Last updated: 7 September 2026

Refund and Cancellation Policy

The short version: this page applies to paid service engagements with Truestep Solutions, not to our free our own apps. You can cancel an engagement in writing at any time. We refund money you have paid for work we have not yet done, we do not refund work already delivered or costs we have already paid to third parties on your behalf, and approved refunds go back to the payment method you used.

• 1. What this policy covers
• 2. How engagements are quoted and invoiced
• 3. The booking deposit
• 4. Cancellation notice periods
• 5. What is refundable
• 6. What is not refundable
• 7. How an approved refund is paid
• 8. Intellectual property and repository access
• 9. How to request a refund
• 10. The statement of work prevails
• 11. Changes to this policy

1. What this policy covers

Truestep Solutions is a service based software company in India. This policy applies to paid service engagements, which include web application development, mobile app development for iOS, Android and cross platform, technology consulting and architecture, websites with a content management system, cloud and DevOps, UI and UX design, and maintenance and support retainers.

It does not apply to our own apps. Apex Health: Sleep & Recovery is free, is distributed through the App Store and TestFlight, and involves no payment to us, so there is nothing to refund. Purchases made through the App Store, if any ever exist, are handled by Apple under Apple's own refund process and not by us.

Where a client is a business buying services for business purposes, the terms of the signed contract govern the relationship. Nothing in this policy limits rights that a client has under applicable Indian law and that cannot be excluded by agreement.

2. How engagements are quoted and invoiced

Every engagement starts with a written proposal and a statement of work. The statement of work names the engagement model, which is fixed scope, dedicated team or retainer, and sets out the scope, the deliverables, the milestones, the acceptance criteria, the fees, the taxes that apply, the payment schedule and the notice period for ending the engagement.

• Fixed scope. The work is divided into milestones. Each milestone is invoiced when the deliverables for that milestone are submitted for acceptance, or on the schedule written into the statement of work.
• Dedicated team. One or more named people are reserved for the client for an agreed period. Invoicing is periodic, normally monthly in advance or in arrears as the statement of work specifies, for the capacity reserved rather than for a fixed list of deliverables.
• Retainer. An agreed block of maintenance and support capacity is reserved each billing period and invoiced for that period. Unused capacity does not carry forward unless the statement of work says it does.

Invoices are payable within the period stated on the invoice. Taxes, bank charges and payment gateway charges are handled as the statement of work sets out. We never begin billable work without a signed statement of work or a written instruction to proceed.

3. The booking deposit

Most engagements begin with a booking deposit, in the amount stated in the statement of work, payable before work starts. The deposit reserves capacity in our delivery schedule for the agreed start date, covers the planning, discovery and onboarding effort that takes place before the first milestone, and confirms that the engagement is going ahead.

The deposit is adjusted against the first invoice, or against the final invoice, exactly as the statement of work provides. Because it pays for a reservation we cannot resell at short notice and for work that begins immediately, the deposit is not refundable once we have started, except where we cancel the engagement ourselves without cause, or where the statement of work expressly says otherwise. If you cancel before any work has started and before the reserved slot has cost us other work, we will refund the deposit in full.

4. Cancellation notice periods

Either party may end an engagement by written notice sent to the other party. Notice takes effect on the date it is received, and the notice period runs from that date. The periods below apply where the statement of work is silent. Where the statement of work states a different period, that period applies instead.

• Fixed scope. Notice may be given at any time and takes effect immediately. You remain liable for every milestone already accepted or already submitted for acceptance, and for the work in progress on the current milestone, charged on a time spent basis up to the date of the notice.
• Dedicated team. Thirty days of written notice, because the people reserved for you are not available to other clients and cannot be reassigned at short notice. Fees for the notice period remain payable, and during that period we will keep working on whatever you ask us to prioritise.
• Retainer. Thirty days of written notice, taking effect at the end of the current billing period. The current period remains payable in full, because the capacity for that period has already been reserved.

We may also end an engagement on written notice if invoices remain unpaid after the due date and a written reminder, if we are not given the access, information or approvals we need to make progress, or if continuing would put us in breach of law or of an obligation to a third party. If we end an engagement for one of those reasons, you remain liable for work already done and for costs already incurred.

5. What is refundable

Once an engagement ends, we reconcile everything invoiced against everything delivered and every cost incurred. If you have paid more than the reconciled amount, the difference is refunded to you. In practice this covers:

• Fees paid in advance for milestones that had not been started when notice took effect.
• The unused part of a period paid in advance for a dedicated team or a retainer, where the statement of work provides for the period to be prorated.
• A booking deposit paid for an engagement that we cancel ourselves without cause, or that is cancelled before any work begins.
• Any amount paid twice, paid in error, or invoiced in error, which we refund in full regardless of anything else on this page.
• Fees for a deliverable that we were unable to complete and that we agree in writing we cannot deliver.

6. What is not refundable

We do not refund work we have already done or money we have already spent for you. Specifically:

• Work already delivered. Milestones that have been accepted, and deliverables that have been submitted for acceptance and were not rejected within the acceptance period, are payable and are not refundable. This includes discovery findings, architecture documents, designs, source code, configuration and documentation handed over to you, whether or not you go on to use them.
• Time already spent. Hours worked on a dedicated team or retainer engagement are not refundable, even if the outcome of a sprint was not what either side hoped, because the capacity was reserved and consumed.
• Third party costs already incurred. Money we have paid or committed on your behalf is not refundable, because we cannot recover it ourselves. This includes software licences and subscriptions, cloud and hosting spend, domain registration and renewal fees, SSL certificates, developer programme fees, third party APIs, paid fonts, stock assets and any similar pass through cost. Where a third party gives us a refund for one of these, we pass that refund on to you in full.
• Payment gateway and bank charges. Charges deducted by a payment gateway or a bank on the original payment are not refunded by us where the gateway does not return them to us.
• Taxes. Taxes are refunded only to the extent the law allows us to reclaim or adjust them.
• Change of mind after delivery. A change in your plans, priorities, funding or internal ownership after work has been delivered does not create a right to a refund.

If you believe a deliverable does not meet the acceptance criteria in the statement of work, that is a defect question rather than a refund question. Tell us within the acceptance period and we will correct it at our own cost.

7. How an approved refund is paid

An approved refund is issued back to the original payment method used for the original payment. A card payment is credited to the same card, a bank transfer is returned to the same bank account, and a payment made through a gateway is reversed through that gateway. We do not send refunds to a different account, a different card or a third party, because that is how payment rules and our own fraud controls work. If the original method has genuinely closed, write to us and we will agree a documented alternative with you.

We aim to initiate an approved refund within seven working days of approving it. After we initiate it, the money typically reaches you within five to ten working days, depending on your bank, your card issuer and the gateway. Timings after initiation are outside our control. We will give you the refund reference so you can trace it, and we issue a credit note for any invoice that a refund adjusts.

8. Intellectual property and repository access

Ownership follows payment. Under our standard terms, the intellectual property rights in bespoke deliverables transfer to you when the invoices covering those deliverables are paid in full. Deliverables that have not been paid for remain our property, and any licence to use them is suspended until payment is made.

If an engagement ends early, we will, once the final reconciliation is settled, hand over the source code and assets for everything you have paid for, transfer or grant you administrative access to the repositories, pipelines and cloud accounts that hold that work, and provide the credentials and documentation needed for another team to continue. We will keep our own copy only for the period our contract and the law require, and we will delete or return your confidential material after that.

Pre existing components, internal libraries, tools and know how that we bring to an engagement remain ours. Where a deliverable depends on one of them, you receive a perpetual, non exclusive licence to use it as part of that deliverable. Third party and open source components keep their own licences, which we list for you.

9. How to request a refund

Write to legal@truestepsolutions.in with the subject line "Refund request". Please include:

• The client name and the statement of work or project name.
• The invoice numbers and payment references the request relates to.
• The amount you believe should be refunded, and how you arrived at it.
• The reason for the request, with any supporting documents.

We acknowledge every refund request within three working days. We then review the engagement record and respond with a decision, normally within ten working days of the acknowledgement, and sooner where the facts are simple. If we need more information from you, that period pauses until you send it. If we decline a request, we explain why in writing and set out the amounts we have relied on, so you can check our arithmetic. If you disagree with the decision, reply to the same address and a second person who was not involved in the first review will look at it again.

10. The statement of work prevails

This page describes our default position, so that anyone can see how we handle money before they talk to us. It is not the contract. Where a signed statement of work, master services agreement or purchase order says something different about deposits, notice periods, refunds, acceptance or payment, that signed document prevails over this page for that engagement. Where the signed documents are silent, this page fills the gap.

A dispute about a refund that we cannot settle between us is subject to the governing law and the jurisdiction named in the signed contract. Where the signed documents say nothing about it, the laws of India apply and the courts at Chennai, Tamil Nadu, India, have jurisdiction.

11. Changes to this policy

We may update this page as our services change. The date at the top always shows the current version. A change to this page never alters the terms of an engagement that was already signed. Engagements signed before a change continue under the version of this policy that was published when they were signed.