Plain Estimate terms of service

Last updated: 11 October 2026

Plain Estimate is made by BrightScale Labs Limited, a company registered in England and Wales (company number 16990009), registered office 8 Flay Field, Tithebarn, Exeter, EX1 3YA. Contact: contact@brightscalelabs.com.

These terms are the agreement between you and us for the Plain Estimate app for iPhone and Android, the support service built into it, and the optional subscription. By installing or using the app you agree to them. The terms of use set out the licence to the software itself, and the privacy policy says what happens to your data. All three are written to be read.

The app runs on your phone and keeps your work there. Everything it writes is yours. The free version is complete and shows one advert banner; a yearly subscription removes it and adds a few conveniences. We work to make the app accurate and reliable, but you are responsible for the documents you send and the figures on them, and for keeping a backup.

Plain Estimate writes estimates, invoices, credit notes, pro forma invoices and receipts, keeps a list of clients and a price list, records payments and job costs, books jobs, and produces reports. It works without an account and without an internet connection. Your documents, clients, prices, photos, signatures and settings are stored on your device, as the privacy policy describes. We do not hold a copy and cannot recover one for you.

A document leaves the app only as a PDF handed to your phone's own share sheet. The app does not send email or messages itself, does not take card payments and is not a payment processor: it prints the payment details and payment link you enter, and records payments you tell it about.

The free version is not a trial. It writes unlimited estimates and invoices, holds unlimited clients, catalog items and photos, produces a PDF of every document in two complete formats, Classic and Steel, backs everything up, and runs the reports. It shows one small advertising banner above the tab bar, and the documents it produces carry a one-line mark at the foot saying what made them.

The optional yearly subscription removes the advertising, takes the mark off the documents you send, unlocks the other document formats, and unlocks the dated PDF reports, Excel workbook and CSV exports for an accountant. It does nothing else and nothing is capped without it.

The subscription is sold by Apple through the App Store or by Google through Google Play. Payment, receipts, renewal, cancellation and refunds are handled by them under their terms, and we never see your payment details. It renews automatically for the same period at the price shown when you subscribed unless you cancel at least 24 hours before the end of the current period, which you do in your App Store or Google Play subscription settings, not in the app. Cancelling keeps the subscription until the end of the period already paid for. Prices can change; a change applies from your next renewal and the store will tell you first.

If you reinstall the app or move to a new phone, restore the subscription from the paywall with the same Apple ID or Google account.

Everything you write in the app is yours: the documents, the client list, the price list, the photos and the reports. We claim no rights in any of it and we never see it.

You are responsible for what the documents say. The app works out totals, tax, discounts, margins and ageing from the figures you enter and the rates you set; it does not know your tax status, the rules that apply to your trade or whether a rate is right for a job. Check a document before you send it, and check a report before you rely on it. The reports are a view of what you have recorded, not accounts, and are not tax, legal or financial advice. Where law requires particular wording, numbering or detail on an invoice, it is for you to make sure your documents carry it.

You must have the right to send what you send. A client's name, address and signature are their personal data, and where data protection law applies you are the controller of it; the app processes it on your phone on your instruction.

Because the data lives on your phone, a lost, broken, wiped or replaced phone loses it. The app can write a backup file wherever you choose, encrypted with a password you set, and on iPhone can keep a copy in your own iCloud account. Take one. We cannot restore data that was never backed up, and we cannot open an encrypted backup whose password has been forgotten. Backups are free and always will be.

Use the app for your own business or work, lawfully. Do not use it to produce documents that are misleading or fraudulent, to invoice for work that was not agreed, or to impersonate another business. Do not interfere with the advertising, the subscription check or the app's connection to the stores, and do not reverse engineer, copy or redistribute the app except as the law allows regardless of these terms.

The app has a Support screen. Messages sent from it reach us with the details the form shows you, and we reply there. We aim to answer within a few working days and to fix what is broken, but support is provided as a courtesy and we do not guarantee a response time or a particular outcome. You can also write to contact@brightscalelabs.com.

We release updates through the App Store and Google Play. An update may change how the app looks or works, add features or remove ones that are little used; it will not remove your data. Your phone's settings decide whether updates install automatically. We may stop providing the app or support for a version of it; if we withdraw the app altogether we will say so in the app or on this site at least 60 days beforehand, and the version on your phone, and the data in it, will keep working.

We will provide the app with reasonable skill and care. Beyond that, the app is provided as it is and as available. We do not promise that it is free of mistakes, that it will suit your particular trade or jurisdiction, that it will always be available, or that any document it produces meets a legal requirement that applies to you.

Nothing in these terms limits our liability for death or personal injury caused by our negligence, for fraud, or for anything else the law does not allow to be limited. If you use the app as a consumer, nothing here affects your statutory rights.

Otherwise, and to the extent the law allows, we are not liable for loss of profit, loss of business, loss of data that was not backed up, or indirect or consequential loss, and our total liability to you for anything arising from the app in any twelve-month period is limited to the amount you paid us for the subscription in that period, or £50 if you paid nothing.

You can stop using the app at any time by deleting it, which deletes the data on the device; a backup you made elsewhere remains yours. Cancel the subscription through the store first if you do not want it to renew. We may end this agreement if you break these terms in a way that is serious or that you do not put right when asked.

Apple and Google are not parties to this agreement and have no obligation to provide support or maintenance for the app. On iPhone and iPad the App Store's standard Licensed Application End User License Agreement also applies to your use of the app, and where it gives you more than these terms do, it prevails. Apple and its subsidiaries are third-party beneficiaries of these terms and may enforce them against you.

If we change these terms we will update the date at the top and, for anything material, tell you in the app before the change takes effect. Continuing to use the app after that is agreement to the new terms; if you do not agree, stop using the app and cancel any subscription. Older versions are available on request.

These terms are governed by the law of England and Wales, and the courts of England and Wales have jurisdiction, except that if you live elsewhere in the United Kingdom or in the European Union you may rely on the mandatory consumer protections and bring a claim in the courts of your home country. If any part of these terms is found unenforceable, the rest still applies.

BrightScale Labs Limited, 8 Flay Field, Tithebarn, Exeter, EX1 3YA, United Kingdom. contact@brightscalelabs.com