Terms of Service

01Who we are and how to contact us

BidHound (“BidHound”, “we”, “us”, “our”) is operated by Philip Lee, a sole trader trading as BidHound. BidHound is a business-to-business software-as-a-service that helps UK small and medium-sized businesses find and prioritise public sector tender opportunities.

Email

phil@bidhound.co.uk

Website

bidhound.co.uk

02These terms and your agreement with us

By creating an account, starting a free trial, or subscribing to BidHound, you agree to be bound by these Terms of Service and by our Privacy Policy. Together, these form the contract between you and us.

If you are agreeing to these terms on behalf of a business, you confirm that you have the authority to bind that business. In that case, references to “you” in these terms mean both you and that business.

If you do not accept these terms, do not use BidHound.

03What BidHound is (and isn't)

BidHound fetches tender notices published on UK government procurement portals (Contracts Finder, Find a Tender, and related sources), classifies them using artificial intelligence, and matches them against the profile you provide. We give you a fit score, an indicative Go/No-Go summary, a pipeline board to manage opportunities, and an email digest of what looks worth your time.

BidHound is not:

• A bid-writing service. We don't write, submit, or sign bids.
• Legal, financial, tax, or procurement advice. Our scoring is informational and you should use your own judgement and professional advisers for any significant decision.
• An official source of tender data. We surface and organise data published by UK government portals; for the authoritative notice you should always refer to the original source, which we link to from every tender.
• A guarantee of any outcome. We do not warrant that you will win any bid, nor that any particular tender is suitable for your business.

04Eligibility and your account

4.1  Eligibility

BidHound is intended for businesses, sole traders, and organisations bidding for UK public sector contracts. By creating an account you confirm that:

• You are at least 18 years old;
• You are using BidHound for business purposes (in the course of a trade, business, craft, or profession) and not as a consumer;
• The information you provide is accurate and you will keep it up to date.

Although BidHound is sold as a business tool, we still honour the protections described in Section 7 for anyone who turns out to qualify as a consumer under UK law.

4.2  Account security

You are responsible for keeping your login credentials secure and for all activity on your account. If you suspect your account has been compromised, email us immediately.

4.3  One account per company

A subscription covers a single company (or equivalent organisation). You may not share your login credentials with people outside your organisation or use one subscription to provide BidHound-like intelligence to multiple unrelated businesses.

05Free trial

We offer a 14-day free trial to new customers. During the trial:

• You get full access to BidHound.
• We ask you to enter payment details at signup, but we do not charge you until the trial ends.
• You can cancel at any time during the trial from Settings. If you cancel during the trial, you will not be charged.
• If you do not cancel, your subscription starts automatically at the end of the trial and you will be billed at the then-current monthly rate.

We will email you a reminder before your free trial ends and before your first payment is taken.

06Subscription, pricing, and billing

6.1  Pricing

BidHound is currently priced at £49 per month, per company. Prices are listed on our pricing page. We are not currently VAT registered, so the prices shown are the total payable. If we become VAT registered in the future, we will give you at least 30 days' written notice before VAT is added, in line with Section 6.4.

6.2  How billing works

• Payments are processed by Stripe. Your card details are provided to Stripe and are never stored on our servers.
• We bill monthly in advance. Your first payment is taken at the end of your free trial; subsequent payments are taken on the monthly anniversary of that date.
• If a payment fails, Stripe will automatically retry. If we cannot take payment after a reasonable number of attempts, we may suspend your access to the service.

6.3  Auto-renewal and reminder notices

Your subscription renews automatically every month unless you cancel. At least once every six months, we will send you a reminder showing your current subscription, the price, and how to cancel, in line with the UK's Digital Markets, Competition and Consumers Act 2024.

6.4  Price changes

We may change our prices. If we do, we will give you at least 30 days' written notice by email before the new price applies to you. If you don't agree to the new price, you can cancel before it takes effect.

07Cancellation, cooling-off, and refunds

7.1  Cancelling at any time

You can cancel your BidHound subscription from Settings > Subscription at any time. Cancellation takes effect at the end of your current paid period: you keep access until then and you are not billed again.

7.2  14-day cooling-off period

If you qualify as a consumer under UK law, you have a statutory right to cancel within 14 days of first signing up, for any reason, under the Consumer Contracts (Information, Cancellation and Additional Charges) Regulations 2013 and the Digital Markets, Competition and Consumers Act 2024.

Even though BidHound is sold as a business tool (see Section 4), we voluntarily offer the same 14-day cooling-off right to everyone: if you cancel within 14 days of first signing up, we will refund any charges you have already paid, in full.

To exercise your right to cancel during this period, cancel from Settings or email phil@bidhound.co.uk with the word “cancel” in the subject line.

7.3  Refunds outside the cooling-off period

Outside the 14-day cooling-off period, we do not offer pro-rata refunds for partial months. You keep access to the service until the end of your current paid period.

We will, however, consider refunds on a case-by-case basis — for example, if we make a material change to the service that disadvantages you, or if we fail to deliver the service as promised.

08Acceptable use

When using BidHound, you agree that you will not:

• Use BidHound in any way that breaks UK law, or that would cause BidHound to break any law;
• Share your login credentials with people outside your organisation, or resell BidHound access to third parties;
• Scrape, copy, or redistribute tender data, scores, or any other output from BidHound in bulk (for example, to resell as a data feed or to operate a competing service);
• Attempt to reverse-engineer, decompile, or derive the source code of any part of the service;
• Try to probe, scan, or test the vulnerability of our systems, or to bypass authentication or security measures;
• Use the service to transmit spam, malware, or any material that infringes the intellectual property or privacy rights of another person;
• Submit knowingly false or misleading information in your profile;
• Use our email infrastructure to send unsolicited communications;
• Use BidHound in a way that places disproportionate load on our systems (for example, by running automated queries against our APIs at unreasonable rates).

If you breach these rules, we may suspend or terminate your account (see Section 14).

09Intellectual property

9.1  Our stuff

BidHound, including the software, scoring algorithms, classifications, dashboard design, written content, and all related intellectual property rights, belongs to us (or our licensors). Nothing in these terms transfers any of that to you. Your subscription gives you a limited, non-exclusive, non-transferable, revocable right to use BidHound while your subscription is active.

9.2  Your stuff

You retain ownership of all content you upload to BidHound, including your company profile, pipeline decisions, and feedback. You grant us a limited licence to store, process, and display that content for the sole purpose of providing the service to you.

9.3  Feedback

If you send us product suggestions or feedback, you allow us to use that feedback to improve BidHound without obligation to you. You confirm that such feedback is not confidential and does not contain any third-party proprietary information.

9.4  Public tender data

Tender notices surfaced through BidHound originate from UK government portals and are subject to the Open Government Licence or similar licensing terms of the original publisher. Your use of that data must comply with those licences.

10Data protection

How we collect, use, and protect your personal data is explained in our Privacy Policy. By using BidHound, you confirm that you have read and understood the Privacy Policy.

Where you provide us with personal data about third parties (for example, colleagues you add to an account), you confirm that you have the right to share that data with us and that you have told them how it will be used.

11AI-generated output and bid decisions

Specifically, we do not warrant that:

• Every relevant tender will be picked up or scored correctly;
• A high fit score means you will win the bid;
• A low fit score means you would have lost the bid;
• Any identified incumbent, win probability, or competitive read is accurate;
• Deadlines, values, or requirements shown in the dashboard are up to date with the latest amendment of the original notice.

The final decision to pursue, prepare, or submit any bid is yours alone. See Section 13 for how our liability is limited if something goes wrong.

12Service availability, changes, and support

We aim to keep BidHound available 24 hours a day, but we do not guarantee any specific uptime. The service may be unavailable from time to time because of scheduled maintenance, technical issues, or circumstances outside our reasonable control. We will use reasonable efforts to give notice of planned downtime.

We may change, add, or remove features at any time. Where changes are material and affect how you use the service, we will give you reasonable notice by email.

Support is provided by email at phil@bidhound.co.uk. We aim to respond within one working day on UK business days. We don't currently offer phone or live chat support.

13Warranties, disclaimers, and limitation of liability

13.1  Our warranty

We warrant that we will provide BidHound with reasonable skill and care. Beyond that, and except as required by any law that cannot be excluded, the service is provided “as is” without any further warranties, conditions, or representations, whether express or implied.

13.2  Things we don't exclude

Nothing in these terms limits or excludes our liability for:

• Death or personal injury caused by our negligence;
• Fraud or fraudulent misrepresentation;
• Any liability that cannot be limited or excluded under UK law.

13.3  Things we do exclude

Subject to Section 13.2, we will not be liable for any of the following, whether arising in contract, tort (including negligence), breach of statutory duty, or otherwise:

• Loss of profit, revenue, business, contracts, anticipated savings, or goodwill;
• Loss of bids you would have submitted, bids you submitted and lost, or bids you decided not to submit;
• Any indirect, consequential, or special loss;
• Loss or corruption of data, where you could have mitigated the loss by keeping your own records.

13.4  Cap on our total liability

Subject to Section 13.2, our total aggregate liability to you in connection with BidHound, for all claims combined, however arising, is capped at the total amount you paid us in the twelve months immediately before the event giving rise to the claim. This cap reflects the low, fixed price of the service and the fact that you retain full control over your bid decisions.

14Suspension and termination

14.1  By you

You can end this agreement at any time by cancelling your subscription (see Section 7).

14.2  By us

We may suspend or terminate your account, on reasonable notice, if:

• You materially breach these terms and have not fixed the breach within a reasonable time after we ask you to;
• Payment for your subscription has failed and cannot be collected after reasonable attempts;
• We reasonably believe that your use of BidHound is causing, or may cause, legal or operational harm to us or to other customers;
• We decide to discontinue BidHound altogether. In that case, we will give you at least 30 days' notice, refund any paid-but-unused portion of your current billing period, and keep your dashboard in read-only mode — plus a structured data export of your profile, pipeline, and analysis history — for 6 months from the discontinuation date.

These commitments are in addition to the data-return provisions in our Privacy Policy.

14.3  What happens when the agreement ends

When your subscription ends, your access to BidHound will be switched off at the end of your current paid period. You will be able to request a copy of your data for a short period after that (see our Privacy Policy for retention timelines). Any clauses of these terms that should survive termination (including IP, limitation of liability, and governing law) will continue to apply.

15Changes to these terms

We may update these terms from time to time. If we make material changes, we will notify you by email at least 14 days before they take effect, and (if the change significantly reduces your rights) we will give you the chance to cancel before they apply. Continuing to use BidHound after the effective date means you accept the updated terms.

16Events outside our control

We are not responsible for failures or delays caused by events outside our reasonable control, including (without limitation) power or internet failures, outages or misbehaviour of third-party services (such as our hosting, payment, email, or AI providers), denial-of-service attacks, industrial action, public health emergencies, or acts of government. We will take reasonable steps to minimise the impact of any such event.

17General

17.1  Entire agreement

These terms, together with our Privacy Policy, set out the entire agreement between you and us relating to BidHound. They replace any earlier agreements or representations.

17.2  Transferring the agreement

You may not transfer your rights or obligations under these terms without our prior written consent. We may transfer our rights and obligations to another business (for example, as part of a sale of BidHound) on reasonable notice.

17.3  Third-party rights

No one other than you and us has any right to enforce any part of these terms under the Contracts (Rights of Third Parties) Act 1999.

17.4  Severability

If any part of these terms is found to be unenforceable, the rest will continue in full force.

17.5  No waiver

If we don't insist that you perform any of your obligations, or delay in enforcing our rights against you, that doesn't mean we've waived our rights or that you don't have to perform those obligations.

17.6  Governing law and jurisdiction

These terms and any dispute or claim arising from them are governed by the laws of England and Wales. You and we both agree that the courts of England and Wales have exclusive jurisdiction to settle any such dispute, except that if you qualify as a consumer resident in Scotland or Northern Ireland, you may also bring proceedings in your local courts.

18Contact

Any questions about these terms? Email phil@bidhound.co.uk. For complaints, please put “Complaint” in the subject line and we'll prioritise a response.