Terms of Service

Last updated: 20 October 2026 · Version 2.7

These terms are a binding agreement between you and Swayo (Pty) Ltd (registration number 2026/707726/07), a private company registered in the Republic of South Africa with its registered office at Outeniqua Lifestyle Centre, Cradock Peak Street, George, Western Cape, 6530 ("SWAYO", "we", "us"). They govern your use of the website swayo.co.za and the SWAYO platform at app.swayo.co.za (together, the "Platform"). By creating an account or using the Platform you accept these terms. If you are accepting on behalf of a company, you confirm you have authority to bind it.

SWAYO is in a pilot phase. Features and these terms may change as the Platform develops. We will notify account holders by email of material changes at least 14 days before they take effect, and continued use after that date is acceptance of the updated terms. Changes to payout, top-up and fee settings follow the stricter rules in section 14.

1. Definitions

• Brand — a business that runs a creator programme on the Platform.
• Creator — an individual who joins a Brand's programme and publishes content on their own social media accounts.
• Programme — a Brand's standing creator campaign on the Platform, including its Briefs, rates, caps and budget.
• Brief — the instructions a Brand publishes for a piece of content, including the rate it will pay.
• Rate — the amount a Brand sets per 1,000 verified views (CPM), and/or the commission it sets on attributed online sales. Rates are set by each Brand for each Brief. SWAYO does not set or guarantee any rate.
• Verified Views — views of Approved Content counted from the social platform's own analytics or from the platform data the Creator has authorised SWAYO to access, after SWAYO's fraud checks.
• Approved Content — content a Creator submitted against a Brief and the Brand approved on the Platform.
• Budget — money a Brand has committed to a Programme to pay Creators.
• Platform Fee — the fee SWAYO charges for its services, as stated in the Programme terms shown to the Brand when it funds a Programme.

2. What SWAYO is, and what it is not

SWAYO is an online marketplace and payment intermediary. It lets Brands publish Briefs, lets Creators respond to them, verifies performance, and moves money from Brands to Creators.

• Agent for payment. When a Creator joins a Programme, the Creator appoints SWAYO as their limited agent to invoice, collect, hold and pay out amounts a Brand owes them for Approved Content. Payment by a Brand to SWAYO of an amount due to a Creator discharges the Brand's obligation to that Creator for that amount. SWAYO holds Budget funds for the benefit of Creators; those funds are not SWAYO's revenue and are accounted for separately from SWAYO's own money.
• SWAYO's own charge is the Platform Fee only. Where a Platform Fee applies, SWAYO invoices it in its own name. Amounts collected from a Brand for onward payment to Creators are collected as agent, and any tax invoice for those amounts is issued by or on behalf of the Creator concerned, as section 54 of the Value-Added Tax Act 89 of 1991 provides.
• Not a party to the content deal. The agreement to produce content for a Rate is between the Brand and the Creator, on the terms of the Brief and these terms. SWAYO is not an advertising agency, not the Creator's employer, and not the Brand's agent, and does not endorse either side.
• Not an employer. Creators are independent contractors. Nothing on the Platform creates employment, partnership or joint venture between a Creator and SWAYO or a Brand.

3. Accounts

• You must be at least 18 years old and resident in South Africa to be a Creator. Brands must be businesses trading lawfully in South Africa.
• One account per person or business. Keep your details accurate and your login private. You are responsible for everything done through your account.
• Creators must supply a South African bank account in their own name to receive payouts, and consent to SWAYO storing those account details in encrypted form to pay them. SWAYO may ask for proof that the account is in the Creator's name (for example a bank confirmation letter) and may hold a payout until it is satisfied.

4. Creators

• Earning. Content earns only after the Brand approves it against the Brief it was submitted to. Earnings are Verified Views multiplied by the Brief's Rate, and/or commission on attributed sales, subject to the per-video cap in the Brief and the Brand's funded balance. Where a Brief sets a base amount, it is earned once per Creator per Brand: on your first Approved Content item for that Brand, on top of its Verified Views. Later content for the same Brand earns on Verified Views only. The base amount is reserved, credited and paid in the same way. Views earn for 30 days from the day the content is approved; views counted after that window do not earn. The Rate and cap shown on a Brief when you submit are locked for that content. Approved Content must stay published for at least 30 days; content removed earlier forfeits earnings not yet credited.
• Review. A Brand must approve each submission before it earns anything. Nothing is approved automatically: a submission the Brand has not yet reviewed stays pending and earns nothing until it is approved. Its 30-day earning window starts on the day it is approved. A rejection must state which requirement of the Brief the content failed.
• Approval is final for the Brand. Once content is approved, the Brand cannot withdraw the approval, and pausing or closing a Programme, changing a Brief, or requesting a refund does not stop or delay earnings on that content. Only SWAYO may reverse an approval, and only for artificial or fraudulent engagement, content removed before day 30, or a breach of the Brief or these terms. A reversal cancels earnings not yet paid out; money already paid to you is not recovered except where you obtained it by fraud.
• Verification is automatic. Views are counted only from the social account you have connected to SWAYO, read by SWAYO directly from the platform every night. A post you submit must be on that connected account and must stay there for 30 days; a post SWAYO cannot find on the account, or that is removed, is closed and its unpaid earnings are reversed. You cannot report views yourself and SWAYO's reading is final for payment purposes. SWAYO's automated checks may place a post on hold where the numbers do not look organic (for example very low engagement for the view count, or a sudden burst of views); a hold pauses earning, is re-checked every night, lifts by itself when the reading is clean, and if it is still standing when the post's 30-day window closes the post is closed and its unpaid earnings are reversed. You may query a hold or a closure at hello@swayo.co.za; SWAYO will review the platform data and its decision is final. SWAYO may recover amounts already paid where you obtained them by fraud.
• Payouts. Approved earnings are paid to your nominated bank account automatically on the Platform's payout schedule (currently every Monday morning, through our payment provider, arriving in South African bank accounts on the next business day), once your balance reaches the minimum payout amount shown on the Platform (currently R100, and changeable only under section 14). Balances below the minimum roll over to the next run and are never forfeited: any remaining balance is paid in full within 30 days of you closing your account. Payouts depend on the Brand having funded its Budget.
• SWAYO is never liable for a Brand's unpaid earnings. You agree and acknowledge that: (a) every amount you earn on the Platform is owed to you by the Brand whose Brief you posted for, not by SWAYO; (b) SWAYO pays you only out of money that Brand has actually deposited with SWAYO; (c) if a Brand's funded balance cannot cover what you have earned, SWAYO will record the amount as owed to you, lock the Brand's account until it pays, and pay you as soon as the Brand's money arrives, but SWAYO does not advance, guarantee, insure or underwrite that amount and will not pay it from its own funds; (d) your remedy for any unpaid earnings is against the Brand, and SWAYO will give you the Brand's registered details on request so you can pursue it; and (e) SWAYO's only obligations to you in respect of earnings are to count Verified Views honestly, to hold Brand deposits for your benefit, and to pay you what those deposits cover on the payout schedule. Nothing in this clause limits SWAYO's liability for its own fraud or for paying out a Brand's deposit to the wrong person.
• Tax. You are responsible for your own income tax and, if applicable, VAT on your earnings. SWAYO will give you a statement of earnings on request and reports to SARS where the law requires it.
• Your content stays yours. You own the content you create. By submitting it to a Brief you grant the Brand a non-exclusive, royalty-free licence to use, reproduce and display that content for its advertising and marketing for the duration of the Programme and 12 months after, in any media, including running it as a Meta Partnership Ad or TikTok Spark Ad from your handle where you have authorised that on the relevant social platform. You also grant SWAYO a licence to display the content and its performance on the Platform, and to use it in SWAYO's own case studies with your handle credited.
• Disclosure. Content made for a Brief is branded content. You must disclose it as such on every post, using the platform's paid-partnership or branded-content tool where available and clear wording such as #ad or #sponsored where not, in line with Appendix K (Social Media Code) of the Advertising Regulatory Board's Code of Advertising Practice.
• Your own responsibility. You are responsible for complying with the rules of the social platforms you post on and for the accuracy of anything you say in your content, unless a Brief specifically instructed you to say it.

5. Brands

• Budget and payment. You fund your Programme's Budget in advance, by the payment methods offered on the Platform. A Brief is only published to Creators while your funded balance meets the minimum shown on the Platform (changeable only under section 14), and Creators cannot submit content while your balance is below the minimum. Top-ups are made by instant EFT through our payment provider. The processing charge on a top-up is shown as a separate line before you pay (changeable only under section 14), and your funded balance is credited with the top-up amount, excluding that charge, once our payment provider confirms the payment. Amounts owed to Creators for Approved Content are deducted from your funded balance as they are verified.
• Reservation. Your funded balance must at all times cover the maximum payout of every post that could still earn. When a Creator submits a post, the Platform reserves that Brief's per-video cap plus the Platform Fee in your funded balance; the reservation shrinks as the post earns and is released in full when the post is rejected, or when its 30-day earning window closes. A Brief stops accepting new posts, and tells Creators so, while your unreserved balance cannot cover one more post at that Brief's cap plus fee. You cannot approve, publish or spend beyond what your balance covers, so no Creator can ever earn money that is not already held for them.
• Unspent money stays yours. SWAYO only takes from your balance what Creators actually earn, plus the Platform Fee on those earnings. Whatever a post does not earn is released back to your balance when its window closes and remains available for your next Brief, or for a refund under the Refunds clause. If you deposit R4,000 and Creators earn R2,000, R2,000 remains yours to spend.
• Shortfalls. The Reservation clause means a shortfall cannot arise in normal operation. If, nevertheless, a payout run finds your funded balance short of what Approved Content has earned, the unpaid amount remains a debt you owe to the Creators concerned, your Programmes are hidden from Creators and you cannot publish Briefs until you have topped up enough to cover it, and SWAYO may recover it from you together with its reasonable costs of recovery. Approved Content continues to accrue earnings during a shortfall.
• Pausing and closing. Pausing or closing a Programme, or closing a Brief, stops new Creators joining and new content being submitted. It does not stop, delay or cancel earnings on content you have already approved, which continue for that content's 30-day window and are paid on the normal schedule.
• Refunds. Unused funded balance is refundable on written request once every submission has been approved or rejected and every Approved Content earning window has closed, less the Platform Fee, top-up processing charges and any amounts owed to Creators. Refunds are made to the account the funds came from within 14 days of the request.
• Platform Fee. The Platform Fee is a percentage added on top of Creator earnings (currently 15%, and changeable only under section 14), shown to you before you fund a Programme, deducted from your funded balance each payout run, invoiced by SWAYO in its own name, and not refundable once charged. Creators receive the full Rate you set. Prices exclude VAT unless stated. SWAYO will add VAT to its Platform Fee once it is registered as a VAT vendor.
• Your Briefs. You are responsible for the lawfulness and accuracy of your Briefs and of every claim you ask Creators to make, including compliance with the Consumer Protection Act, the ARB Code, and sector rules for products such as medicines and financial products. You indemnify SWAYO and Creators against claims arising from your Briefs and products.
• Prohibited categories. SWAYO does not accept Brands, Programmes or Briefs that promote gambling or betting, alcohol (including alcohol-free alternatives sold by alcohol brands), tobacco, vaping or nicotine products, weapons, adult content, or forex, crypto or other trading and investment schemes. TikTok and Instagram do not allow Creators to be paid to promote these categories, and South African law restricts or prohibits advertising them. SWAYO may refuse, close or suspend any Brand account, Programme or Brief that falls within these categories, whether it discloses its category or not. Any unused funded balance is then refunded under the Refunds clause.
• Review and approval. You must approve or reject each submission, and we ask you to do so within 72 hours. Nothing is approved automatically: a submission earns only once you approve it, and its cap stays reserved in your wallet until you decide. Approval confirms the content may represent your brand and starts its 30-day earning window. You may reject only for a requirement stated in the Brief, and must state that reason; exhausting your Budget, pausing a Programme or changing your mind are not grounds for rejection. Approval is final: you cannot withdraw it, and only SWAYO may reverse it for fraud, early removal or breach.
• Honouring earnings. Amounts owed to Creators for Verified Views on Approved Content must be honoured on the Platform's payout schedule. A published Brief cannot be changed at all — not its Rate, cap, base amount, instructions, call to action or sample offer — because Creators post against exactly those terms. To change anything, close the Brief and publish a new one; content already approved under the old Brief keeps the old terms. A Programme Budget can be raised but not lowered while any Approved Content is inside its earning window.
• Creator relationships. You may not solicit Creators you met through the Platform to work outside the Platform on the same or similar programmes, for 12 months from your last Platform interaction with that Creator, without SWAYO's written consent.

6. Acceptable use

No fraudulent engagement (bought views, bots, engagement pods, view farms), no unlawful, misleading, defamatory, hateful or infringing content, no content involving minors without lawful consent, and no attempts to circumvent the Platform's tracking, verification or payment systems. Breach may result in withheld earnings, removal from Programmes, or account termination, at SWAYO's discretion.

7. Intellectual property

SWAYO™ and the SWAYO logo are trade marks of Swayo (Pty) Ltd (applications pending). The Platform, its software, design and data are owned by SWAYO. You get a personal, non-transferable licence to use the Platform for its intended purpose while you hold an account. You may not copy, scrape, reverse-engineer or resell any part of it.

8. Third-party platforms

The Platform relies on TikTok, Meta and other services SWAYO does not control. Their rules apply to your accounts there. SWAYO is not responsible for changes they make, data they withhold, or content they remove, and may adjust how views are verified when their services change.

9. Personal information

We process personal information under the Protection of Personal Information Act 4 of 2013 as described in our Privacy Policy, which forms part of these terms. Data deletion requests are handled as set out on our Data Deletion page.

10. Suspension and termination

You may close your account at any time by emailing us. We may suspend or terminate an account on notice for breach of these terms, suspected fraud, or legal requirement. On termination, earnings already verified and funded will still be paid, less any amounts withheld under section 4 or 6, and the licences in section 4 survive for the periods stated.

11. Disclaimers and limitation of liability

Please read this section carefully. It limits SWAYO's liability to you.

• The Platform is provided "as is" during the pilot. SWAYO does not guarantee that any Creator will earn any amount, that any Brand will achieve any result, or that the Platform will be uninterrupted or error-free.
• To the fullest extent the law allows, SWAYO is not liable for indirect, consequential or special loss, loss of profit, loss of data, or loss arising from the acts or omissions of Brands, Creators or third-party platforms.
• SWAYO's total liability to you for any claim arising from the Platform in any 12-month period is limited to the greater of the Platform Fees you paid to SWAYO in that period and R5,000.
• Brand money is the Brand's obligation. SWAYO is a payment intermediary acting as the Creator's agent. SWAYO is not liable to any Creator for earnings a Brand has not funded, and is not liable to any Brand for the acts or content of a Creator. A Creator's claim for unpaid earnings lies against the Brand; a Brand's claim about content lies against the Creator. SWAYO's obligations are limited to those set out in clauses 4 and 5.
• Nothing in these terms limits or excludes liability that cannot be limited or excluded under South African law, including under the Consumer Protection Act 68 of 2008 where it applies to you.

12. Disputes and governing law

These terms are governed by the laws of the Republic of South Africa. If you have a dispute with SWAYO, email us first and we will try to resolve it within 14 days. Failing that, either party may approach the courts of South Africa, and you consent to the jurisdiction of the Western Cape Division of the High Court, Cape Town, or the Magistrates' Court with jurisdiction over George. Disputes between a Brand and a Creator about content or Rates are between them; SWAYO may, but need not, mediate.

13. Notices and company details

• Legal name: Swayo (Pty) Ltd
• Registration number: 2026/707726/07
• Registered office and address for legal notices: Outeniqua Lifestyle Centre, Cradock Peak Street, George, Western Cape, 6530
• Email: hello@swayo.co.za
• Director: Alexandros Christodoulou

Notices to you go to the email address on your account and are deemed received 24 hours after sending. This page is the current version of these terms; earlier versions are available on request.

14. Changes to payout, top-up and fee settings

This section takes effect on 7 October 2026.

• Which settings. Some amounts and schedules are shown on the Platform rather than fixed in these terms, because they depend on what our payment providers and banks charge us, on fraud risk and on the cost of running the Platform. They are: the minimum payout amount; the payout day, frequency and payment provider; payout limits for new Creators under our fraud controls; the minimum first and later top-ups for Brands; the processing charges on top-ups; and the Platform Fee percentage.
• Why we may change them. We may change a setting only for one or more of these reasons: a change in what our payment providers or banks charge us; managing fraud or security risk; complying with the law, a regulator or a payment provider's rules; or keeping payouts and the Platform economical to run as it grows. We will state the reason when we give notice.
• Limit. The minimum payout amount will never be set above R500.
• Notice. We will tell you by email and on the Platform at least 30 days before a change that is less favourable to you takes effect. A change that is more favourable to you, for example a lower minimum payout or more frequent payouts, may take effect immediately.
• What a change never does. A change never reduces or forfeits any amount you have already earned and never applies to the past. It never alters the Rate, cap, base amount or earning window of content already submitted. A change to the Platform Fee or top-up charges applies only to money a Brand deposits after the change takes effect. If the minimum payout goes up, the previous minimum still applies to the first payout run after the change, so any balance that already met it is paid in full.
• Your options. If you do not accept a change, you may close your account before it takes effect. A Creator's full balance is then paid within 30 days of closing, whatever its size (the minimum payout does not apply to a closing balance). A Brand may ask for a refund of its unused funded balance under the Refunds clause in section 5.