Marketplace Terms

1. Scope & parties

These Marketplace Terms govern the Sapilon experts marketplace and involve three parties: the client (a Sapilon customer requesting expert services), the expert (an independent, verified specialist providing them), and Sapilon (the platform that connects the two). For clients, these terms form part of the Terms of Service. Experts are additionally bound by a separate expert agreement, accepted during onboarding, which governs their conduct, confidentiality, and quality obligations in detail; where that agreement and this page differ, the expert agreement prevails for the expert.

2. Sapilon's role: intermediary, not provider

Sapilon operates the marketplace as an intermediary. We verify experts before they can take client work, match escalated decisions to declared expertise, provide the workspace and context for the engagement, publish all-inclusive rates, and handle payment through the client's wallet.

The professional services themselves are delivered by the expert, not by Sapilon. Sapilon is not a party to the service relationship between client and expert, does not supervise the expert's professional judgement, and does not itself provide consulting, engineering, or advisory services through the marketplace. Verification means we checked an expert's declared expertise and background at onboarding; it is not a guarantee, endorsement, or certification of any particular piece of work.

3. Expert status

Experts are independent contractors. Nothing in these terms creates an employment, agency, partnership, or joint-venture relationship between an expert and Sapilon, or authorizes an expert to act or speak for Sapilon. Experts choose which engagements to accept, work on their own schedule, and are responsible for their own professional obligations: taxes and social contributions, any licenses their profession requires, and, for hands-on work beyond reviews, carrying professional liability insurance appropriate to that work.

4. Engagements

Marketplace work takes two forms:

• Reviews: the platform escalates a decision the AI isn't qualified to make alone; the expert examines it with full context and approves, approves with changes, or rejects with reasoning.
• Hands-on engagements: scoped, time-limited work inside the client's project where a review calls for it.

The client grants the expert access to the project only for the engagement, and the platform records the expert's actions in the project's audit trail like any other change: logged, diffable, and reversible. An engagement is complete when the expert delivers the review decision or the scoped work; the client should raise concerns through the complaints process in section 9 within 14 days of delivery.

5. Fees & payment

Expert services are priced at the all-inclusive rates published on the experts page; the rate the client sees is the full cost, with Sapilon's marketplace fee inside it, not on top. Fees are drawn from the client's prepaid wallet when the engagement completes, and Sapilon pays the expert their share. Clients must not be asked to pay an expert directly for marketplace work, and experts must not request it. Experts are responsible for their own taxes on payouts.

6. Liability

Responsibility follows the role each party plays:

• The expert is responsible for their professional work: the correctness and quality of their reviews, decisions, and hands-on changes, as set out in the expert agreement.
• The client remains the operator of their application: accepting an expert's recommendation is the client's decision, and the Terms of Service (section 7) on responsibility for deployed software apply unchanged to changes an expert reviewed or made.
• Sapilon is responsible for the platform role: running verification as described, matching in good faith, keeping the audit trail, and handling payment correctly.

To the maximum extent the law allows, Sapilon is not liable for the acts, errors, or omissions of experts, and Sapilon's total liability in connection with a marketplace engagement is limited to the fees the client paid for that engagement. This does not limit what a client may recover from an expert directly, and does not limit liability that cannot be limited by law. Where we mediate a complaint and find the work fell short of marketplace standards, our standard remedy is a refund of the engagement fee to the client's wallet.

7. Confidentiality & IP

Everything an expert sees inside a client's project is confidential. Experts may use project information only to perform the engagement, and must not retain, disclose, or reuse it afterwards. These are obligations the expert agreement spells out and survives the engagement. All work product an expert creates in an engagement belongs to the client on creation, consistent with the ownership terms in the Terms of Service: it lands in the client's plain Git repositories like every other change.

8. Off-platform hiring

Clients and experts may not move an engagement that started on the marketplace off the platform to avoid marketplace fees while the engagement is running or within six months after it ends. Beyond that window, a client is free to work with an expert directly; no lock-in applies to people any more than it does to code. If you want to convert a marketplace relationship into a direct one sooner, email we@sapilon.com and we will agree a buy-out or simply wave it through for small engagements.

9. Complaints & disputes

If an engagement goes wrong, email we@sapilon.com within 14 days of delivery with the project, the engagement, and what fell short. We confirm receipt within 2 business days, review the audit trail, hear both sides, and decide on a remedy, typically a fee refund to the client's wallet where justified. Experts who repeatedly fall short of marketplace standards, breach confidentiality, or solicit direct payment are removed from the marketplace. Sapilon's mediation is a service, not an arbitration: it does not prevent either party from pursuing legal remedies against the other, in which case Sapilon will provide the relevant audit-trail records as the law allows.

10. Changes & contact

We may update these Marketplace Terms as the marketplace evolves, with the date noted at the top of this page and at least 14 days' email notice for material changes, following the same process as the Terms of Service. Questions: we@sapilon.com.