai. Neither side is liable for delay caused by something outside its reasonable control, including a carrier or provider outage, but the shop still owes fees for service it received. The shop may not assign these terms without Pickwick's consent; Pickwick may assign them to a company that takes over its business, and will tell the shop. These terms, the pricing page, any order form and the privacy notice are the whole agreement; if a term is unenforceable the rest stands. The sections on data, liability, indemnity, fees owed, and law and disputes survive the end of the service.
Law and disputes
These terms are governed by the laws of the State of Texas, without regard to its conflict of laws rules. Either side may bring a dispute in the state or federal courts located in Harris County, Texas, and both sides agree those courts may hear it. Before suing, each side will write to the other describing the problem and give it thirty days to put it right.
Who Pickwick is
Pickwick is operated from Houston, Texas. "Pickwick" is a trade name. Questions about these terms: email support@pickwick.ai or use the contact page.