Terms of Service

Last updated: June 2026

Welcome to Hostking (Pty) Ltd ("Hostking", "we", "us", "our"). By accessing or using our services, you agree to be bound by these Terms of Service ("Agreement"), our Privacy Policy, and our Acceptable Use Policy ("AUP").

Hostking (Pty) Ltd is registered in South Africa (2013/095847/07) and operates internationally. These Terms are governed by the laws of South Africa.

1. Definitions

The following terms have the meanings set out below throughout this Agreement:

"Agreement" means these Terms of Service, together with our Privacy Policy, Acceptable Use Policy, and any other policies or schedules incorporated by reference.

"Customer" or "you" means the individual or entity that has registered an account with Hostking and is the account holder of record.

"End User" means any person authorised by a Customer (including reseller clients) to access or use the services.

"Services" means all products and services provided by Hostking, including but not limited to shared hosting, VPS servers, dedicated servers, domain registration, email hosting, and website design.

"Client Area" means the online account management portal available at my.hostking.host.

"Business Day" means any day other than a Saturday, Sunday, or South African public holiday.

"Malicious Code" means any software routine or code intended to allow unauthorised access to, or disable, damage, or disrupt, a computer system, including viruses, worms, Trojan horses, ransomware, and backdoors.

"Professional Services" means any work performed by Hostking that falls outside the scope of standard hosting support, including but not limited to website fixes, third-party software troubleshooting, custom development, and migration assistance beyond basic account transfers.

"POPIA" means the Protection of Personal Information Act 4 of 2013.

"CPA" means the Consumer Protection Act 68 of 2008.

2. Acceptance of Terms

By using our services, you agree to comply with this Agreement and all applicable laws. If you do not agree to these terms, you may not use Hostking's services. Your continued use of our services following any amendment to this Agreement constitutes acceptance of the revised terms.

3. Services

Hostking provides shared hosting, VPS servers, dedicated servers, domain registration, email hosting, website design, and related services.

Hostking reserves the right to modify service specifications, pricing, and features at any time. Where a material change is made, Hostking will endeavour to provide at least 14 days' written notice via email or the Client Area. Hostking also reserves the right to discontinue any hosting package type. In such cases, the service will either be provided for the remainder of the paid period, or a pro-rata refund issued, or the nearest equivalent package offered — at Hostking's discretion.

4. Accounts & Security

You are responsible for maintaining the security of your account credentials and for all activity that occurs under your account, whether carried out by you or any third party with or without your knowledge. We strongly recommend enabling Two-Factor Authentication (2FA) to protect your account.

You must ensure that all contact information on your account is accurate and kept up to date at all times. Hostking may reset account credentials at its discretion if it becomes aware that your account has been accessed or compromised by an unauthorised third party.

Hostking may suspend or terminate services immediately where required to protect the security of our infrastructure or other customers.

5. Billing & Payments

Services are billed in advance on monthly, quarterly, semi-annual, annual, biennial, or triennial cycles depending on the plan selected. All fees are quoted exclusive of VAT unless otherwise stated. VAT will be charged where required by applicable law. All transactions are processed in South African Rands (ZAR) unless otherwise agreed in writing.

Important: Unpaid invoices may result in service suspension after 3 days. After 30 days of non-payment, services may be terminated and all associated data permanently deleted. Reinstatement of a suspended service is not guaranteed and may be subject to a reconnection fee. This does not limit Hostking's right to immediately suspend services for security, abuse, legal, or policy violations.

Where a service is suspended for non-payment and subsequently reinstated at the customer's request, no refund or credit will be provided for the period during which the service was suspended.

6. Chargebacks & Payment Disputes

Initiating a chargeback or payment dispute will result in the immediate suspension of all associated services. Services will only be reinstated following full resolution and settlement of the dispute.

Customers who believe there has been a billing error are encouraged to contact our billing team at billing@hostking.co.za before initiating any dispute with their bank or payment provider.

7. Terms and Conditions for Automated Recurring Payments (Stripe)

These terms govern automated recurring payment services provided through Stripe, Inc. ("Stripe"). By using recurring billing, you agree to these terms in addition to this Agreement.

Definitions
Company: Hostking (Pty) Ltd
Customer: Individual or entity making payment
Stripe: Stripe, Inc.
Service: Automated recurring payment service

Recurring Payments
By enabling recurring billing, you authorise Hostking to automatically charge your nominated payment method on each renewal date. Cancellation requests must be submitted at least 14 days before the next due date. See Section 8A for full cancellation procedures.

Payment Processing
Payments are processed through Stripe. Hostking is not responsible for security incidents on the Stripe platform.

Fees & Charges
The customer is responsible for any bank fees or charges applied by Stripe in relation to their payment method.

Privacy & Data
Hostking complies with applicable data protection legislation. Stripe handles payment data under its own privacy policies and security standards.

Termination
Either party may terminate a recurring payment arrangement subject to the applicable service cancellation notice periods set out in Section 8A.

8. Refund Policy

New customers are eligible for a 30-day money-back guarantee on their first shared hosting order only. This guarantee is subject to the eligibility requirements of this section and does not create any additional liability beyond the refund itself.

Refunds are not available on the following:

Domain registrations, renewals, and transfers
SSL certificates
Software licences
VPS and dedicated servers
Setup fees
Promotional or discounted orders
Services where the hosting has been used to promote a business, run email campaigns, or otherwise commercially utilised
Services renewed due to late cancellation (see Section 8A)

Hostking reserves the right to reject a refund request if the service has been partially or wholly utilised by the customer.

8A. Cancellation of Services

To cancel any Hostking subscription service, a cancellation request must be submitted in writing to billing@hostking.co.za. Verbal or informal requests will not be accepted.

Hosting Services
Cancellation requests for hosting services must be received at least 14 (fourteen) calendar days before the next billing or renewal date.

Domain Names
Cancellation requests for domain names must be received at least 21 (twenty-one) calendar days before the domain renewal date. In addition, customers must disable the Auto Renew option for any domain they do not wish to renew from the Client Area under the Domains section. Submitting a cancellation request alone is not sufficient — Auto Renew must also be disabled.

Late Cancellation Requests
If a cancellation request is received less than the applicable notice period, the cancellation will only take effect at the end of the next renewal cycle. No refunds, credits, or partial refunds will be issued for services renewed due to a late cancellation request.

Customers are solely responsible for ensuring cancellation requests are submitted within the applicable notice period and that domain auto-renewal settings are disabled where applicable.

9. Affiliate Commissions

Affiliate commissions are subject to the following minimum payout thresholds:

PayPal: Minimum payout of $50 USD
Wire / WISE: Minimum payout of $200 USD

Affiliate commissions are not applicable to discounted orders, domain registrations, or domain renewals. Hostking reserves the right to withhold or reverse affiliate commissions in cases of fraud, abuse, or chargebacks. PayPal account changes must be submitted by email to billing@hostking.co.za.

10. SMS Notifications

Operational SMS may be sent for important account events including invoice reminders, domain expiry notices, and service suspension alerts. You may opt out of non-essential SMS notifications at any time by contacting our support team or updating your notification preferences in the Client Area.

11. Intellectual Property

Nothing in this Agreement grants either party a licence to use the other party's intellectual property, nor shall anything be construed as an assignment of intellectual property rights, unless otherwise agreed in writing.

Where Hostking provides software as part of a service, it grants the customer a non-exclusive, non-transferable licence to use that software solely for the purpose of using the services and for the duration of this Agreement. The customer is prohibited from reverse engineering, disassembling, decompiling, or otherwise attempting to discover the source code of any software provided under this Agreement.

The customer warrants that it either owns the intellectual property rights to all material transmitted, stored, displayed, or reproduced using Hostking's systems, or that it has the permission of the rights holder to use that material in that way.

Internet Protocol (IP) addresses assigned to a customer by Hostking remain the property of Hostking and cannot be owned by the customer. On termination of a service, all assigned IP addresses may be reclaimed by Hostking and the customer shall have no recourse as a result.

12. Backups & Data Responsibility

Important: Any backups provided by Hostking are offered as a convenience only and are not guaranteed. Customers are solely responsible for maintaining their own independent backups of all data. Hostking shall not be liable for any loss of data, regardless of the cause, including hardware failure, software error, security incidents, or human error.

13. Acceptable Use & Fair Usage

The following activities are strictly prohibited on all Hostking services:

Any illegal activity or content
Distribution of malware, viruses, or phishing material
Sending unsolicited bulk email (spam)
Hosting gambling or adult content
Abusive or excessive resource usage that impacts other customers

Violations may result in immediate service suspension or termination without refund. Full details are available in our Acceptable Use Policy.

13A. Resource Usage (Shared Hosting)

Users may not:

Use 25% or more of system resources for longer than 90 seconds
Run standalone or unattended server-side processes or daemons (including IRCD)
Run web spiders, crawlers, or indexers
Run software that interfaces with IRC networks
Run BitTorrent applications or clients
Participate in peer-to-peer (P2P) file sharing
Run game servers
Create cron jobs that run more frequently than every 15 minutes
Run MySQL queries that take longer than 15 seconds to complete

Best Practices:

All MySQL tables must be properly indexed
Use local file includes instead of URL-based includes
Do not configure HTML files to process server-side code unnecessarily
HTTPS should be used where appropriate to protect sensitive information

13B. Excessive Usage & Permitted Website Types

Excessive usage includes:

Databases exceeding 8GB (hard limit: 10GB)
Inode counts above 2,000,000
Excessive CPU, RAM, disk I/O, bandwidth, or email usage
Using hosting as a storage or backup repository
Traffic exceeding 300GB/month where it adversely affects other customers

Hostking reserves the right to throttle disk I/O on virtual hosting accounts where a customer's usage is negatively affecting the shared environment. Bandwidth monitoring tools provided in the control panel may reflect usage data that is up to 48 hours out of date; Hostking makes no warranty as to their real-time accuracy, and customers are responsible for monitoring their own usage.

Not permitted on shared hosting:

Gambling or lottery websites
Pornographic or adult content
Large cryptocurrency exchange platforms
Music or movie streaming platforms
High-traffic SaaS platforms

13C. Support Scope & Professional Services

Hostking's standard hosting support covers issues relating to Hostking's own infrastructure, platform, and services. The following are not included in standard support and will not be provided as part of any hosting plan:

Fixing or debugging customer websites or web applications
Resolving errors in third-party software, plugins, themes, or scripts
Providing support directly to end-users of reseller accounts
Backing up customer email data during migrations or package changes
Updating DNS records on customer domain names
Development of any custom code, scripts, or database structures

Hostking may, at its discretion, offer to perform any of the above as Professional Services at an additional fee quoted at the time of request. Acceptance of a Professional Services quote constitutes a separate agreement for that specific task.

13D. Package Migrations & Upgrades

Where a customer migrates between hosting packages or upgrades their plan, Hostking will transfer account data on a best-effort basis. The following are explicitly excluded from any migration or package change:

Fixing websites or applications that were non-functional prior to migration
Resolving third-party software compatibility issues arising from the migration
Backing up or migrating email data unless specifically agreed in writing
Updating DNS records or nameservers on domain names

Customers are solely responsible for testing their website and applications following any migration or package change and for ensuring DNS records are updated where required.

13E. Compromised & Malware-Infected Accounts

Hostking reserves the right to immediately suspend, isolate, or take down any website or hosting account found to contain malware, phishing content, spam scripts, backdoors, web shells, or any other security threat — without prior notice to the customer. This action may be taken at Hostking's sole discretion where the account poses a risk to the security, reputation, or performance of shared infrastructure or other customers.

Customers are solely responsible for keeping their websites, applications, plugins, themes, and scripts up to date and secure. Hostking will not be liable for any loss of business, data, or revenue arising from the suspension of a compromised account. Reactivation of a suspended account following a malware or security incident is subject to the customer providing satisfactory evidence that the issue has been fully resolved.

Where Hostking incurs costs in investigating, containing, or remediating a security incident caused by a customer's negligence — including but not limited to malware cleanup, blacklist removal, IP delisting, and emergency response actions — Hostking reserves the right to recover those reasonable costs from the customer.

14. Email & Spam Policy

Sending unsolicited bulk email (spam) from any Hostking service is strictly prohibited and will result in immediate termination of the offending account without refund.

Hostking reserves the right to limit, suspend, or terminate email services on any account that generates excessive spam complaints, causes Hostking's IP addresses or domains to be listed on email blacklists, exceeds outbound mail volume thresholds, or otherwise negatively impacts the email reputation of shared infrastructure. Where Hostking incurs costs in delisting IP addresses or domains from email blacklists as a result of a customer's outbound mail activity, those costs may be recovered from the customer's account.

15. Abuse & Takedown

Content found to be in violation of our Acceptable Use Policy or applicable law may be removed without prior notice upon receipt of a valid abuse complaint. Takedown requests should be submitted through the ISPA Takedown process.

16. Domains

Domain registrations, renewals, and transfers are non-refundable
WHOIS registration details must be accurate and kept up to date at all times
Domains may automatically renew where Auto Renew is enabled and a valid payment method or sufficient account credit is available
Renewal instructions are submitted to registries in advance of the expiry date and may not be reversible once processed
Expired domains may enter a redemption period and incur additional fees to recover
Hostking is not liable for failures in domain registration, renewal, or transfer processing
Free domains are applicable only to selected annual hosting packages. If a customer cancels hosting or transfers a free domain away within 3 months of the domain being registered, Hostking reserves the right to recover the standard registration fee for that domain
Support is not provided directly to end-users of reseller accounts
If a customer misspells a domain name and it is registered in error, the customer remains liable for payment of that domain. No refund will be issued and the customer will need to register the correctly spelled domain at their own cost
Where a renewal payment is submitted with an incorrect payment reference that cannot be matched to the customer's account or domain, Hostking cannot be held liable for the domain lapsing into redemption or for any additional redemption fees incurred as a result
Premium domains may be priced higher than standard domains as determined by the relevant registry. Where a premium domain is ordered at the standard price, Hostking will notify the customer of the correct price before proceeding. If the customer does not wish to proceed, a full refund of the amount paid will be issued

Domain renewal reminder emails are sent to direct customers at approximately 90, 60, 30, 14, 7, and 1 day(s) before expiry. Reseller clients receive reminders at approximately 60, 30, 14, and 7 days before expiry. These reminders are provided as a courtesy and Hostking does not guarantee delivery of any specific reminder email. The customer remains solely responsible for renewing domains in good time regardless of whether a reminder is received.

Domain name intellectual property warranty: The customer warrants that in registering or using any domain name, they are not infringing the intellectual property rights of any third party. If a domain name dispute is brought against a domain registered by or on behalf of the customer, Hostking may provide the customer's details to the relevant third party and refer all correspondence to the customer. The customer indemnifies Hostking for all costs incurred by Hostking in connection with any such dispute, including adjudicator fees and attorney fees on the scale as between attorney and own client.

For domain cancellation procedures, please refer to Section 8A.

17. VPS & Dedicated Servers

Unmanaged VPS servers do not include backups
Managed VPS servers may include weekly backups as a convenience service; such backups are not guaranteed and customers remain solely responsible for maintaining independent off-server backups
Dedicated server data is permanently deleted 30 days after cancellation

Backup Responsibility (Managed cPanel VPS)
While Hostking may provide local backup solutions on your VPS, these are provided as a convenience only and are not guaranteed. All managed cPanel VPS customers are solely responsible for maintaining their own independent, off-server backups of all data, accounts, and configurations.

You are required to:

Maintain regular backups stored outside of your VPS environment (e.g. remote storage, third-party backup services, or local copies)
Ensure backups are functional, accessible, and restorable

Hostking does not accept responsibility for:

Data loss due to hardware failure, corruption, security breaches, or user error
Failure, inaccessibility, or corruption of any on-server backup system

18. Free Website Design

Where a free website design is provided as part of a hosting package, the website must remain hosted with Hostking for a minimum period of 12 months from the date of delivery. Early cancellation may result in the recovery of the cost of the design service.

19. Resellers

Reseller account holders are fully responsible for the actions and conduct of their end-users. Resellers must ensure that their customers comply with this Agreement and our Acceptable Use Policy at all times. Hostking does not provide direct support to reseller end-users.

Resellers must have their own written agreement in place with each of their end-clients. That agreement must bind the end-client to terms no less restrictive than this Agreement and our Acceptable Use Policy with respect to the use of hosting services.

End-clients of resellers have no direct contractual relationship with Hostking and have no recourse against Hostking for any reason whatsoever, including any claim for damages arising from service interruptions or data loss.

Domain registrant details must reflect the domain owner's information and not the reseller's details. Domains may not be withheld by the reseller in lieu of any monies owed by an end-client.

Reseller end-clients may not in turn resell any Hostking service to third parties without the prior written consent of Hostking. Resellers may not assign or transfer their reseller account or any associated services to a third party without the prior written consent of Hostking.

20. Uptime Guarantee & SLA

Hostking aims to provide 99.9% network uptime for all hosting services, excluding scheduled maintenance windows.

SLA Credit Claims
In the event of service unavailability below the 99.9% threshold, the customer may submit an SLA credit claim. To qualify, the customer must submit a support ticket at my.hostking.host within 7 days of the outage, including the service type, affected domain or IP address, and a full description of the interruption. SLA credits are the sole and exclusive remedy for uptime failures — no cash refunds or damages may be claimed in lieu of a credit. Credits will not exceed one month's billing for the affected service and will be applied to future invoices only.

SLA Exclusions — the following do not qualify for SLA credits:

Customers with outstanding unpaid invoices at the time of the outage
Customers who have been in payment arrears 3 or more times in the previous 12 months
Scheduled maintenance and infrastructure upgrades
Downtime caused by the customer's own actions, misconfigurations, or abuse
Downtime caused by upstream network providers or infrastructure outside Hostking's control
Downtime caused by DDoS attacks or other malicious activity directed at the customer's services
Force majeure events

21. Statutory Compliance

Hostking is obliged to comply with certain South African statutory provisions, including but not limited to:

The Films and Publications Act 65 of 1996
The Electronic Communications and Transactions Act 25 of 2002
The Regulation of Interception of Communications and Provision of Communication-related Information Act 70 of 2002 (RICA)
The Electronic Communications Act 36 of 2005
The Protection of Personal Information Act 4 of 2013 (POPIA)
The Consumer Protection Act 68 of 2008 (CPA)

Hostking's compliance with these provisions may require measures that affect the customer's account or data. No action will lie against Hostking for any loss suffered as a result of Hostking complying with these statutory obligations.

22. Consumer Protection Act (CPA)

Where a customer is a juristic person, the CPA applies to this Agreement only if both the customer's asset value and annual turnover are below R2,000,000 (two million Rand) on the date services are ordered. Where the CPA does apply, its provisions take precedence over any conflicting provision in this Agreement to the minimum extent required by law. If any provision of this Agreement is found by a court or tribunal to be unfair, unreasonable, or unjust under the CPA, that provision alone shall be severed and the remainder of the Agreement shall remain in full force.

23. Suspension and Breach

Hostking is entitled to suspend provision of services in any of the following circumstances:

The customer is in breach of the Acceptable Use Policy
Payment of amounts due is overdue
Suspension is necessary to maintain the security of Hostking's infrastructure
Emergency maintenance is required
Hostking is ordered to do so by a court of competent jurisdiction

Where suspension is due to non-payment or an AUP breach (other than in an emergency), Hostking will endeavour to provide at least 24 hours' notice before suspending the service, unless immediate suspension is necessary to prevent loss or harm. If the customer fails to remedy a breach within 5 (five) Business Days of receiving written notice, Hostking may terminate the affected service and permanently delete all associated data. Termination for breach does not entitle the customer to any refund.

24. Assignment

The customer may not cede, assign, or otherwise transfer their rights or obligations under this Agreement to a third party without the prior written consent of Hostking. Hostking may subcontract its obligations to third parties provided that Hostking remains the sole point of contact for the customer and retains responsibility for service delivery.

25. Dispute Resolution

In the event of a dispute, the customer is encouraged to first contact Hostking's support team at support@hostking.host or billing team at billing@hostking.co.za to attempt resolution in good faith within 30 (thirty) days. If the dispute cannot be resolved within that period, either party may refer the matter to arbitration in terms of the Arbitration Foundation of Southern Africa (AFSA) rules, conducted in English by a single arbitrator. Either party may seek urgent or interim relief from a court of competent jurisdiction without this being a waiver of the right to arbitration. Nothing in this clause limits a customer's right to approach the applicable tribunal under the CPA if it applies.

26. Marketing & Data Protection

Hostking complies with applicable data protection and privacy legislation, including POPIA. Customer data is collected, stored, and processed in accordance with our Privacy Policy. By using our services, you consent to receiving operational communications from Hostking including invoices, service notices, and account alerts. You may unsubscribe from marketing communications at any time.

27. Disclaimer of Warranties

All Hostking services are provided on an "as-is" and "as-available" basis without warranties of any kind, either express or implied. Hostking does not warrant that services will be uninterrupted, error-free, or completely secure. Equipment and third-party software are provided subject to the manufacturer's or licensor's warranties only; all other warranties are excluded to the maximum extent permitted by law.

28. Limitation of Liability

To the maximum extent permitted by law, Hostking shall not be liable for any direct, indirect, incidental, special, consequential, or punitive damages, including but not limited to loss of profits, loss of data, business interruption, or other commercial damages arising out of or related to your use of, or inability to use, the services.

Hostking's total cumulative liability for any claim arising under this Agreement shall not exceed the total amount paid by you to Hostking for the affected service during the 12 (twelve) month period immediately preceding the event giving rise to the claim.

In particular, Hostking will not be liable for loss arising from: the customer's failure to maintain adequate security; any act or omission relating to the transmission, storage, or publication of data; spam filtering false positives; any action taken under the Suspension and Breach clause; compliance with any applicable statute; or loss of data including backup or disaster recovery failures.

29. Indemnification

You agree to defend, indemnify, and hold harmless Hostking, its directors, officers, employees, agents, and affiliates from and against any and all claims, liabilities, damages, losses, costs, and expenses (including reasonable legal fees) arising from:

Your use of the services
Your violation of this Agreement
Any content hosted, transmitted, or distributed through your account
Your violation of any law or third-party rights
Any breach of privacy rights or infringement of data protection law
Any domain name dispute arising from a domain registered by or on behalf of you

30. Force Majeure

Hostking shall not be liable for any failure or delay in performance resulting from circumstances beyond its reasonable control, including but not limited to acts of God, war, terrorism, labour disputes, power failures, network outages, natural disasters, government actions, sanctions, or failures of third-party providers. If such circumstances persist for longer than 3 (three) months, either party may terminate the affected service by written notice.

31. Severability

If any provision of this Agreement is held to be invalid, illegal, or unenforceable, the remaining provisions shall remain in full force and effect.

32. Entire Agreement

This Agreement, together with our Privacy Policy and Acceptable Use Policy, constitutes the entire agreement between you and Hostking with respect to the use of our services and supersedes all prior agreements, representations, or understandings. Only a written variation agreed to by both parties shall have effect.

33. Governing Law

This Agreement shall be governed by and construed in accordance with the laws of the Republic of South Africa. Any disputes arising from this Agreement shall be subject to the jurisdiction of the South African courts, provided that the dispute resolution process in Section 25 is followed first.

34. Contact Information

For any questions regarding these Terms of Service, please contact us:

General & Technical Support: support@hostking.host
Billing & Cancellations: billing@hostking.co.za
Support Hours: 7:00 AM – 10:00 PM daily
Client Area: my.hostking.host