Legal

Terms & conditions

Last updated: 11 August 2026

1. Who these terms are with

ScottishLocal ("we", "us") is an independent guide to local businesses in Scotland, operated from Scotland, United Kingdom. These terms apply between us and any business listed on the site ("you").

They cover listings. If you are simply reading the guide, nothing here applies to you — see the privacy policy instead.

2. What you get

Free listing — £0, permanently

Your business name, what you do, one photograph, your town, and a pin on the map. It appears on your region page, in the directory, and on your town's page where one exists. It is not a trial, we will not ask for a card, and we will not later put it behind a charge.

Connected — £4 per month

Everything in the free listing, plus your Facebook and Instagram links, your email address, and your opening hours shown on your listing and published as structured data so search engines can read them. No page of your own at this tier.

Full profile — £12 per month

Everything in the free listing, plus a page of your own at its own web address, with up to eight photographs, opening hours, your email address and telephone number, links to your social accounts, and space to describe what you do properly.

Writing your page, editing the photographs you send and keeping your details accurate are included in the monthly price. There is no setup fee and no other charge, apart from the larger pieces of work described in section 6.

3. We build and maintain the page

You will never have to learn a page builder, upload files, or lay anything out. You tell us about your business, we write and publish the page, and we keep it running. If you never want to touch it again after that, you don't have to — email us what you want changed and we'll do it, free, as set out in section 6.

The two things you can change yourself, if you want to

Paid listings get an optional page at scottishlocal.com/portal, opened from a private link we send you. There is no password to remember and no account to set up. It does exactly two things:

• Your opening hours. Changes appear on your page immediately.
• Short updates — a market stall this weekend, a delivery in, closing early on Thursday. Every update carries an end date and removes itself on that date, so nothing you post can sit on your page forgotten.

Using it is entirely optional. Everything else on the page — photographs, your description, prices, contact details, your offer — is still ours to change on your behalf, and still free.

What you publish there is yours

Anything you post through the portal is published in your name and on your responsibility, not ours. We do not check it before it goes live. By posting you confirm that it is accurate, lawful, something you can honour, and not defamatory or offensive.

We can remove anything posted through the portal, at any time and without notice, if we think it breaches these terms or the law, or would mislead a reader. We will tell you when we do and why. We can also withdraw portal access — your listing and your page are not affected, and you can still ask us to make any change by email.

Keep your access link private. Anyone who has it can post as you. If you lose it, or think someone else has it, tell us and we will cancel it and issue a new one — the old one stops working the moment we do.

4. Before anything is published or charged

We write your page and show it to you first. Nothing goes live, and no payment link is sent, until you have seen it and told us you are happy. If you decide against it at that point, that is the end of the matter and you owe nothing.

5. Payment, renewal and cancellation

• Payments are handled by Stripe. Your card details go directly to Stripe and are never seen by, or stored on, this website.
• The subscription is monthly and rolling. It renews automatically on the same date each month until you cancel.
• You can cancel at any time from Stripe's billing page, without contacting us and without giving a reason. There is no notice period and no cancellation fee.
• Cancelling stops future payments. We do not refund part-months, because the page stays up for the period you have already paid for.
• When the paid period ends, your page comes down and your listing reverts to the free tier. You are not removed from the guide for cancelling.
• If a payment fails, we will let you know before anything changes. If it stays unpaid, the page comes down and the free listing remains.
• Prices may change, but never mid-subscription without at least 30 days' notice by email. If you do not want the new price, cancel before it takes effect.

If you have been given a free period

We sometimes give a business a paid tier free for a fixed period — an early listing, say. If that applies to you:

• The end date is agreed in writing before anything goes live, and we hold it on record. A free period always has an end date.
• No card details are taken and no subscription is created, so nothing can start charging you automatically. When the free period ends, it simply ends.
• We will email you before the end date. If you do nothing, your page comes down and your listing reverts to the free tier — the same as cancelling. You will not be invoiced, and you do not need to tell us you are stopping.
• If you want to continue, you subscribe at that point in the ordinary way.

6. Changes to your page

• Free: anything that keeps your listing accurate — opening hours, telephone, email, address, prices, typos, swapping a photograph for a better one, and seasonal or holiday changes. Done within two working days.
• Quoted first: larger work such as rewriting the page from scratch, a full new set of photographs, or adding a substantial new part of your business. We will tell you the cost before doing anything, and you are free to decline.

You will never be charged for telling us something is wrong. An out-of-date listing is a bigger problem for us than the work of fixing it.

7. Your content, and who owns what

The photographs, descriptions and details you send us remain yours. By sending them, you give us permission to publish them on ScottishLocal for as long as your listing is live, and you confirm that:

• you have the right to use them — in particular that you own the photographs or have the photographer's permission;
• the information you give us is accurate and not misleading;
• publishing it will not infringe anyone else's rights.

Page copy that we write for you remains ours, but you are welcome to reuse it elsewhere — it is about your business, and we would rather it was useful to you.

If you tell us to remove something, we will, within two working days.

Offers and discounts you choose to publish

You can have an offer shown on your listing for people who show it to you — a discount, a free extra, whatever you decide. It is optional, it costs nothing, and it is entirely your choice whether to have one.

• The offer is yours, not ours. You set the wording and the terms, and you are the one who honours it. We publish it on your behalf and take no part in it.
• We only publish an offer you have asked for in writing, in the wording you gave us. We will not invent one or change one.
• Every offer carries an end date and disappears from the site by itself on that date, so the site cannot advertise something that has finished.
• You can withdraw or change it at any time by telling us, and we will do it within two working days. It is a free change under section 6.
• You are responsible for making sure the offer is lawful, accurate and something you can actually honour, and for meeting your own obligations to the customer under consumer law.

8. What we will and will not promise

We will build your page to proper technical standards, keep it fast and correctly marked up for search engines, and make sure it can be found and indexed.

We will not promise you a position in Google, an amount of traffic, or a number of customers. Nobody can honestly promise those, because nobody controls search rankings. Anyone who tells you otherwise is selling you something they cannot deliver.

ScottishLocal is a new site building its own search presence. A listing here is one part of being findable, not the whole of it.

9. Who we list

Independent businesses operating in Scotland: sole traders, family businesses, crofts, community enterprises, workshops and small partnerships. Not national chains or franchises.

We may decline or remove a listing — refunding any unused paid period — if the business is not independent, if the information given to us turns out to be false, if the business is not lawfully trading, or if the listing would bring the guide into disrepute. We do not remove listings because of criticism, or to favour a paying business over a free one.

10. Paying does not buy a better position

Paid tiers buy you more space and our time. They do not buy a higher position in our listings, a favourable sort order, or a rating. Listings are ordered alphabetically regardless of what anyone pays. We take no commission and no booking fees: when a customer contacts you, whatever they spend is entirely yours.

11. Availability

We aim to keep the site available at all times but cannot guarantee uninterrupted service. We are not liable for interruptions caused by hosting providers, network faults, or anything else outside our reasonable control.

12. Liability

Our total liability to you in any 12-month period is limited to the amount you paid us in that period. We are not liable for lost profits, lost business or lost custom.

Nothing in these terms limits liability for death or personal injury caused by negligence, for fraud, or for anything else that cannot be limited by law.

13. Business customers

These terms are for businesses, so the statutory cancellation rights that apply to consumers buying at a distance do not apply here. The cancellation terms in section 5 are given by us, and they are more generous than the statutory minimum for business contracts.

14. Ending the arrangement

You can cancel at any time (section 5). We can end a listing by giving you 30 days' notice, refunding any unused paid period — or immediately, in the circumstances in section 9.

15. Changes to these terms

If we change these terms in a way that affects you, we will email you at least 30 days beforehand. If you do not accept the change, cancel before it takes effect and we will refund any unused paid period.

16. Law

These terms are governed by the law of Scotland, and the Scottish courts have jurisdiction.

17. Getting in touch

Use the contact form. We aim to reply within two working days.