Refunds
When the outcome doesn't materialise. Read first, sign second.
Plumbline charges per outcome — so the refund policy has to follow the outcome. This page lays out the credit mechanics for a failed row, the setup-fee refund window, and what "didn't materialise" actually means in the contract.
Three sections that follow — credits, setup-fee refund, and what counts as the promise holding. Scroll to the bottom for the next step.
Why this page exists
The refund path — in writing, before signature.
Outcome-priced means the invoice moves with the result. This page covers what happens when a qualified row fails the audit, how a setup-fee refund is requested inside the 30-day window, and what "the outcome didn't materialise" means in the line items that go into the contract.
01 · Outcome credits
When a qualified outcome fails the bar.
Three named triggers where the documented outcome doesn't land as signed — misrouted, dropped, or double-booked — plus the audit-failed fourth. The credit moves on the next monthly statement, dated to the day the failure was logged.
- Misrouted call — a qualified contact landed on the wrong human, calendar, or CRM record because the workflow misclassified intent on a documented edge case
- Dropped booking — a confirmed appointment that fell out of the calendar or CRM between handoff and confirmation, with the contact left without a confirmed slot
- Double-book — two qualified contacts landed on the same calendar slot because the conflict check missed a wired integration, written into the audit trail
- Audit-failed outcome — a result that doesn't pass the definition of done signed at audit, surfaced inside the agreed reporting window
- Credit is sized to the agreed outcome price for the affected row, not a flat fee — the contract carries the per-outcome figure that was signed
- Credits appear on the next monthly statement, dated to the day the failure was logged — visible in the client's dashboard behind the same login
- Cumulative credits above 25% of the monthly figure trigger a written review — either party can call the review without penalty
- Offboarding leaves outstanding credits on the final invoice — refunded inside 30 days, or rolled into a paid extension at the client's request
02 · Setup-fee refund
30 days to prove the workflow is live.
The setup fee is refundable inside the first 30 days of the engagement if no measurable workflow is live — the audit criterion holds the line, not a marketing promise. This is the refund window written into the contract.
- Setup fee is refundable inside the first 30 days of the engagement if no measurable workflow is live — the audit criterion holds the line, not a marketing promise
- A measurable workflow means at least one outcome event surface against the agreed definition of done — not "the system turns on" or "a dashboard exists"
- Refund request lands in writing, with the audit criterion included — the contract carries the same language so the request doesn't come as a surprise
- Refund processes inside 30 days of the written request, dated to the day the engagement signed — no restocking fee, no "we'll review" back-and-forth
03 · When the promise holds
What "the outcome didn't materialise" actually means.
The outcome-priced promise rests on the agreed outcome landing — not on a conversion downstream. The list below is what the contract treats as the promise holding, so the line between "credit owed" and "engagement continues" is named in writing, not improvised at the moment of the incident.
- Inbound volume too low to draw a conclusion — when the agreed volume band isn't met, the monthly figure is paused, not the engagement
- Client-side CRM or calendar outage — when the stack the engagement is wired to is unreachable from the client's side, the outcome-priced promise holds on Plumbline's side
- Consent invalidated mid-engagement — when an upstream consent record is revoked and the contact must be removed, the figure is paused, not the engagement
- Force majeure or documented third-party provider outage — the credit is named in the contract, the engagement holds for the next month
- The qualified outcome arrived, but the client missed the documented response window inside business hours — the warm-handoff was logged with a timestamp, the response window was the client-side SLA
- A contact arrived qualified, but the consent record was older than the agreed retention — the engagement was honest, the client-side record wasn't current enough to count
- A booked outcome arrived, but the existing pipeline the contact came from had been invalidated upstream — the source of the contact was the client-side decision, not the workflow
- The volume was inside band but the conversion didn't move — outcome-priced isn't conversion-priced; the deliverable is the qualified contact, not a sale
Convinced?
Read the refund path above, then start the engagement.
Pick the path that fits — a one-page audit note (asynchronous, free) or a 30-minute call (synchronous, free). Either way, the credit and setup-fee refund mechanics above land in the contract alongside the outcome-priced promise.
Also read Terms and SLA — the rest of the legal-supporting trio.
Plumblinerefund policy: outcome credits for misrouted, dropped, double-booked, or audit-failed outcomes; setup-fee refund inside 30 days if no measurable workflow is live; and the named boundary between "credit owed" and "engagement continues" when the promise holds.