The guarantees we put in writing, and the ones you should demand from any platform

A guarantee is a vendor putting their money where their promise is. Here are the ones we write into offers, and the four you should demand from anyone selling you a platform.

Buying a platform is not really a software decision. It is a bet that the thing will be set up, used by your team and earning before the novelty wears off. Most of the risk in that bet sits with you, which is exactly backwards: we are the ones who know whether we can deliver.

So we move the risk back to our side and write it into the offer. Here is what that looks like.

Our guarantees

Deployed on time, or we keep working for free

Your first client store is deployed within 48 business hours of us receiving your assets. If we miss it, we keep working at no charge until it is live, and if you would rather walk, you get your money back. The clock starts when we have what we asked for, which is why the list is short and published in our 7-day setup article.

Earning inside 30 days, or your money back

If your store is launched and has not made money within 30 days, you get your money back. This one matters more than it looks: it forces us to care about whether your clients actually order, not only whether the store exists.

Revisions until your client approves

Design revisions on a client store continue until your client approves it. You are the one who has to face them. We are not going to hand you something you have to apologize for.

A custom guarantee, written for your situation

If the thing you are worried about is not covered above, tell us on the call and we will write a guarantee around it. We can do that because we know our delivery. Your success is our success, and failure is not an option we plan for.

The four guarantees you should demand from anyone

• A date for go-live, in writing, with a stated consequence if it slips.
• A named owner of the setup work. If the answer is 'our support team', the setup is yours.
• An exit. What happens to your stores, your data and your clients if you leave in six months.
• A revision rule for design work, so 'done' is defined by your client's approval, not by a ticket being closed.

Ask those four of every vendor you are considering, including us. The answers tell you more than any feature comparison, and we say the same thing in our comparison of InkSoft, Printavo and DecoNetwork: the software is rarely the problem, the setup is.

What a guarantee is not

A guarantee is not a free trial. A trial gives you the software and leaves the work with you, which is the same problem in a shorter window. A guarantee is us carrying the risk of the work getting done.

It is also not a replacement for a plan. If a vendor offers you a big promise and no dated sequence of what happens in what order, the promise is decoration. Ask for both: the dates, and what happens if the dates slip.

An example of how this plays out

A shop sends us their logo and product list on a Monday afternoon. Their first client store is due live by Wednesday end of day. Suppose a supplier account is not open yet and the catalog cannot be connected in time. Two things happen: we tell them on Tuesday morning rather than on Wednesday night, and the clock consequence is ours, not theirs. We keep working at no charge until the store is live.

That is the whole point of putting it in writing. It changes who watches the calendar.

How the guarantee ends up in your offer

We do not quote a price at the first meeting, because we do not know your shop yet. The evaluation tells us what you need, and the offer that follows within 3 days carries the price, the plan and the guarantee you picked. That way the promise is specific to what you are buying.