Refund Policy

1 Refund Eligibility

A refund may only be considered where both of the following conditions are met:

• Service not delivered: HostGuru has failed to provision or activate the purchased service within a reasonable time frame after payment is confirmed; or
• Service completely unusable: The service is confirmed by our technical team to be entirely non-functional due to a fault on our infrastructure — not due to the client's own configuration, scripts, software or actions.

2 Mandatory Support Ticket Requirement

Before any refund request will be considered, the client must have raised a support ticket through the client portal and given HostGuru a reasonable opportunity to investigate and resolve the reported issue.

• A support ticket must be opened at our support portal describing the issue in detail.
• HostGuru's support team must be given a minimum of 48 hours (two business days) to investigate and attempt resolution.
• The client must co-operate with our team's reasonable requests for information, access or testing.
• If no support ticket exists at the time of a refund request, the refund will be automatically declined — no exceptions.

3 Non-Refundable Services

The following categories of services are non-refundable under any circumstances:

• Domain name registrations and renewals — once a domain is registered or renewed with the registry it cannot be cancelled or refunded. ICANN and ccTLD registry rules govern this.
• Domain transfers — once initiated, domain transfer fees are non-refundable.
• VPS and Dedicated Server plans — server resources are reserved exclusively for you upon activation. Refunds are not available regardless of usage.
• Software licences (cPanel, CloudLinux, Imunify360, Windows, Office) — licence keys are issued immediately upon payment and cannot be returned.
• SSL certificates — once issued by the Certificate Authority, SSL certificates cannot be refunded.
• Custom web design and development work — once work has commenced, fees for design, development and project management are non-refundable.
• Services suspended or terminated for policy violations — no refund is issued where suspension or termination results from a breach of our Acceptable Use Policy or Terms of Service.

4 Shared & Cloud Hosting Refunds

For eligible shared hosting and cloud hosting plans (excluding the non-refundable categories above), refunds may be considered within seven (7) calendar days of the original purchase date, subject to the following conditions:

• A support ticket must have been raised and HostGuru given an opportunity to resolve the issue (see Section 2).
• The account must not have been suspended or terminated for policy violations.
• The service must genuinely be undelivered or completely unusable — not merely underperforming or unsuitable for purpose.
• Refunds are for the hosting service only. Any domain registered as part of a promotional bundle (e.g. "free domain with hosting") will have its market-rate registration cost deducted from the refund amount.
• Renewal payments are not eligible for refunds — only the initial purchase within the 7-day window.

5 Server (VPS & Dedicated) Refunds

VPS, Cloud VPS and Dedicated Server plans are non-refundable. Server resources are allocated exclusively to your account at the point of activation and cannot be reallocated to another client. The following additional billing terms apply:

• Server invoices are due and payable three (3) days before the plan expiry date. Failure to pay by the due date will result in suspension of the server.
• Cancellation of VPS or Dedicated Server services requires a minimum of thirty (30) days' written notice submitted through your client area.
• If a cancellation notice is not provided before the next billing cycle commences, that billing cycle will be charged in full and payment remains due regardless of usage.
• No pro-rata refunds are issued for partial billing periods on server plans.

6 Domain Name Refunds

Domain names are registered on your behalf with the applicable registry (KENIC for .ke domains; accredited registrars for international TLDs). Once the registration command is sent to the registry, it cannot be reversed.

• Domain registration fees are non-refundable in all circumstances.
• Domain renewal fees are non-refundable once the renewal has been processed.
• Accidental renewal requests must be reported within 24 hours; HostGuru will use reasonable endeavours to assist but cannot guarantee a reversal and accepts no liability for registry processing already completed.
• HostGuru is not responsible for any loss arising from a client's failure to renew their domain on time. Please see Section 6 of our Terms of Service for full domain renewal obligations.

7 Refund Process & Timeline

If your refund request is approved following our review, the refund will be processed as follows:

• M-Pesa payments: refunded to the originating M-Pesa number within 7–14 business days.
• PayPal payments: refunded to the originating PayPal account within 5–10 business days.
• Bank transfer payments: refunded to the originating bank account within 10–14 business days. Client must provide valid bank account details.
• Refunds are issued in Kenyan Shillings (KES) at the exchange rate applicable at the time of the original transaction. HostGuru accepts no liability for currency fluctuations.
• Refunds are credited to the original payment method only. We do not issue refunds to a different account, number or method.

To initiate a refund request, open a support ticket titled "Refund Request — [Your Order Number]" and include your account email, order number, reason for request and reference to the prior support ticket number documenting the unresolved issue.

8 Abuse & Fraud

HostGuru actively monitors for refund abuse. We reserve the right to:

• Decline a refund request where we reasonably believe it is made in bad faith, fraudulently or to abuse our guarantee.
• Permanently suspend accounts found to be abusing the refund process.
• Report fraudulent chargeback attempts to the relevant financial institution and Kenyan authorities.

Initiating a chargeback or payment dispute through your bank or PayPal without first raising a support ticket and allowing us to resolve the issue will result in immediate account suspension and may result in legal action to recover costs, including chargeback fees imposed on HostGuru by the payment processor.

9 Disputes

If you disagree with a refund decision, you may escalate your complaint by emailing legal@hostguru.co.ke with the subject line "Refund Dispute — [Ticket Number]". Our compliance team will review the case and respond within five (5) business days. This policy is governed by the laws of Kenya and any unresolved disputes shall be subject to the jurisdiction of the courts of Nairobi.