Terms and conditions

1 Scope

These General Terms and Conditions apply to contracts for EngageBeat between Sven Heese, trading as Sven Heese Consulting, Agrarstr. 39, 39179 Barleben, Germany, email hello@engagebeat.de, telephone +49 1514 1934421, VAT ID DE326226140, hereinafter the Provider, and the Customer.

The offer is initially directed at businesses, associations and public bodies in Germany. Contracts with consumers within the meaning of § 13 BGB are excluded. Natural persons may become contracting parties only when acting in the course of their commercial or self-employed professional activity. The Customer uses EngageBeat for its own organisation. Provision for third-party organisations, particularly by consultancies and agencies, requires a separate agreement.

Individual agreements take precedence. The contractual documents and these Terms and Conditions are made available to the Customer in a form that can be saved before booking. Visiting the website, registering for setup and general contact or quotation enquiries do not conclude a software contract. For contracts already concluded, the version agreed in each case remains applicable.

Publishing or providing these terms does not change contractual versions already agreed. Existing contracts remain subject to the version incorporated in each case, including expressly agreed subsequent amendments. A central company setting alone does not replace an existing individual pricing agreement or revoke a cancellation.

2 Subject matter and conclusion of the contract

EngageBeat is an internet-accessible application for regular team check-ins and their analysis. The plan, number and size of teams, features and provision date are specified in the offer and attached service description. EngageBeat Team includes the agreed standard questions; EngageBeat Fokus adds custom questions and topic packages. An AI adoption topic package does not in itself mean that responses are processed using artificial intelligence. EngageBeat Enterprise services are agreed individually.

Organisation-wide analysis is available from three teams in all plans (EngageBeat Team, EngageBeat Fokus and EngageBeat Enterprise) at no additional price for this feature. It is set up optionally and supplements individual team analyses. The mere provision of the feature does not confer a right to have a metric displayed if the privacy safeguards are not met.

Authorised company admins or organisation leads set up the inclusion of teams in organisation-wide analysis. The assignment takes effect from the following Monday; earlier survey weeks are not included retrospectively. Team owners are informed; their separate consent to the assignment is not required. Access to organisation-wide analyses requires explicit analysis permission. An administrative role alone does not confer a right to analyse results. Before use, the Customer clarifies the additional analysis purpose, informs participants and takes account of data protection and any employee co-determination requirements.

Organisation values are displayed only after the week closes. Each question requires at least three released teams, each with at least five valid responses. Additional privacy safeguards may exclude teams or the entire metric from display. Comments and individual team results are not displayed in organisation-wide analysis. These privacy safeguards do not establish an unrestricted guarantee of anonymity.

Registration on the website is used to prepare company access. Information on the planned number and size of teams, plan and payment frequency initially represents preferences for setup. Creating organisational units, teams or access credentials also does not in itself start a trial or a paid contract. Through personal setup access, the Customer adds the required information and prepares its teams.

The binding booking is made separately in the web app by a person authorised to represent the Customer who has company admin access. Before confirmation, the selected teams, each team's plan, payment frequency, applicable prices and pricing tier rules, terms and the availability or absence of trial eligibility are displayed. Entries can be corrected before confirmation. By expressly confirming the booking, the Customer submits a binding offer. An automatic acknowledgement of registration alone does not constitute acceptance. The Provider accepts the booking through a confirmation in the web app explicitly identified as such. This confirmation states the booked teams, services, prices, terms and contractual conditions; the full contract record is available there to the authorised Customer in a form that can be saved. The contract is concluded upon this express acceptance. A confirmation is additionally sent by email; its receipt is not a further requirement for conclusion of the contract. Until acceptance, the Customer may withdraw its offer in text form.

A team with no free trial available may start only on the basis of an expressly confirmed paid booking. Registering for setup or an unsuccessful trial start is not automatically treated as a paid booking. EngageBeat Enterprise and differing service scopes are agreed through an individual offer and its express acceptance. Contract details and the version agreed in each case are documented. Required data processing agreements and internal setup approvals must be completed before the first use with actual employee data.

A company admin authorised for this purpose sets the company's monthly or annual payment frequency. They also decide whether EngageBeat Team or EngageBeat Fokus is prescribed uniformly for the teams or whether authorised leads may choose the plan for each team. Where a uniform plan is prescribed, team leads cannot change to a different plan. Organisational units do not establish separate, differing plan requirements.

This setting is taken into account for further bookings. New team contracts still arise only through the designated binding booking process. For changes to ongoing team contracts, the affected teams, plans, prices, any pro-rata additional costs and respective effective times are displayed before confirmation. The change requires express confirmation by an authorised lead, is documented and is additionally confirmed by email. This does not consolidate the teams' individual contract periods. Cancellations already submitted remain effective; cancelled contracts are not extended by a company-wide change. Individual pricing agreements are not replaced without a separate agreement.

The analyses support the identification of areas requiring action, the selection of improvement actions and the observation of team developments. No particular economic success, participation rate or improvement in the team index is owed. Product announcements for future features become part of the service owed only by express agreement.

3 Free trial

The free trial comprises 28 consecutive days per team in the booked EngageBeat Team or EngageBeat Fokus plan, from 5 people with no plan-based upper limit on team size. A maximum of three such trials is available per company. They can be used only for teams whose first survey opens on the company's shared first actual start date. The calendar day in the Europe/Berlin time zone is decisive. Trial places not used on that day cannot be carried over to later starts. Additional teams, teams starting later or teams that have already trialled the product do not thereby receive a new free trial. Individually agreed EngageBeat Enterprise trials are subject to the expressly agreed conditions.

The 28 days begin when the first survey opens. Setup and preparation do not count towards this period. Before the first survey opens, access for the person responsible for the team must be set up, the necessary team preparations confirmed and the start approved. The first survey opens no earlier than the agreed start date. The start confirmation in the web app states the start, end and time from which the chosen plan becomes chargeable; it is also sent by email. The contractual and data protection obligation to conclude the required agreements before actual processing applies regardless of whether the application technically blocks an individual preparation step.

Organisation-wide analysis can be tried during the free trial if three teams begin on the company's first shared start date and their inclusion is configured. Values can arise only for survey weeks from when the assignment takes effect; the assignment takes effect from the following Monday. The privacy safeguards in section 2 also apply during the trial; with three trial teams, every displayed question must therefore have at least five valid responses in each of all three teams. Otherwise, the relevant metric is not displayed for that week.

After the 28 days, the trial automatically converts to the paid plan selected at booking or most recently expressly agreed, with the corresponding agreed monthly or annual billing, unless the Customer cancels before the end of the trial. Cancellation received before the trial ends terminates the contract at the trial end; no subscription charges then arise. The Customer may cancel, in particular, by emailing hello@engagebeat.de. Cancellation does not depend on confirmation by the Provider. The term and cancellation rules in section 4 apply to the subsequent paid subscription.

As a rule, the person responsible receives an email seven days and two days before the announced date charges begin, each stating the transition date and time, plan, price, billing and cancellation option. The Customer keeps a reachable business contact address up to date for this purpose. If both reminders cannot be sent in time, the transition to paid use is paused. A new date for charges to begin is expressly communicated and announced again with seven and two days' notice; no usage fee is charged for the intervening period. Cancellations already submitted remain effective. For expressly confirmed plan changes during the trial, the limited exception described below applies to price notices already due.

Surveys follow calendar weeks from Monday to Sunday in the Europe/Berlin time zone. Starting or ending midweek can produce partial weeks; the period does not necessarily consist only of complete survey weeks; a particular number of released analyses is not guaranteed. Results are available to authorised team owners only after the week closes and with at least five valid responses per question. If continued, surveys carry on under the booked plan. When the contract ends, the retrieval, return and deletion rules in section 4 also apply to the final analysis.

During an ongoing free trial, the plan selection effective for the team may be expressly changed between EngageBeat Team and EngageBeat Fokus. By way of exception to the downgrade rule for paid contracts, the changed plan selection applies to new weekly check-ins from the following week; weekly check-ins already started remain unchanged. Use remains free until the existing trial end. The change does not trigger another trial or extend the trial period. The trial end and announced date charges begin are not reset solely by the change; the protection rule for a paused transition to paid use remains in place.

Before confirmation, the plan that will apply afterwards, the subsequent subscription price, payment frequency and date charges begin are displayed. The subsequent paid subscription is governed by the most recently expressly confirmed agreement. Timely cancellation before the trial ends continues to prevent subscription charges.

As a rule, the reminders seven and two days before the announced date charges begin continue to apply. If, for a change expressly confirmed by the Customer during the trial, one of these times has already passed or has been reached, the price notice already due that is replaced by the new agreement is expressly stated before confirmation. The confirmation states the new plan, subsequent subscription price, payment frequency, unchanged announced date charges begin and cancellation option. Reminders still to come use the details then agreed.

The transition to paid use requires successful sending of the necessary change confirmation and all reminders not expressly replaced. If any of these requirements is missing, the transition is paused. Any new date for charges to begin required as a result is announced again in line with the existing protection rules; no usage fee is charged for the intervening period. A plan change does not create a general exemption from reminders or new trial eligibility.

Before a trial with actual employee data, data processing arrangements, employee information, the legal basis and any employee co-determination requirements must be clarified. Data protection requirements also apply during a free trial.

4 Term, cancellation and end of contract

With monthly payment, the term is one billing month from the confirmed date charges begin and renews for one further billing month at a time. The Customer may cancel at the end of the current billing month without an additional notice period. Cancellation must be received by the end of that billing month; a billing month need not correspond to a calendar month.

With annual payment, the term is twelve months from the confirmed date charges begin. It renews for a further twelve months each time unless cancellation is received no later than one month before the end of the respective term. The start, end of term and final cancellation date are stated in the order confirmation.

Cancellation is possible in text form, in particular by emailing hello@engagebeat.de. The Provider confirms receipt and the termination date. The effectiveness of a cancellation that has been received does not depend on this confirmation. Both parties' right to terminate for good cause remains unaffected.

Each team is subject to the billing and term dates stated in its confirmation. Multiple teams in one company therefore need not have the same billing start date. Ordinary cancellation takes effect at the confirmed contract end; until then, a team that has already started continues to count towards the pricing tier. Mere non-use, a pause or the cancellation notice itself does not end the current contract period and does not in itself establish a right to a pro-rata refund. Mandatory rights, particularly in the case of justified termination for good cause or service disruptions, remain unaffected.

No new surveys are conducted after the contract ends. Existing customer data remains available for retrieval and return for 30 calendar days; return can be requested during this period through hello@engagebeat.de. After authorisation has been verified, data is returned via a protected transfer channel in a common, machine-readable format with a clear description of the data included. Data belonging to other customers is excluded. After this period, the data is deleted from the production system unless an overriding instruction, statutory obligation or statutory switching right prevents this. Data already effectively deleted before then is not restored as a result. For personal data, the DPA and its return and deletion rules apply additionally and take precedence.

Mandatory rights to switch providers, particularly under Regulation (EU) 2023/2854, remain unaffected. Where its Chapter VI applies, the period for initiating a switch may not exceed two months; the subsequent transition period is generally no more than 30 calendar days, subject to legally permitted exceptions. The data retrieval phase is then at least 30 calendar days after the end of the agreed transition period. The general period above does not shorten these rights. The scope and formats of exportable data and the switching process are specified in the service description before the contract is concluded. Statutory limits apply to switching charges. No additional flat-rate contractual penalty for switching is agreed.

5 Prices, price adjustments and plan changes

The expressly confirmed plan and its agreed pricing rule apply. For contracts incorporating this version, including the pricing tier rule, the following prices apply per team from 5 people with no plan-based upper limit on team size: with 1 to 5 started teams, EngageBeat Team costs EUR 49 per month with monthly payment or EUR 499 per year with annual payment; EngageBeat Fokus costs EUR 79 per month or EUR 799 per year. With 6 to 10 started teams, EngageBeat Team costs EUR 44 per month or EUR 449 per year; EngageBeat Fokus costs EUR 69 per month or EUR 699 per year. The annual amount is the full price for twelve months. All prices exclude VAT at the statutory rate. The offer is exclusively for businesses and organisations and is not a consumer transaction.

The pricing tier is based on the number of teams in the same company whose first survey has actually started and whose contract has not yet ended. This includes ongoing trial teams; teams that are merely planned, created or prepared do not count. The count is determined regardless of whether EngageBeat Team or EngageBeat Fokus is chosen and regardless of monthly or annual payment. Merely changing names, people responsible or organisational units does not create a new trial entitlement.

A pricing tier changed by a rising or falling number of teams applies to all teams covered by this tier agreement from their respective next billing periods. For monthly payment, this is the next billing month; for annual payment, the next contract year. For new contracts, the tier reached at that time already applies to the first paid period. The count at the beginning of the relevant paid period is decisive; contracts that have already effectively ended no longer count. Teams that actually begin together in a single start process are considered together. The processing order within this shared start does not affect the price.

During an ongoing paid billing period, a change in the number of teams leads neither to an additional retrospective charge nor to a retrospective credit. A price displayed during preparation or the trial may therefore rise or fall before the first paid period in line with the expressly agreed pricing tiers. These tier conditions and the relevant prices are displayed before the binding booking. The price determined for each paid period and the team count used are documented. For transition from a free trial, the reminder and protection rules in section 3 remain applicable.

From eleven started teams and for a special service scope, prices and scope are agreed individually. This table therefore contains no automatically calculated standard rate for these cases. Without such a separate agreement, the most recently agreed prices and conditions continue to apply to existing contracts; further teams cannot be booked on a paid basis solely on the strength of the pricing tiers above. Individual pricing agreements take precedence.

Plan changes require express confirmation by an authorised lead. The plan, price, additional charge and effective time are displayed before confirmation. For changes during a free trial, the rules in section 3 take precedence.

If a company-wide change from EngageBeat Team to EngageBeat Fokus is expressly confirmed for ongoing paid team contracts, EngageBeat Fokus is enabled immediately for the included teams. Current weekly check-ins, including their questions and responses, remain unchanged; the new plan applies to new weekly check-ins from the following week.

For each affected team, the additional price until the end of its current billing period is calculated separately. The difference between EngageBeat Team and EngageBeat Fokus under the payment frequency and pricing rule agreed for that period is decisive. This difference is multiplied by the ratio of remaining calendar days to all calendar days in the current period. Calendar days are determined in the Europe/Berlin time zone; the day of the confirmed upgrade counts as one of the remaining days. The calculation is rounded to the nearest cent for each team. Pro-rata additional costs are displayed per team and as a total before confirmation and are invoiced additionally. The end of the current contract period remains unchanged. The payment terms in section 6 also apply to the supplementary invoice.

Where plan selection per team is permitted, an upgrade to EngageBeat Fokus takes effect at the time displayed and agreed before confirmation. If a change to the company-wide payment frequency is already scheduled for the team, the plan change may apply together with that change only from the next contract period. Until then, the plan and price remain unchanged; no pro-rata additional charge arises for this deferred change.

For an ongoing paid contract, a confirmed change from EngageBeat Fokus to EngageBeat Team takes effect at the beginning of the respective team's next contract period. Until then, the existing plan and price agreed for the current period remain in place; the downgrade does not create a retrospective credit. The features that will then cease to be available and the handling of custom questions are explained before confirmation. From the effective date, custom questions are no longer selected for new weekly check-ins. Weekly check-ins already started remain unchanged. Existing responses and results are not changed retrospectively by the plan change and remain available within the agreed retention and deletion rules.

An expressly confirmed change to the company-wide payment frequency applies to ongoing paid team contracts from the beginning of each team's next contract period. Until then, each team's existing payment frequency applies. If a company-wide upgrade to EngageBeat Fokus is confirmed at the same time, the immediate pro-rata additional charge is still based on the existing payment frequency; the new payment frequency and the corresponding agreed full plan price apply only from the next individual contract period. Both steps and their prices are displayed separately before confirmation. The rules on changes to the team count pricing tier remain unaffected.

A change to the individually agreed EngageBeat Enterprise scope requires a separate agreement. Changes to the published price list do not change existing contracts. The tier calculation expressly agreed here is distinct from a change to the price list. Other price changes in existing contracts require express agreement; without agreement, existing prices continue to apply. In particular, older contracts without this tier agreement are not changed to the Customer's disadvantage merely through publication of this version or the creation of further teams. There is no unilateral right to increase prices beyond this.

6 Payment terms

The Provider issues the invoice at the beginning of the relevant billing month or contract year. The fee is therefore invoiced in advance for the relevant period. Invoices must be paid within 14 calendar days of receipt by bank transfer to the account stated on the invoice. The same payment period applies to confirmed pro-rata plan changes from receipt of the supplementary invoice.

The free trial and a transition period paused under section 3 do not incur a usage fee. Booking grants neither a direct debit mandate nor a payment order; the agreed payment is made against invoice. Statutory provisions apply to late payment, rights of retention and service disruptions.

7 Provision, maintenance and support

The Provider makes EngageBeat available in the agreed scope during the contract term and takes appropriate measures for reliable and secure operation. Necessary maintenance, security updates and troubleshooting may cause temporary interruptions. Planned interruptions are kept as short as possible and announced with reasonable notice. Prior notice may be omitted for urgent security measures; information is provided afterwards where possible.

Support is available at hello@engagebeat.de. Support days are Monday to Friday, excluding public holidays in Saxony-Anhalt. The aim is an initial response within two support days. This is not a guarantee of a particular response or resolution time. A percentage availability guarantee, fixed recovery time or service credit is promised only by separate express agreement. The obligation to provide the service in accordance with the contract and statutory claims remain unaffected. For data protection and security incidents, the statutory obligations and those agreed in the DPA to report and act without undue delay apply independently of support days.

8 Customer cooperation obligations

The Customer names authorised contractual and administrative contacts, keeps their contact details up to date and protects team and administrative access. It makes team access available only to the agreed group of participants. The Customer organises internal invitations or authorises its own team distribution list for the agreed sending, checks the team scope and reports suspected misuse or security incidents without undue delay.

The Customer determines the permitted survey purpose, informs participants and clarifies the legal basis and any necessary involvement of a works council, staff council or other representatives before rollout. It sets appropriate retention periods and access permissions. Custom questions and content must not infringe third-party rights. Unnecessary personal information and sensitive content, particularly health information and other special categories of data, should not be collected. Attempts to attribute confidential feedback to individuals are prohibited.

The Customer's responsibility for its use does not remove the Provider's own statutory and contractual obligations. Support requests should initially use an error description and technical references without response content. Necessary sensitive documents are transmitted only via a protected channel agreed in advance.

9 Rights of use

During the agreed usage period, the Customer receives a non-exclusive right to use EngageBeat for its own organisation within the agreed plan and scope. Subletting, resale or provision to other organisations requires a separate agreement. Mandatory statutory rights of use remain unaffected.

Rights to submitted questions, responses and other content remain with the respective rights holders. The Provider may process this content only to the extent necessary for the agreed service, statutory obligations or permissible instructions. Use for advertising, publication or AI training is not permitted.

Authorised persons of the Customer may use lawfully generated analyses internally for the agreed purpose. In doing so, the Customer respects participants' rights and confidentiality. Lawful use of its own returned data does not end solely because the contract ends; however, this does not create a right to continued operation or access to the application after the agreed retrieval period expires.

10 Data protection and data processing on behalf of the Customer

Where the Provider processes personal data on behalf of the Customer, the parties conclude a data processing agreement under Article 28 GDPR, including annexes on processing, safeguards and subprocessors, before such processing begins. This also applies to trials. The DPA is an independent part of the contract; a link to a template or merely acknowledging a privacy notice does not replace its conclusion. The technical availability of setup or trial access does not replace a required agreement or permit processing contrary to these obligations.

As controller, the Customer is responsible in particular for the purpose, legal basis, participant information and instructions. The Provider fulfils its obligations as processor and its obligations for processing under its own responsibility, such as contract and billing data. Even without name fields, free-text comments, small groups and technical identifiers may constitute personal data. Complete anonymity of all processed data is not promised.

The privacy notices for the marketing website and web app explain their respective actual processing activities. In the event of conflicting provisions on processing on behalf of the Customer, the agreed DPA takes precedence. Statutory retention obligations for the Provider's own business records do not justify blanket retention of team responses.

11 Liability

Statutory liability rules apply. These Terms and Conditions establish neither a liability cap nor a blanket exclusion for data loss or indirect damage. Claims under mandatory law, particularly Article 82 GDPR, remain unaffected. These Terms and Conditions do not promise insurance cover.

12 Changes to these terms

The version validly agreed applies to each contract. A new publication on the website does not automatically replace it. General changes to these Terms and Conditions proposed by the Provider are sent to the Customer by email with the full amended text and the intended effective date. Changes to existing contracts require the Customer's express consent. Silence, an unanswered email or mere continued use does not constitute consent.

Without agreement, the existing version remains applicable. Individual agreements and statutory rights remain unaffected. Product changes do not release the Provider from service obligations already undertaken.

For a plan or payment frequency change requested by the Customer itself, the addendum limited to that change is displayed in full, together with the specific prices and effective times, before express confirmation in the web app and is provided in a form that can be saved. By confirming, the parties agree this process for the specific change. The Customer then additionally receives the confirmation, including the full addendum text and effective times, by email. A general email announcing changes to the Terms and Conditions in advance is not provided for this Customer-requested change. The rest of the contractual version remains unchanged; this process does not constitute consent to other general changes to the Terms and Conditions.

13 Final provisions

German law applies, subject to mandatorily applicable provisions. The contract language is German. Statutory places of jurisdiction apply; no exclusive place of jurisdiction is agreed here.

If a provision is invalid, its consequences are governed by statutory provisions. There is no automatic replacement by a clause with the closest possible economic effect. Individual agreements take precedence.

The offer is exclusively for businesses and organisations. The Provider does not participate in dispute resolution proceedings before a consumer arbitration body. This version applies only if expressly incorporated into the relevant contract; it does not automatically change contracts concluded previously.