Hosting terms

Last updated 3 October 2026.

Faraday Keynes Ltd trading as Astronomy Host. Company no. 07914968. 7 Rock Farm Mews, Front Street, Wheatley Hill, Durham, DH6 3NG.

Parties

Version: 3 October 2026 · This document forms part of the hosting agreement between Faraday Keynes Ltd trading as Astronomy Host (“we”, “us”) and the subscribing society (“you”, “Customer”, “society”).

Provider: Faraday Keynes Ltd trading as Astronomy Host (company no. 07914968), registered office 7 Rock Farm Mews, Front Street, Wheatley Hill, Durham, DH6 3NG. Registered in England and Wales. Billing: billing@astronomyhost.com · Support: support@astronomyhost.com · General: info@astronomyhost.com.

By applying for hosting, paying for a plan, or using Administration on a hosted society site, you accept this pack on behalf of the society named on the account — an organisation (club, society, or similar), not a consumer buying hosting for private household use. Officers must be authorised to bind that organisation. We may refuse or delay provision until we are satisfied the applicant is a genuine amateur astronomical society, university astro group, or similar club.

A signup form that has not taken payment is an application, not a live contract. The contract starts when we confirm the site is provisioned and fees are due (or paid). These documents are the same on the marketing site and in Administration → Terms & policies. They are not the society’s visitor privacy notice — that stays at /privacy on each society site.

1. Service

We provide hosted access to the Astronomy Host society website platform (public site and Administration), HTTPS on our infrastructure, routine security and application updates, and ticket support for hosting and platform faults as described in section 5.

The service is self-service software hosting. It does not include unlimited Design work, content entry, training, or running the committee unless agreed in writing at a quoted webmaster rate.

Astronomy Host is not a bookkeeping package, payroll, Gift Aid reclaim service, or a till for membership dues. Categories and advertised fees may appear on join forms. Money for membership stays in the society’s own accounts unless you use your own payment providers in the shop.

Society shop card payments use the society’s Stripe and/or PayPal account. Those takings are not Faraday Keynes Ltd’s, and they are not Astronomy Host hosting fees. Hosting billing is operator-side and is never taken through Shop → Settings keys.

2. Fees and payment

Standard hosting is £35 / month billed in advance, or £385 / year where annual prepay is offered. Included storage is 5 GB (database and uploads). Extra storage is £5 / month per +5 GB while the pack remains on the account.

Bring your own domain: no additional monthly domain fee when you point DNS as we instruct. Faraday attaches the hostname after the A record points at our VPS. The hosting subscription still applies. Registering a domain through us, when that option is offered at signup, is quoted separately. The society is the domain registrant; we act as registration agent only and do not own your domain name. You may start on an Astronomy Host hostname.

Webmaster or migration help is quoted. We do not sell society mailboxes as part of this plan — you connect your own SMTP.

Hosting and card-billed add-ons are collected via Stripe Checkout (receipts from Stripe). Invoice / bank transfer remains available by written agreement from billing@astronomyhost.com. Switching between card billing and invoice needs written agreement and is normally done at a renewal boundary.

An account in good standing means subscription fees, storage packs, and agreed add-ons are paid and not in a genuine dispute raised within 14 days of invoice. If payment is overdue by more than 14 days we may suspend after email to your billing contact. If suspension continues more than 30 days without payment or written agreement, we may end the service and delete hosted data as in section 7.

Prices are in pounds sterling and exclude VAT unless stated. We may change standard prices on 30 days’ notice; continued use after the effective date is acceptance. Fixed-term prepay is honoured for the paid period.

3. Domain, DNS and go-live

After provision you receive a temporary Astronomy Host address so you can build before your own domain is ready. That hostname may remain available after go-live.

Bring your own: you (or your DNS host) must point the records we specify (typically A for @ and www) at the address we give you, then tell us so we can attach the hostname and HTTPS. DNS alone does not switch the site on. Delays at your registrar are outside our control. Propagation can take up to 48 hours.

If you later register a domain through us, we register it in the society’s name and configure DNS to our hosting. Registration and renewal fees are non-refundable once submitted to the registry, except where the law requires. Cancelling hosting does not automatically cancel a domain you registered elsewhere or through us — the society remains the registrant.

4. Your responsibilities

• Keep billing and officer contacts accurate; keep passwords, invites, and two-factor codes safe.
• Ensure published content is lawful and you have rights to text, images, and logos.
• Complete routine setup (society SMTP, branding) using Administration guidance, or purchase quoted setup help.
• Download regular offline copies from Administration → Backup and store them on your own devices or cloud. That zip is your reliable copy of society data. Any infrastructure snapshots we keep for the platform are not a per-society restore service.
• Comply with Acceptable use, Data processing terms, and applicable law (including UK GDPR and PECR where relevant).
• For personal data about members, officers, volunteers, and visitors: act as data controller, keep a privacy notice at /privacy, and honour data subject rights.

5. Support (platform only)

In scope (prefer Administration → Hosting support, or support@astronomyhost.com): the public site unreachable because of our hosting; TLS/HTTPS failure on our serving infrastructure; a whole-host failure on our platform; or a confirmed platform defect after you have supplied valid SMTP settings. Restoring from your Backup zip is your responsibility. We do not undertake to restore society databases or uploads after deletion, corruption, ransomware, or similar. You are responsible for the society mailbox, credentials, sending limits, and deliverability. Invoices: billing@astronomyhost.com. Sales: info@astronomyhost.com.

Out of scope (quoted webmaster or self-service): Design and copy; officer training; writing pages; DNS work we do for you on a bring-your-own domain; newsletter drafting in an ESP; SEO; shop customer disputes; membership arguments; anything that is not a platform fault.

We have no obligation to answer repeated out-of-scope tickets. We may close them after pointing you at the User guide or a quote. After a warning, we may restrict or suspend the Hosting support ticket channel if an officer is abusive, or keeps filing the same out-of-scope requests.

Response targets (UK business days, Monday–Friday excluding public holidays; targets only, not an SLA): in-scope non-urgent tickets — aim to respond within two business days; urgent platform outages — aim to acknowledge the same business day and restore service as soon as reasonably practicable. No weekend or telephone support unless agreed in writing. We aim to reply to hosting and platform faults within two UK business days.

6. Backups and availability

You must regularly create and download full exports from Administration → Backup and keep them offline. Without those copies you may be unable to recover the society website.

Astronomy Host does not promise, and has no obligation, to restore your database, uploads, or other site data after a data disaster. Whole-server snapshots (if any) exist only for our operational recovery of the platform and are not a per-society restore product.

The service is provided as available except where a separate signed SLA exists. Planned maintenance may cause a brief interruption; we will try to give reasonable notice for material planned work.

Subject to section 8, we are not liable for loss or corruption of society data where you did not keep adequate offline backups, or where restoration is impossible from copies we do not undertake to provide.

7. Ending the service, suspension, and export

Either party may end the subscription on 30 days’ written notice to the billing contact (email is enough). Accrued fees remain due through the effective date. If you cancel, or we end the service for cause (non-payment, breach, chargeback, or fraud), prepaid hosting and domain fees are not refunded for unused time, except where the law requires. If we end the service for our own operational convenience without cause, we will refund unused prepaid hosting fees pro-rata (domain registry fees already submitted stay non-refundable except where the law requires).

We may suspend or end immediately (or after the notice in section 2) for non-payment, material breach, chargeback or fraud, or where continued service would risk the platform or other customers.

If at termination the account is in good standing, we will keep self-serve export via Administration → Backup available for 14 calendar days from the termination date (or our written confirmation, if later). After that we may permanently delete hosted files and databases except where the law requires retention.

If ending or suspension is for non-payment, chargeback, fraud, or material breach, we are not obliged to provide an extended export window while fees are unpaid. We may delete hosted data 30 calendar days after suspension (or sooner if required for security or law). Paying later does not guarantee recovery if copies no longer exist.

Nothing requires us to store your data after the subscription ends or while fees are unpaid. You are responsible for exports during the active term. Clauses that should survive (fees owed, liability, indemnity, governing law) continue after termination.

8. Limitation of liability

Subject to the non-excludable paragraph below, we are not liable for indirect or consequential loss, loss of profit, revenue, goodwill, or anticipated savings, or for loss or corruption of data except where caused by our deliberate default or fraud.

Subject to that same paragraph, our total aggregate liability for all claims relating to the service in any rolling 12-month period is limited to the greater of (a) fees you actually paid us for that society in the 12 months before the event giving rise to the claim, and (b) £100, and in any event shall not exceed £2,000 in the aggregate for related claims from the same underlying cause.

Nothing limits liability for death or personal injury caused by negligence, fraud or fraudulent misrepresentation, or any liability that cannot be limited under the Unfair Contract Terms Act 1977 or other applicable law.

We are not liable for failures of third-party services (registrars, DNS, mailbox providers, society Stripe or PayPal, analytics the society pastes in) outside our reasonable control.

The fee reflects these limits. You control member and visitor personal data on the site except for data we process as controller under the Privacy notice in this pack.

9. Indemnity

You will indemnify and hold us harmless against reasonable claims, losses, fines, and costs (including legal fees) arising from: (a) content you publish or send; (b) your email or marketing practices; (c) your breach of these terms or Acceptable use; (d) your unlawful processing instructions or failure to meet controller obligations — except to the extent caused by our breach of processor obligations in the Data processing terms or applicable law.

10. Force majeure

Neither party is liable for delay, failure, outage, or data loss caused by events outside their reasonable control (including severe weather, flood, fire, earthquake, power or utility failures, internet infrastructure failures, war, terrorism, pandemic, government action, or upstream provider outage), provided reasonable steps are taken to mitigate.

No refunds, service credits, or financial compensation are payable for interruptions or performance failures resulting from force majeure.

11. General

• Entire agreement: these Hosting terms, Acceptable use, Privacy notice, Data processing terms, Support & billing summary, and your order are the agreement for hosting.
• Changes: we may update this pack for legal, security, or operational reasons on 30 days’ notice by posting in Administration or email; you may reject a material adverse change by ending the service before it takes effect.
• Assignment: you may not assign without our consent. We may assign to a successor in a business sale or restructure.
• Notices: email to the billing or primary officer contact on the account is sufficient unless the law requires otherwise.
• Governing law: England and Wales. The courts of England and Wales have exclusive jurisdiction, without prejudice to either party’s right to injunctive relief.