The contract between you and AIV Index.

These Terms of Service (“Terms”) are a binding agreement between you (“Customer” or “you”) and Auto Alpha Advisory (Pty) Ltd (registration number: 2025/213512/07), a South African company trading as AIV Index (“we”, “us”, “AIV Index”). These Terms govern your use of the AIV Index platform at aiv.autoalphaadvisory.co.za and of every product and service offered on it, paid or free: subscriptions, refresh-credit packs, the one-off Personal AI-visibility audit, and the free tools, including the AI crawler check and the free read (together, the “Service”). They apply from the first time you use the Service. By subscribing, buying, or using a free tool, you confirm you have read, understood, and agreed to these Terms.

1. Parties and entity

Auto Alpha Advisory (Pty) Ltd is a private company incorporated under the laws of South Africa, registered with the Companies and Intellectual Property Commission (CIPC) under registration number 2025/213512/07, with its principal place of business in Cape Town, South Africa. It operates AIV Index as a SaaS product under the domain aiv.autoalphaadvisory.co.za. The company’s Information Officer (POPIA) can be reached at hello@autoalphaadvisory.co.za. Auto Alpha Advisory (Pty) Ltd is not a registered VAT vendor; no value-added tax is charged on the fees.

2. Description of the Service

AIV Index is a subscription-based AI-visibility measurement platform that:

• Generates brand-specific prompts using AI and submits them to AI engine APIs (ChatGPT / OpenAI, Claude / Anthropic, Perplexity, Gemini / Google) on a recurring schedule, measuring how often and in what context your brand is cited in AI-generated responses;
• Provides a GEO (Generative Engine Optimisation) site-readiness audit that scores your website’s compatibility with AI-engine crawlers;
• Displays brand-visibility data, trends, and insights on a web dashboard accessible at the domain above;
• Optionally ingests Google Search Console analytics if you grant read-only access; and
• Includes an AI chatbot assistant trained on your AIV data; and
• Offers a one-off Personal AI-visibility audit and free tools, which these Terms also cover.

The outputs of the Service reflect the responses of third-party AI engines at the time of measurement. They are inherently stochastic — AI engines may return different answers to the same prompt on different occasions. AIV Index does not control, endorse, or warrant the accuracy of any AI engine’s response.

3. Account and eligibility

To use the Service you must:

• Be at least 18 years of age;
• Have the legal capacity to enter into a binding contract;
• If subscribing on behalf of a company or other legal entity, represent that you have the authority to bind that entity to these Terms; and
• Provide a valid email address and accurate account details.

You authenticate via magic-link OTP email or Google OAuth. You are responsible for all activity that occurs under your account. Notify us immediately at hello@autoalphaadvisory.co.za if you believe your account has been compromised.

4. Subscription, billing, and auto-renewal

4.1 Plans and pricing

The Service is offered on the following monthly plans:

• Starter — R 650 / month
• Pro — R 1,500 / month
• Scale — R 3,500 / month

Auto Alpha Advisory (Pty) Ltd is not a registered VAT vendor, so no VAT is added to the fees. Current prices are displayed on our pricing page.
Note: billing is monthly only. Annual billing may be introduced in a future update; it has no contractual effect until it is implemented and these Terms are updated accordingly.

4.2 Payment processor

All payments are processed by PayFast (PayFast (Pty) Ltd, a South African payment gateway). When you subscribe, you enter into a recurring billing agreement directly with PayFast. The charge will appear on your statement from PayFast or its nominated entity. AIV Index does not store your card or bank account details.

4.3 Auto-renewal

Your subscription renews automatically every calendar month on the anniversary of your subscription start date. The renewal charge is debited from your payment method on file with PayFast without further action or authorisation from you each month. By subscribing you expressly authorise this recurring debit.

You will receive a receipt from PayFast for each successful charge. If a charge fails, PayFast may retry the payment; if retries are exhausted, your subscription may be suspended or cancelled and your access to the Service may be restricted until payment is resolved.

4.4 First-month trial and promotional offers

Where a promotional “first month free” offer is active at the time of your subscription, your first billing period will not be charged. The free period begins on your subscription date and ends 30 days later, after which your selected plan rate applies and monthly auto-renewal begins. Promotional offers are subject to availability and may be withdrawn at any time for new signups; they have no effect on existing subscriptions. The specific terms of any active promotion are displayed on the sign-in or pricing page at the time you subscribe.

4.5 Price changes

We may change the plan pricing at any time. For existing subscribers, a price change takes effect at the start of the billing period that begins at least 30 calendar days after we notify you by email. If you do not cancel before the new price takes effect, you are deemed to accept the new price. We will never apply a price increase retroactively to a completed billing period.

5. Cancellation and refund policy

5.1 How to cancel

You may cancel your subscription at any time via the PayFast customer portal. An in-app cancellation flow is not yet available. To access the PayFast portal, use the link provided in your PayFast subscription confirmation email, or email hello@autoalphaadvisory.co.za and we will assist you within two business days.

5.2 Effect of cancellation

Cancellation takes effect at the end of the current billing period. You retain full access to the Service until that date. No further charges are made after the billing period ends. Your account data (brand settings, sweep history, and reports) is retained for 30 days after your subscription ends, during which you may request an export of your data (hello@autoalphaadvisory.co.za). After 30 days we may delete your data in accordance with our Privacy Policy.

5.3 Refund policy

Monthly subscriptions are not refunded on a pro-rata basis for unused days within a billing period. If you cancel mid-month, you keep access until the period end and no partial refund is issued. This is consistent with the “cancel any time, access until period-end” model disclosed on our pricing page.

Exceptions: (a) If we have charged you in error (e.g. a duplicate charge), we will refund the incorrect amount within 10 business days of being notified. (b) If the Service is unavailable for more than 72 consecutive hours in a billing period due to a fault attributable to us, you may request a pro-rata credit for the affected days; such credit will be applied to your next invoice rather than refunded in cash.

Nothing in this clause limits your rights under the Consumer Protection Act, 2008 (“CPA”).

5.4 Refresh credit packs

Refresh credits are a once-off prepaid purchase, not a subscription — nothing auto-renews. Each credit triggers one immediate additional sweep of a tracked brand and resets that brand’s included monthly sweep to 30 days from the refresh, as shown beside the refresh button before you spend. Credits do not expire while your subscription remains active. If your subscription ends, unspent credits are forfeited 30 days after the subscription end date (the same window as the §5.2 data-retention period).

A spent credit is not refundable once its sweep has run. Fully unspent packs are refunded on written request within 7 days of purchase, per the cooling-off right in §44 of the Electronic Communications and Transactions Act, 2002 (“ECTA”); after 7 days, unspent credits are refundable at our discretion. The exceptions in §5.3 (billing errors; payments that fail to credit) apply to credit packs in full, and nothing in this clause limits your CPA rights.

5.5 The one-off Personal AI-visibility audit

The audit is a single paid read of your brand in AI answers, for the price shown at checkout (currently R750), paid once through PayFast. It is not a subscription and nothing renews. After payment we run the read and email you the audit once a person has checked it.

You may cancel within 7 days after you pay, without giving a reason and without penalty, and we will refund the fee in full within 30 days of your cancellation (ECTA §44(1)(b) and §44(3)). That cooling-off right does not apply once the read has begun with your consent before the 7 days end (ECTA §42(2)(d)). Sections 8 and 9 apply to the audit as they do to the rest of the Service, and nothing in this clause limits your CPA rights.

6. Acceptable use

You agree not to:

• Use the Service to measure or track brands you do not own or have no legitimate business relationship with, in a manner intended to harm or mislead the brand owner;
• Abuse the AI engine querying infrastructure, including submitting bulk or automated requests outside your plan’s cadence in a manner that increases our API costs disproportionately;
• Resell, sublicense, or redistribute raw AI engine response data obtained through the Service to third parties, except with our prior written consent;
• Use the Service to track, profile, or build datasets on private individuals without their consent;
• Attempt to reverse-engineer, scrape, or copy the Service’s prompt methodology, scoring algorithms, or proprietary GEO audit logic;
• Use the Service for any purpose that violates applicable law, including the Electronic Communications and Transactions Act, 2002, the CPA, or POPIA; or
• Impersonate another company or individual in your account, brand, or domain configuration.

We may suspend or terminate your account immediately if we have reasonable grounds to believe you have violated this section.

7. Data ownership and intellectual property

7.1 Your brand data

You retain all ownership of: (a) the brand name, domain, and competitor information you configure; (b) the sweep results and brand-visibility data generated for your account; and (c) any exports provided to you. We process this data solely to provide the Service to you.

7.2 Our intellectual property

AIV Index retains all rights in: (a) the prompt-generation methodology; (b) the GEO site-readiness scoring algorithm and audit logic; (c) the benchmark indices and aggregated (de-identified) industry benchmarks derived from multi-tenant data; and (d) the dashboard software, design system, and all underlying code.

7.3 Aggregate analytics

We may use de-identified, aggregated data across all tenants to improve the Service and to publish industry-level insights (e.g. “average AI brand-citation rate for South African financial services companies”). Individual tenant data is never published or shared in identifiable form.

8. Accuracy of AI-engine outputs — no warranty

AIV Index measures the responses of third-party AI engines (OpenAI, Anthropic, Perplexity, Google Gemini). These engines are outside our control and their outputs are:

• Stochastic — the same prompt may produce different responses at different times;
• Subject to change — AI providers update their models without notice; brand-citation patterns may shift as a result; and
• Not investment, legal, regulatory, or marketing advice — AIV data is a measurement tool only.

The Service is provided “as is” and “as available”. We make no warranty, express or implied, including any implied warranty of merchantability, fitness for a particular purpose, or that the Service will be error-free or uninterrupted.

8.1 What AIV Index itself generates

AIV Index also generates its own content: prompts, fix page specs, content-gap reports, the one-off audit’s read, and chatbot answers. These are suggestions for your review. Check them, yourself or with your own adviser, before you publish anything or act on them. You are responsible for any content you publish, including statements about competitors or other businesses, and we do not warrant their accuracy or any ranking, citation or visibility outcome.

Everything the Service produces for you is prepared for you alone. No other person may rely on it, and Auto Alpha Advisory (Pty) Ltd and its directors, employees and contractors owe no duty of care to any other person in connection with it. If you share a report or an export, you share it for information only, and you must not tell the recipient that they may rely on it.

9. Limitation of liability and indemnity

Losses we do not cover. Auto Alpha Advisory (Pty) Ltd and its directors, employees and contractors are not liable to you for:

1. indirect or consequential loss;
2. loss of profit, revenue, business, goodwill or anticipated savings, or reputational harm;
3. any fine, penalty, interest, administrative sanction or levy imposed on you by any regulator or authority, or any amount you pay to settle one;
4. the answers of any third-party AI engine, or any decision you take on the data the Service surfaces without checking it as Section 8.1 asks.

The cap. Our total liability to you for all claims arising out of or in connection with these Terms or the Service, together, whether the claim is in contract, in delict (including negligence), under statute or otherwise, is limited to the greater of (a) the fees paid or payable by you for the Service in the 12 months before the event giving rise to the first claim, and (b) R50,000. That is one amount shared by Auto Alpha Advisory (Pty) Ltd and its directors, employees and contractors, not one amount each.

What these Terms do not limit. Nothing in these Terms excludes or limits:

1. liability for fraud or dishonesty;
2. liability for wilful misconduct;
3. where the Consumer Protection Act 68 of 2008 applies to your agreement with us, liability for loss attributable to our gross negligence or that of anyone acting for or controlled by us;
4. otherwise, liability for gross negligence to the extent the law does not allow it to be limited;
5. any right you have under the CPA or the Electronic Communications and Transactions Act 25 of 2002 that cannot be waived, or any other liability the law does not allow us to limit.

Saving. If any part of this section cannot be enforced against you, that part applies to the fullest extent the law allows, and the rest of these Terms continues to apply.

Claims lie against the company. You agree to bring any claim arising out of or in connection with the Service against Auto Alpha Advisory (Pty) Ltd only, and not against any of its directors, employees or contractors personally, except in the case of their fraud. The exclusions, the cap and the saving above are for the benefit of those directors, employees and contractors as well as the company, and each of them may rely on them.

Your indemnity. You indemnify Auto Alpha Advisory (Pty) Ltd and its directors, employees and contractors against any claim by a third party, and the loss, damages and reasonable legal costs that follow from it, to the extent it arises from:

1. your breach of these Terms;
2. a brand, domain or competitor you asked us to track that you had no right to nominate;
3. content you submit to the Service, or your use of the Service in a way that infringes another person’s rights;
4. your publication or other use of anything the Service produces, including statements you publish about competitors or other businesses.

This indemnity does not apply to the extent the loss was caused by our fraud, wilful misconduct, gross negligence or breach of these Terms. We will tell you promptly of any claim it covers and will not settle that claim without your consent, which you will not unreasonably withhold.

10. Suspension and termination

We may suspend or terminate your access to the Service immediately, with written notice, if you: (a) materially breach these Terms and fail to remedy the breach within 7 days of notice; (b) engage in conduct that violates Section 6 (Acceptable Use); (c) become insolvent or enter business rescue; or (d) your subscription payment fails and is not cured within the grace period provided by PayFast.

On termination for cause, no refund is owed for the current billing period. You may terminate at any time for convenience under Section 5.

11. Governing law and jurisdiction

These Terms are governed by and construed in accordance with the laws of the Republic of South Africa. Any dispute arising from or in connection with these Terms will first be referred to good-faith negotiation by email to hello@autoalphaadvisory.co.za. If not resolved within 30 calendar days, either party may refer the matter to the Western Cape High Court (Cape Town), whose jurisdiction both parties submit to. Nothing in this clause prevents either party from seeking urgent interim relief from any court of competent jurisdiction.

The Consumer Protection Act, 2008 and POPIA apply to the extent required by law and are not excluded by these Terms.

12. Changes to these Terms

We may change these Terms by emailing you, and posting the new version here, at least 30 days before the change takes effect. If you do not accept a change, you may cancel before it takes effect, without charge, and we will refund any fee you have paid for the period after you cancel. A change needed to comply with the law or to fix a security problem may take effect sooner, and you may still cancel on the same terms. If a change affects Sections 8 or 9, we will ask you to accept the new version before you next use the Service. Price changes follow Section 4.5.

13. Entire agreement

These Terms, with our Privacy Policy, are the whole agreement between you and us about the Service. This does not limit liability for a fraudulent misrepresentation, and it is not an acknowledgement that no representations were made to you before you agreed.

14. Who we are and how to reach us

Auto Alpha Advisory (Pty) Ltd, a private company registered in South Africa with the Companies and Intellectual Property Commission under registration number 2025/213512/07, trading as AIV Index.

Director

Matthew Owen

Address, including for service of legal documents

96 New Church Street, Gardens, Cape Town, 8001

Telephone

084 584 1849

Email

hello@autoalphaadvisory.co.za (general enquiries, disputes, and Information Officer requests under POPIA)

Website

aiv.autoalphaadvisory.co.za