Legal
Privacy, terms of service, and refund policy for Forge Web Services. Plain-language summaries first, full text below each one.
Privacy Policy
How we collect, use, and protect your personal information.
We collect the minimum data needed to run your hosting. We never sell it. We share it only with service providers who need it to deliver the service. You can ask for your data back, ask us to delete it, or ask any question at any time by emailing us.
On this page
1. Introduction
This Privacy Policy describes how Forge Web Services collects, uses, and protects the personal information you share with us when you use our website or hosting services. By using our services, you agree to the practices described here.
2. Data we collect
We collect only the information necessary to provide and improve our hosting services. This includes:
- Account information, name, email address, billing details, and contact preferences.
- Hosting information, the domain names you host with us, the configuration of your servers, and the size of your stored data.
- Support information, messages you send to support, screenshots, and any logs you share for troubleshooting.
- Technical information, IP address, browser type, and pages visited, collected via standard web logs.
3. How we use your data
We use the data we collect to:
- Deliver and maintain your hosting services
- Process payments and issue invoices
- Respond to support requests and migration enquiries
- Send important service notifications, such as planned maintenance or security advisories
- Improve our products and services based on aggregated usage patterns
We do not sell your personal information. We do not share it with third parties for marketing purposes.
4. Cookies and tracking
Our website uses essential cookies to maintain your login session and remember your preferences. We may use anonymous analytics cookies to understand how visitors use our site. You can disable cookies in your browser settings, though doing so may affect site functionality.
5. Your GDPR rights
If you are located in the European Economic Area, you have the following rights regarding your personal data:
- Access, request a copy of the personal information we hold about you
- Rectification, ask us to correct any inaccurate information
- Erasure, request deletion of your personal data, subject to legal retention requirements
- Portability, receive your data in a portable, machine-readable format
- Objection, object to certain uses of your data
- Restriction, ask us to limit how we use your data
To exercise any of these rights, contact us via our contact form. We will respond within 30 days.
6. Security of your data
We protect your personal information using industry-standard security practices, including encrypted connections (TLS) for all data in transit, encrypted storage at rest, and strict access controls limiting which staff members can view customer data. Despite these measures, no system is perfectly secure. If we ever experience a data breach affecting your account, we will notify you within 72 hours.
7. Sharing with third parties
We share data only with trusted service providers necessary to deliver our services:
- Vultr, our infrastructure provider, which hosts the servers your sites run on
- Payment processors, for billing transactions only; we never see or store your full card number
- Security partners, such as BitNinja, which receive minimal data needed to operate protection
Each of these providers is bound by strict data processing agreements that prohibit them from using your data for any purpose other than serving you.
8. Contact us about your data
For any data requests, privacy questions, or to update your preferences, contact us via our contact form.
Terms of Service
The agreement between you and Forge Web Services when you use our hosting services.
In short: hosting is billed monthly or annually with no long-term contract, and you can cancel any time with no penalty (see Cancellation and refunds). Do not use the servers for illegal content, spam, malware, or abuse (see Acceptable use), and every plan carries a 99.9% uptime commitment with service credits if we miss it (see Service level agreement).
On this page
1. Service description
Forge Web Services provides managed WordPress hosting on dedicated Vultr High Frequency Compute servers. Every plan includes server-level and WordPress-level security, transactional email, daily backups, and free migration. The specific resources and features for each plan are described on the pricing page.
2. Your account
You are responsible for maintaining the security of your account credentials. Notify us immediately via our contact form if you believe your account has been compromised. You are responsible for all activity that occurs under your account.
You must be at least 18 years old to open an account, or have the consent of a parent or legal guardian.
3. Acceptable use
You may not use our services to:
- Host or distribute illegal content, including content that infringes copyrights, trademarks, or other intellectual property rights
- Send unsolicited bulk email, also known as spam
- Run malware, phishing pages, or any other content designed to harm visitors
- Attempt to disrupt, attack, or gain unauthorised access to our infrastructure or to other customers
- Use our servers to run cryptocurrency mining or other cryptocurrency operations
- Host adult content, gambling content, or other content that violates applicable laws in our hosting regions
We reserve the right to suspend or terminate accounts that violate this acceptable use policy. We try to give reasonable notice before suspension, but for severe violations we may act immediately.
4. Payment terms
Plans are billed monthly or annually in advance, in US dollars, by credit card or other supported payment methods. The price you sign up at is your price. We do not raise prices on existing customers without notice; if pricing ever needs to change due to infrastructure cost changes beyond our control, we will give you at least 30 days written notice before any change takes effect.
If a payment fails, we will attempt to charge again over the following days and notify you by email. After 14 days of failed payments, we may suspend the account. After 30 days, we may terminate it and delete data.
5. Cancellation and refunds
You may cancel any plan at any time from your account dashboard or by emailing support. There are no cancellation fees, no penalties, and no exit interviews.
We offer a 30-day money-back guarantee on all new plans. If you are not satisfied within the first 30 days, contact us for a full refund. See the refund policy for full details.
6. Service level agreement
We commit to 99.9% uptime on every server, every calendar month. If we fail to meet this commitment, you are entitled to a service credit:
- Below 99.9% but at or above 99.0%, 10% credit on the affected month
- Below 99.0% but at or above 95.0%, 25% credit
- Below 95.0%, 50% credit
Credits are issued automatically when independent monitoring confirms an SLA breach. Scheduled maintenance, force majeure events, and issues caused by customer actions are excluded.
7. Liability and warranties
Our services are provided on an "as is" basis. While we work hard to deliver reliable, secure hosting, we cannot guarantee that the services will be uninterrupted or error-free. Our maximum liability to you in any 12 month period is limited to the amount you paid us in that period.
You are responsible for maintaining your own backups in addition to the daily backups we provide. We provide backups as a convenience but recommend keeping at least one independent off-platform backup of mission-critical data.
8. Changes to these terms
We may update these terms from time to time. When we make changes, we will notify customers by email and update the "last updated" date at the top of this page. Continued use of the service after a change indicates acceptance of the updated terms.
Questions? Reach out via our contact form any time. We aim to respond within 4 hours during business days.
30-Day Money-Back Guarantee
If Forge Web Services is not the right fit, get a full refund within your first 30 days. No questions asked.
We offer a 30-day money-back guarantee on all new hosting plans. If you are not completely satisfied within the first 30 days, contact us through our contact form and we will issue a full refund. No questions asked. This applies to new subscriptions only.
Try us for 30 days. If you do not love it, email us and we send your money back. No forms, no interrogation. After 30 days you can still cancel any time, but the money-back guarantee is just for the first month.
On this page
How to request a refund
If you decide Forge Web Services is not right for you within the first 30 days of your new subscription, simply reach out via our contact form with the email address on your account. There is no form to fill out and no required reason. We will process your refund within 5 business days.
What is covered
Our 30-day money-back guarantee covers:
- The full cost of any new monthly or annual hosting plan
- Plan upgrades within the first 30 days of the original subscription
- Any first-month transactional email top-up packs purchased with a new plan
What is not covered
The following items are not refundable:
- Domain name registrations or transfers, which are paid directly to the domain registrar and follow the registrar's own refund policy
- Subscriptions older than 30 days, we no longer process refunds after the guarantee window, but you may cancel at any time and your service will run until the end of the current billing period
- Renewal payments, renewals are not eligible for the 30-day guarantee; cancel before the renewal date if you do not wish to continue
- Custom services, such as one-off migrations beyond standard scope or paid consultation work that has already been delivered
Cancelling without a refund
After the 30-day guarantee window, you can still cancel any plan at any time. There are no cancellation fees, contracts, or penalties. Your service will continue until the end of your current billing period, then stop automatically.
To cancel, log into your client portal and use the cancellation option, or reach out via our contact form.
What happens to your data
When you cancel or request a refund, we hold your account in a suspended state for 14 days, giving you time to retrieve any final backups or migrate elsewhere. After 14 days, your data is permanently deleted from our active infrastructure. Backups in offsite storage are retained for an additional 30 days before being purged.
If you need a final backup download, request it before cancellation completes and we will provide a one-time download link.
Disputes
If you have any concerns about a refund, please reach out first via our contact form before initiating a chargeback. We aim to resolve all refund questions within 4 hours during business days, and almost all are settled to the customer's satisfaction on the first response.
Questions about any of this?
Ask us plainly, we would rather explain than have you guess.