90-Day Money-Back Guarantee

We ask service businesses to trust us with the part of their marketing that is hardest to judge from the outside. This page is our answer to that: a plain description of the growth we hold ourselves to in your first 90 days, what we need from you to get there, and exactly what happens if we fall short.

These terms are part of our Terms & Conditions and apply to Protocol marketing subscriptions that began on or after the date above. Nothing here replaces a signed agreement that says otherwise. Where the two conflict, your signed agreement wins.

1. Who This Covers

The guarantee is available once per business and only to first-time Protocol subscribers whose first paid Protocol subscription begins on the Scale plan. It applies to the first Protocol marketing system and brand we manage for you.

If you operate several brands or locations under separate agreements, the guarantee attaches only to the first one we launch. A later brand, location, restart, or separate account does not create another guarantee window.

The Start and Grow plans do not include the guarantee. Starting on Start or Grow and upgrading to Scale later does not create eligibility. You must start your first subscription on Scale and remain on Scale for the full 90-day window.

Eligibility requires an existing website with at least 90 consecutive days of usable analytics immediately before Protocol launches your new site. If that tracked history is unavailable, incomplete, or cannot be verified, no traffic guarantee applies.

2. The 90-Day Window

Your window opens the day your managed marketing system and website go live and runs for 90 consecutive calendar days. We use launch day rather than the day you signed, because the work we are measuring cannot start until the site is actually serving.

Onboarding time, build time, and any discounted period before launch do not shorten the window and do not count against it.

A claim has to reach us within 14 days of the window closing, so by day 104. We keep this deadline firm so that the measurement period stays comparable between clients.

3. The Growth Standard

We commit to a minimum of 33% growth in website traffic, measured as organic search sessions, to your managed site over the 90-day window, compared against the 90 days immediately before launch.

To qualify under the growth standard, your previous website must have analytics tracking in place for the full 90 days immediately before launch, and you must give us access to verify that data.

If you are new to tracked marketing, or your prior website data is unavailable, incomplete, or cannot be verified, the guarantee does not apply. Protocol does not create a replacement traffic target or fallback baseline for an untracked website.

4. How Growth Is Measured

Post-launch measurement comes from the analytics we install and maintain on the site we manage. The comparison period comes from the verified analytics on your previous website. You must give us access to that prior data before launch.

• We count organic search sessions: visits arriving from unpaid search results and AI assistants that pass along referral data
• We exclude paid traffic, traffic you send yourself from email or social posts, and known bot and internal traffic
• We compare the full 90-day window against the 90 days before launch using the verified prior-website data required for eligibility

You can ask for the underlying report at any point during the window, and we will send it with your claim as a matter of course.

5. What We Need From You

Our system runs on the work you already do. We turn finished work, client wins, and business updates into content, which means we cannot hit the standard without real source material. To keep the guarantee active you need to:

• Send us at least 6 work captures per calendar month: photos, a voice note, a client question, a result, or a few lines about work you finished
• Return content approvals within 5 business days of us asking, or give us standing approval to publish without review
• Keep our access to your site, analytics, and business listings in place for the full window
• Keep your subscription current, with no missed or reversed payments during the window

We track these as we go and will tell you in writing if you fall behind, so nothing about your eligibility is a surprise at the end.

6. What You Get Back

If the 90-day window closes below the growth standard and you met everything in Section 5, we refund every management fee you paid to Protocol during the window. There is no requirement to stay on. If you cancel, the managed website is taken offline unless you purchase the optional website handoff described in the Terms & Conditions.

If we miss the standard but you did not meet the participation requirements, the refund does not apply. In that case we will credit one month of management fees and continue the work for a further 90 days at no additional charge, so the plan gets a fair run.

If we meet or beat the standard, the guarantee is satisfied and no refund is due.

7. Prior Subscribers And Plan Changes

If your business has held any Protocol subscription before, restarting does not open or reopen the 90-day guarantee. If your first subscription began on Start or Grow, a later upgrade to Scale also does not create a guarantee. No new, delayed, or shortened guarantee applies to a returning or upgraded account.

8. What Is Not Covered

The guarantee applies to Protocol management fees only. It does not cover:

• Advertising spend paid to Google, Meta, or any other platform
• Domains, hosting bought outside Protocol, third-party software, and stock or licensed media
• Migration, photography, video production, or other separately quoted fees
• Add-on services quoted separately, which carry their own terms

It also does not apply where results are affected by something outside our control. Examples include a manual penalty from a prior vendor that predates our work, a site or listing you take down or move mid-window, a rebrand or domain change we did not plan for, or an extended pause you ask us for.

9. Making a Claim

Email [email protected] with the subject line “Money-Back Guarantee” and include:

• Your business name and the domain we managed
• The email address on the account
• Your launch date, and a short note on what fell short

We will confirm receipt within 2 business days and send you the session report we used. Approved refunds are issued to the original payment method within 10 business days. Depending on your bank, it can take a few days beyond that to appear.

10. Fair Use

We may decline a claim where the guarantee is being worked rather than used. Examples include repeat sign-ups under related businesses or domains to reset the window, or a claim made after we have documented a sustained failure to meet Section 5. If we decline, we will tell you why in writing.

11. Your Other Rights

This guarantee is offered in addition to any rights you have under consumer protection law. It does not limit or replace them.

12. Changes to This Guarantee

We may update these terms for future clients. The version in effect on the day your window opens is the version that applies to you for that whole window, whatever we publish later.

13. Contact

Questions before you sign are welcome. We would rather explain the terms up front than argue them at day 90.

Email: [email protected]
Company: Protocol