Legal
Version 1.2 · Effective September 24, 2026
These Terms of Service ("Terms") govern your access to and use of openhour (the "Platform"), operated in India. By creating an account or using the Platform, you agree to these Terms. If you do not agree, do not use the Platform.
These Terms apply to every visitor, registered member, expert, community administrator and event organiser using the Platform, in India or elsewhere. Using the Platform after a change to these Terms takes effect means you accept the updated version — see Section 16.
You must be at least 18 years old, or the age of legal majority in your jurisdiction if higher, to create an account. By registering, you confirm you meet this requirement and that the information you provide is accurate.
openhour is a directory and booking-coordination platform. It helps people find experts and communities, request and confirm sessions, and discover and register for events. It is not an employer, agency, or representative of any expert, and it is not a party to any arrangement an expert makes with the person booking them.
You may sign in with Google, LinkedIn, or an email and password. Each authentication method that shares the same email address reaches the same account. You are responsible for keeping your credentials secure and for all activity under your account.
A community on the Platform is a group — an incubator, accelerator, or cohort — with its own members, experts and events, run by its own administrators. Section 8 covers communities specifically.
Money does not pass through openhour.
If a booked session is paid, the person booking and the expert arrange payment directly, by whatever means they both agree to. The Platform does not process, hold, or have visibility into the amount or method of that payment. An expert may mark a session as paid for their own records; that marking carries no amount and is not a receipt, invoice, or proof of payment for any purpose.
openhour does not charge a commission on any booking, on joining, on listing as an expert, or on booking a session — this is a permanent policy, not a temporary condition of the Platform not yet processing payments.
A community may, at its own discretion, set its own commission on bookings made within it. This is entirely separate from and unrelated to the Platform's own policy above, is set by that community for itself, and is always shown to both the expert and the person booking before either commits to a rate or a booking.
Anyone may apply to become an expert. There is no invitation requirement and no waiting list. An application may require answers to questions set by openhour for every applicant, and, where the application is made through a specific community, additional questions set by that community.
Approval does not by itself make an expert bookable or visible in the public directory. Listing requires the following to all be true: at least one active service, some configured availability, a connected calendar, a verified mobile number, and at least one industry set on the profile. A community may waive the mobile verification requirement for its own members; no other requirement can be waived by anyone.
An expert may pause their listing at any time. Pausing removes the expert from the directory and prevents new bookings; it does not remove or alter the expert's existing profile, booking history, or reviews.
openhour may decline, suspend, or remove any expert's listing at its discretion, including for a violation of these Terms, a violation of the content standards in Section 9, or repeated, substantiated complaints.
openhour does not currently process payments, as stated in Section 3. If and when openhour begins handling payments directly, funds collected on behalf of an expert for a completed session will be released to that expert 15 days after the session. This commitment applies only from the point openhour actually begins processing payments; until then, nothing is held by the Platform because nothing passes through it.
A booking request left unanswered by an expert for 24 hours is automatically cancelled. No charge is made and nothing is held in either direction.
For a one-to-one session: a person wishing to cancel should contact the expert directly through their booking confirmation. Since payment, where it occurs, is arranged directly between the two parties, any refund for a cancelled paid session is a matter between them. If the expert does not respond to a reasonable cancellation or refund request, either party may contact openhour, which will review the matter and may take the actions described in Section 10.
For a paid event: the organiser sets and publishes the event's refund policy before anyone registers — for example, refundable up to one day before the event, up to seven days before, or not refundable at all. That published policy governs the booking.
If the expert cancels a session, or the organiser cancels a paid event, the person who booked is refunded in full. This is not at the discretion of the expert, the organiser, or the Platform.
After a session is completed, both the person who booked and the expert may leave a review of each other. Reviews are held and published together 30 days after submission, so that neither party can read the other's review before submitting their own. A rating is only displayed on an expert's profile once they have completed at least 5 sessions; before that, the profile indicates the expert is new rather than showing a rating based on too little data.
openhour may remove a review that violates the content standards in Section 9, or that it determines was not written in good faith, but does not edit the substance of a review or remove one solely because it is negative.
A community may divide itself into chapters and units — for example, a city, then an area within it — which members are assigned to. A community may separately maintain groups, which a member may join by choice, sometimes subject to approval by that group's own administrators. Chapters, units and groups are distinct structures: an event scoped to a chapter reaches everyone in the units beneath it; an event scoped to a group reaches only that group's own members.
A community's administrators are responsible for that community's own joining rules, its own published experts and events, review of applications made through it, and moderation of reports raised about conduct within it, as described in Section 9. A community administrator's authority is limited to their own community and does not extend to the Platform generally.
openhour may create a community and designate its first administrator; an existing administrator may add further administrators to their own community.
You agree not to post, submit, or transmit through the Platform any content that is unlawful, threatening, abusive, harassing, defamatory, obscene, or that infringes the rights of any third party.
Certain free-text fields — including an expert's biography and headline, an application answer, a community or group description, and a review — are checked automatically at the time of submission for abusive or offensive language, using a maintained wordlist. Content that matches is rejected before it is saved, and you are shown which specific word or phrase caused the rejection so you can revise it. This is an automated check on wording, not a human review of intent or context, and may occasionally reject content that was not intended to cause offence; you may contact support in that case.
You may report a profile, a community, or a group that you believe violates these Terms. A report concerning conduct within a specific community is reviewed by that community's own administrators. A report concerning a community itself, or otherwise concerning the Platform generally, is reviewed by openhour directly. Submitting a report does not obligate openhour or any community administrator to take any particular action.
openhour may provide visibility into a booking or a reported dispute to support a resolution between the parties, and may suspend or remove an account in a serious or repeated case.
openhour is not a party to any payment arrangement between an expert and the person who booked them, as stated in Section 3.
Where a community has set its own commission under Section 3, that community, not the Platform, is responsible for any dispute concerning that commission.
Because payment does not pass through the Platform, openhour has no means to compel, process, or issue a refund on behalf of an expert or organiser. Any Platform involvement in a payment dispute is limited to visibility and facilitation, described in this section, not enforcement.
The openhour name, logo, and the Platform's own design and software are the property of openhour or its licensors. You retain ownership of content you submit — a profile, a review, an article, an event listing — but grant openhour a licence to display and distribute it as part of operating the Platform.
You may stop using the Platform and request deletion of your account at any time, as described in the Privacy Policy. openhour may suspend or terminate an account for a violation of these Terms, including the content standards in Section 9, or for conduct that puts another user at risk.
openhour provides the Platform on an "as is" and "as available" basis. It does not guarantee the accuracy, quality, or outcome of any session, review, or listing, and does not vet experts beyond the approval process described in Section 4.
To the maximum extent permitted by law, openhour is not liable for any indirect, incidental, or consequential loss arising from your use of the Platform, including any dispute, non-payment, or dissatisfaction arising from a session or event arranged through it.
These Terms are governed by the laws of India. Any dispute arising from these Terms or your use of the Platform is subject to the exclusive jurisdiction of the courts of India.
By accepting these Terms, you consent to the Platform collecting product usage events (such as which screens and features you use) and error reports (such as a crash or a failed request), so that problems can be found and fixed and the Platform can be improved. Where session recording is enabled, it captures the flow of a screen but is configured to hide what you type and to mask images, so text you enter is never recorded.
This data is processed by PostHog, a third-party analytics provider, and stored in the European Union. It never includes payment information — payment does not pass through the Platform at all, as stated in Section 3 — and is not used to identify you beyond an internal account identifier; your name, email address and phone number are not sent to this processor.
You may turn this off at any time from Settings, without affecting your ability to use the Platform; turning it off is exactly as easy as turning it on, and takes effect immediately for both the mobile app and the website. Deleting your account, as described in the Privacy Policy, also deletes this data.
This consent is not required of anyone under 18 — the Platform does not permit users under that age, as stated in Section 1.
These Terms are versioned; the version and effective date are shown at the top of this page. A material change will be reflected in a new version number. Continuing to use the Platform after a new version takes effect constitutes acceptance of it.
Questions about these Terms can be sent to theteam@openhour.co.