Provider Terms

Last updated: [PLACEHOLDER: date]

What this covers

These terms apply to any operator ("provider", "you") who receives jobs through Sludge or uses Sludge to process payment and manage bookings for their own customers. There are two distinct kinds of job, priced and charged differently — see below.

Eligibility

• You must hold a valid Upper Tier waste carrier registration with the Environment Agency (England/Wales) or SEPA (Scotland), and keep it current.
• [PLACEHOLDER: insurance requirements — public liability minimum, and whether we require proof before onboarding.]
• [PLACEHOLDER: confirm whether providers must be a registered business/company, or sole traders are accepted, and what ID/verification is required at signup.]

Marketplace jobs (Sludge found the customer)

Priced on Sludge's standard pricing for the customer's area. Sludge takes a flat fee per job (currently [PLACEHOLDER: confirm published rate, e.g. £25–35] — see your onboarding agreement for the figure that applies to you); you're paid the captured amount minus that fee. [PLACEHOLDER: confirm payout method, timing, and whether payout is currently manual (bank transfer arranged by Sludge) or automatic — as of this policy it is manual.]

Your own jobs (you found the customer)

For a customer you've brought yourself — whether entered by you directly or booked through your own Sludge page — you set the price, either as a fixed quote or an estimate priced from your own rates. Sludge deducts a processing fee of Stripe's card-processing cost (currently [PLACEHOLDER: confirm published rate, e.g. 3%]) plus a platform fee (currently [PLACEHOLDER: confirm published rate, e.g. 2%]) from the amount charged to your customer — shown to you before you send the booking, and confirmed on each job's record.

You are responsible for the accuracy of any price you quote or estimate to your own customer, and for resolving any disagreement about the amount charged with that customer directly, except where a job is flagged for review because the actual volume was substantially more than estimated — in that case, capture is held until you've confirmed the higher amount with your customer.

Doing the job

• You must log the actual volume emptied (and any requested evidence) before a job can be marked complete — this is what payment capture, on either kind of job, is based on.
• [PLACEHOLDER: service standards — attendance windows, conduct, what happens on a missed appointment or complaint.]

Fees and payment

[PLACEHOLDER: full fee schedule, any minimum fee, VAT treatment (confirm whether Sludge's fee is VAT-inclusive/exclusive and whether providers must be VAT-registered to be paid a VAT invoice), and payout timing/method — this is currently handled manually and needs a documented SLA before it's published as a term.]

Data protection

You must handle any customer personal data you receive through Sludge (name, address, contact details, access notes) in line with UK GDPR, use it only to carry out the job, and not retain or reuse it for your own marketing without the customer's separate consent. [PLACEHOLDER: this likely needs a proper controller-to-controller (or processor) data-sharing agreement, not just a clause here — ask a solicitor which relationship applies given how jobs are matched and paid.]

Termination

[PLACEHOLDER: notice period, grounds for immediate removal (e.g. lapsed registration/insurance, repeated complaints), and what happens to jobs already in progress.]

Governing law

[PLACEHOLDER: England and Wales, unless a different jurisdiction is decided — confirm with a solicitor.]