Terms of Service

What MontageU is, and is not

MontageU is a venue. It introduces clients to independent editors, takes and holds the payment while a job runs, and gives both sides somewhere to talk and hand over files. It is not a party to the agreement about the work itself, and it does not do the editing.

Editors are independent contractors. They are not employees of MontageU, they set their own prices and hours, they choose which work to take, and they may work elsewhere. Nothing here creates an employment relationship, a partnership or an agency.

Who can use it

You must be old enough to enter a contract where you live, and at least 18. One account per person. What you tell us about yourself has to be true, which matters most for editors, whose portfolio is what clients are deciding on.

Editors must be in the United States for now, because that is where we can pay people and report the tax correctly. Clients can be anywhere. We expect to open editing up to more countries and will say so here when we do.

What may not be uploaded

The prohibited content list lives in the Community Standards and forms part of these terms. It covers sexual content and nudity of any kind, anything involving a minor, non consensual intimate imagery, graphic violence, hate speech, material you do not have the rights to, and content depicting or helping a crime.

Uploads are scanned automatically, and breaking this list can cost you your account.

How a job works

A client posts a brief, either to the open board or to one editor. An editor quotes a price. When the client accepts, that price and that brief are the agreed scope. Work beyond it is a new job at a new price.

The editor delivers, and the client has 72 hours to approve or ask for a change. Doing nothing for 72 hours approves it automatically, which exists so an editor is not left unpaid by a client who simply stops replying.

2 revisions are included. Further changes are booked as new paid work, so the editor is paid for the time.

Money

The client is charged the full quoted price when the job is booked, so an editor never starts work that is not paid for. The money sits with our payment processor, in MontageU's account, and none of it reaches the editor until the job is approved.

Approval is not the same as payout. When the client approves, or the 72 hour window runs out, the job becomes eligible and a clearance period of 7 days begins, or 3 days for editors with a long clean record. The money is sent to the editor at the end of it. This exists so a payment that is later reversed can still be put right.

The client pays the quoted price and nothing on top. Two things come out of the editor's side: MontageU's 15 percent commission, and the card processing fee charged on that payment. The processing fee depends on the card the client used, so the exact amount is known once the payment goes through and is shown to the editor then.

Refunds

A client is refunded in full if the editor misses the agreed deadline, or delivers something materially different from what was quoted. An editor who hands a job back before delivering triggers a full refund automatically.

Where only part of what was quoted is missing or wrong, and the rest is worth having, MontageU may refund part of the price rather than all of it. The client does not set that amount. MontageU decides it from the brief, the quote and what was delivered, and records the reason.

There is no refund for a change of mind after approval, and none for a client who simply decides afterwards that they would have preferred something else within the scope they agreed.

Keeping it on the platform

If you meet someone here, the work and the payment stay here. Taking a job off the platform to avoid the commission is a breach of these terms and can end either account.

This is not only about the fee. Off the platform there is no held payment, no approval window, no dispute process and no record of what was agreed, so both of you lose every protection you came here for. When a message looks like it contains contact details, both people see a note saying exactly that.

When something goes wrong

Either side can report a job or a person, and a human reads it. Where the two sides disagree about whether the work matches the quote, MontageU decides, looking at the brief, the quote, the delivery and the conversation.

That decision is about the money held against the job. It is not a court, and it does not stop either of you from doing anything else.

Suspension and closing an account

An account can be suspended or closed for breaking the content rules, taking work off the platform, misrepresenting a portfolio, or abusing someone. A first breach is usually a warning; anything involving a minor is immediate and permanent.

Every action is recorded with a reason and you can ask for it. If a job is running when an account is suspended, the money is resolved through the dispute process rather than left in limbo.

What MontageU is responsible for

MontageU is responsible for running the platform, holding and releasing the money correctly, and handling your files the way the Privacy Policy says. It is not responsible for the quality of an edit, for a missed deadline, or for what either of you says to the other.

To the extent the law allows, MontageU's liability for any claim is limited to the commission it took on the job the claim is about.

Governing law

These terms are governed by the law of the State of Texas, and the courts of Texas have jurisdiction over any dispute about them.