Service Agreement

1. Covered Services

Covered services may include shared hosting, website hosting, WordPress hosting, managed website support, email hosting, DNS hosting, SSL certificate support, domain coordination, and related administrative or technical services as agreed between Hawthorn and the customer.

2. Billing and Payment Terms

• Services are billed monthly, annually, or on another billing cycle agreed to in writing.
• Invoices are due on the invoice due date shown on the customer account or invoice.
• Past-due balances may be subject to late fees as permitted by applicable law or by the customer's service order.
• Pricing may be updated by Hawthorn upon at least thirty (30) days' notice for recurring services, unless a different pricing term is stated in a written agreement.

3. Past-Due Accounts and Card-on-File Authorization

Hawthorn incurs ongoing infrastructure, software, licensing, and third-party pass-through costs to keep customer hosting and email services active. If an account becomes past due, Hawthorn may attempt to charge any valid payment card on file for the outstanding balance in order to avoid service interruption and to recover costs Hawthorn must continue covering on the customer's behalf.

Restoration of suspended services may require full payment of the outstanding balance, any applicable late fees, and any reasonable reactivation or emergency recovery charges associated with restoring service.

4. Customer Responsibilities

• The customer must maintain accurate billing, contact, and payment information.
• The customer is responsible for content, mailboxes, applications, and account activity under its control.
• The customer must keep local copies of important data and credentials where appropriate.
• The customer must promptly review notices from Hawthorn relating to billing, security, abuse, suspension risk, or service-impacting issues.

5. Cancellation and Termination

• The customer may cancel recurring hosting or email services by providing at least thirty (30) days' written notice.
• Unless otherwise agreed in writing, cancellation takes effect at the end of the current billing period following the notice period.
• Fees already paid are non-refundable except where required by law or expressly agreed by Hawthorn in writing.
• Hawthorn may terminate or decline renewal of services upon written notice if the account remains chronically delinquent, abusive, unlawful, or operationally unmanageable.

6. Suspension Rights

Hawthorn may suspend or restrict services immediately, with or without advance notice, when reasonably necessary to protect infrastructure, other customers, third-party vendors, or the public internet. This includes situations involving non-payment, spam, malware, phishing, compromise, unlawful content, denial-of-service activity, or other misuse.

7. Acceptable Use

• No spam, phishing, malware, botnet activity, credential theft, or unlawful content distribution.
• No intentional service abuse, resource exhaustion, or activity that materially degrades platform stability.
• No use of Hawthorn services in a manner that violates applicable law, third-party rights, or upstream provider rules.

8. Backups and Data Retention

Hawthorn may maintain system backups, snapshots, or operational copies for service continuity, disaster recovery, or migration purposes; however, unless a separate backup service is expressly included in writing, Hawthorn does not guarantee that any specific backup will exist, be complete, or be recoverable at any given time.

The customer remains responsible for maintaining independent copies of critical website files, databases, mailbox contents, and other business records.

9. Domains, DNS, and Third-Party Services

Domain registration, DNS, SSL, email delivery, and other related functions may depend on third-party registrars, certificate authorities, infrastructure vendors, or upstream service providers. Hawthorn is not liable for outages, delays, renewal failures, or service limitations caused by third parties, provided Hawthorn acts in commercially reasonable good faith to support the customer.

10. Service Availability

Hawthorn will make commercially reasonable efforts to provide reliable service, but does not guarantee uninterrupted or error-free operation. Scheduled maintenance, emergency maintenance, upstream outages, cyber incidents, power failures, hardware failures, software defects, and force majeure events may affect service availability.

11. Limited Warranty Disclaimer

Except as expressly stated in a separate written agreement, services are provided on an "as is" and "as available" basis. Hawthorn disclaims all implied warranties, including warranties of merchantability, fitness for a particular purpose, and non-infringement, to the fullest extent permitted by law.

12. Limitation of Liability

To the fullest extent permitted by law, Hawthorn will not be liable for indirect, incidental, special, consequential, exemplary, or punitive damages, or for lost revenue, lost profits, lost data, or business interruption. Hawthorn's total liability arising from or related to the covered services will not exceed the total amount paid by the customer to Hawthorn for the affected service during the three (3) months preceding the event giving rise to the claim.

13. Indemnification

The customer agrees to defend, indemnify, and hold harmless Hawthorn from claims, damages, losses, liabilities, and expenses arising from the customer's content, misuse of services, violation of law, or breach of this Service Agreement.

14. Changes to This Agreement

Hawthorn may update this Service Agreement from time to time. Material changes may be provided by email, invoice notice, customer portal notice, or publication on this website. Continued use of the covered services after the effective date of an update constitutes acceptance of the revised terms.

15. Governing Law

This Service Agreement is governed by the laws of the State of Oklahoma, without regard to conflict-of-law rules. Venue for disputes shall lie in the state or federal courts serving Payne County, Oklahoma, unless otherwise required by law.

16. Contact

Hawthorn Consulting, LLC
Email: customerservice@hawthornconsulting.net
Website: hawthornconsulting.net