Terms of Service

These Terms of Service (the “Terms”) govern access to and use of the game server and bot hosting services made available at packetgrid.xyz and any related dashboard, API or service (together, the “Service”), provided by PacketGrid, operating from Auckland, New Zealand (“PacketGrid”, “we”, “us” or “our”). “You” or “Customer” means the individual or organisation that holds the account, and, where the context requires, anyone using the Service under that account's authority.

By creating an account, ordering a server, or otherwise using the Service, you accept these Terms in full. If you do not agree to them, do not use the Service. These Terms, together with our Privacy Policy and our Service Level Agreement, form the entire agreement between you and PacketGrid in respect of the Service (the “Agreement”), and supersede any prior discussion or understanding, written or oral, on the same subject.

You must be able to form a binding contract under the law of your place of residence to use the Service. If you are a minor where you live, a parent or legal guardian must agree to these Terms on your behalf and takes responsibility for the account.

You must provide an email address you can actually receive mail at: it is how we tell you about your servers, how billing and security notices reach you, and how a lost account is recovered. You are responsible for keeping your account credentials confidential and for all activity that occurs under your account, whether or not you authorised it, except to the extent that activity results from our own failure to keep the Service reasonably secure. Tell us immediately at support@packetgrid.xyz if you believe your account has been compromised.

One person or organisation may hold one account. Creating multiple accounts to claim more than one free plan, trial, or promotional offer than intended is a breach of these Terms and may result in suspension of the accounts involved.

PacketGrid provides hosted, pre-configured game and bot server instances (Minecraft, FiveM, and Discord bot hosting, together with any other product line PacketGrid makes available from time to time) running on infrastructure PacketGrid operates or contracts for. Each plan has defined resource limits — memory, storage, processor allocation, network speed, and the number of backups, databases and network allocations included — as set out on the pricing page for that plan at the time you order it.

We may change the features, specifications or underlying technology of the Service, provided that we do not materially reduce what is included in a plan you are actively subscribed to without at least 30 days' notice by email.

You are solely responsible for the content, configuration and conduct of your server, and for the conduct of anyone who connects to it. Without limiting the generality of the foregoing, you must not use the Service, or allow the Service to be used, to:

• break the law of New Zealand, or of any country you or your players are in;
• attack, probe, scan or attempt to gain unauthorised access to any system that is not your own, or take part in a botnet, denial-of-service attack, or similar activity;
• send unsolicited bulk communications (“spam”), or host phishing infrastructure, malware, or material you do not have the right to distribute;
• host, generate or distribute content that sexualises children, incites violence against a person or group, or is intended to harass, defame or threaten a specific person;
• mine cryptocurrency, or use the Service, in whole or substantial part, as general-purpose compute or storage dressed up as a game or bot server (for example, running unrelated workloads that consume resources disproportionate to hosting the game or bot the plan was purchased for);
• run software you do not hold a valid licence for, including paid game content or plugins; or
• circumvent, disable, or attempt to circumvent or disable, any resource limit, rate limit, or guard described in these Terms.

Minecraft servers hosted through the Service are subject to Mojang Studios' End User Licence Agreement, which you accept within PacketGrid before your server first starts.

A breach of this section is grounds for immediate suspension or termination of the affected server, or of your account, under section 12, without prior notice where urgency requires it. No refund is owed for a period during which a server was suspended or terminated for a breach of this section.

Paid plans are billed in advance, in New Zealand dollars unless stated otherwise, for the billing interval you selected at checkout (monthly or, where offered, yearly), and renew automatically on the same date each interval until cancelled. Payment is processed by Stripe or PayPal; PacketGrid does not receive or store your card number.

We do not charge setup fees, and paid plans are not metered or billed for bandwidth beyond the plan you purchased. We may change our prices, but never in a way that affects a period you have already paid for, and we will email you at least 14 days before a price change takes effect on your next renewal. If you do not agree to a price change, you may cancel before it takes effect under section 6.

If a payment fails or is not received when due, we may suspend the affected server after a reasonable attempt to notify you. A suspended server's files are retained, not deleted, while a resolution is pursued.

Taxes. The price shown at checkout is the full amount charged; PacketGrid does not currently add GST or any other tax on top of it. If that changes, the price shown at checkout will say so before you pay.

The notice periods in this Agreement, including the 14 days' notice before a price change in this section and before a material change to these Terms under section 17, are intended to ensure this Agreement operates fairly and transparently, consistent with the unfair contract terms provisions of the Fair Trading Act 1986. We do not alter the price or resource limits of a plan you are actively subscribed to without that notice.

You may cancel a paid subscription at any time from your dashboard. Cancelling stops the next payment; the server continues to run, unaffected, until the end of the period you have already paid for, at which point it is suspended (not deleted) unless you delete it yourself or renew before then.

2 Week Minecraft Phase. A Minecraft plan can be bought as a 2 Week Phase: a single payment of half the plan's monthly price for 14 days. It is not a subscription and never renews by itself, so there is nothing to cancel. Towards the end of the 14 days, or after it, you can pay for another 14 days, or move the same server to a monthly or yearly plan, which starts on the day you switch and does not credit unused phase days. Phases are paid by card.

Keeping your files after a plan ends. When a free plan, trial or 2 Week Phase ends, the server is stopped and its files are kept for 90 days after the date it ended. In that time you can export them from the server's page, and renewing or switching to a monthly or yearly plan brings the server straight back. The server cannot be started while it is only being exported. After the 90 days the server and its files are permanently deleted.

If a newly ordered server does not work as described and we are unable to fix it, email us within 7 days of the order and we will refund that payment in full. Outside that window, refunds are given at our discretion, and we do not refund any period during which a server was suspended for a breach of section 4. Nothing in this section limits any right you have under the New Zealand Consumer Guarantees Act 1993 that cannot lawfully be excluded or limited.

Free plans and time-limited trials of paid plans exist so you can evaluate the Service before paying for it. They are limited to one per person or organisation, require a confirmed email address, and are subject to resource limits stricter than an equivalent paid plan, including:

• a guaranteed allocation of 30% of one virtual CPU core, with the ability to burst to a full core for up to 5 minutes before the server is automatically stopped;
• a maximum sustained network transfer rate, stated on the plan, with no cap on the amount of data transferred in a month; and
• an inactivity policy: if nobody signs in to the account for 30 days, the free server is paused, without deleting anything, and signing in brings it back. At 90 days of continued inactivity we email you that the server's files will be deleted; we email again before that happens; and at 97 days, if the account has not signed in and chosen to keep the server, the server and its files are permanently deleted.

A free plan or an active trial may also renew automatically for a further period simply by signing in to the account — no separate action is required. Paid plans are never suspended, paused, or deleted under this section. Section 8 (Service Level Agreement) and section 6 of the SLA do not apply to free plans or trials.

PacketGrid targets 99.98% monthly availability across the Service, excluding Scheduled Maintenance we have told you about in advance. For paid plans, this target is backed by a contractual commitment with tiered service credits, set out in full in our Service Level Agreement, which forms part of this Agreement. Free plans and trials are not covered by that commitment.

Plans that include scheduled backups take them on the schedule you configure, up to the number of retained backups your plan allows. Backups are provided as a convenience and are not a guaranteed archive: we do not warrant that a backup will exist, be complete, or be restorable at the moment you need it. You are responsible for keeping your own copy of anything the loss of which would cause you material harm.

As between you and PacketGrid, you retain all right, title and interest in and to the files, configuration, code, and other content you upload to or generate on your server (“Your Content”). You grant PacketGrid a limited licence to host, store, back up, transmit and display Your Content solely as necessary to provide the Service to you. We do not access, inspect or use Your Content except: at your request, for example when you ask for support; where reasonably necessary to diagnose or resolve a technical fault affecting the Service; or where we reasonably believe it necessary to investigate a suspected breach of section 4 or a legal obligation. A staff member accessing a server under this section is recorded in that server's own activity log.

You are responsible for ensuring Your Content, and your use of any third-party software you install on the Service (including game frameworks, plugins, mods and bot libraries), does not infringe the intellectual property or other rights of any third party.

The Service itself — including the PacketGrid dashboard, its design, and its underlying software — is owned by PacketGrid or its licensors and is protected by copyright and other intellectual property laws. Nothing in this Agreement transfers any of that ownership to you.

The Service relies on, and interoperates with, third-party services that PacketGrid does not control, including payment processing (Stripe, PayPal), sign-in providers (Google, GitHub, Discord), live chat (Tawk.to), Mojang Studios' player-identity API, and, where you use PacketGrid's mod or framework installers, the public repositories of the relevant third-party project (for example Modrinth, or a project's own GitHub releases). Your use of a third-party service accessed through the Service is also subject to that provider's own terms. PacketGrid is not responsible for the availability, content or conduct of any third-party service.

We may suspend or terminate a server, or your account, immediately and without prior notice where we reasonably believe it necessary to prevent harm — for example, an active attack, a security exploit, or content described in section 4 that requires urgent removal — and will explain the reason as soon as reasonably possible afterwards. For any other breach of these Terms, we will where practicable give you notice and a reasonable opportunity to remedy the breach before suspending or terminating.

You may close your account at any time. We may terminate this Agreement, or your access to the Service, with 30 days' notice for any reason, or immediately for a serious or repeated breach of these Terms. If we terminate for a reason other than your breach, we will refund any fees you have paid for a period of service you will not receive.

On termination or closure of an account, associated server data is deleted, other than records we are required to retain by law (see our Privacy Policy). If you would like a copy of Your Content before an account is closed, ask us before closing it.

Except as expressly stated in this Agreement, the Service is provided on an “as is” and “as available” basis. To the maximum extent permitted by law, we disclaim all warranties, express or implied, including any implied warranty of merchantability, fitness for a particular purpose, or non-infringement.

Business customers. Where you acquire the Service in trade, for the purposes of a business (for example, to run a commercial server network or a community you monetise), you and PacketGrid agree, under section 43(2) of the Consumer Guarantees Act 1993, that the guarantees in that Act do not apply to the supply of the Service. You further agree that sections 9, 12A and 13 of the Fair Trading Act 1986 do not apply to that supply, to the extent the law permits parties to agree this. This paragraph applies only where you are acquiring the Service for business purposes; nothing in it affects a guarantee under the Consumer Guarantees Act 1993 that cannot lawfully be contracted out of, including where you are acquiring the Service as a consumer.

To the maximum extent permitted by law, PacketGrid will not be liable to you for any indirect, incidental, special, consequential or punitive damages, or for any loss of profits, revenue, data, or business opportunity, arising out of or relating to this Agreement or the Service, even if we have been advised of the possibility of such loss.

To the maximum extent permitted by law, PacketGrid's total aggregate liability to you for any claim arising out of or relating to this Agreement or the Service, whether in contract, tort (including negligence), or otherwise, is limited to the total fees you paid to PacketGrid in the three months immediately preceding the event giving rise to the claim. Nothing in this Agreement limits liability that cannot lawfully be limited, including liability for death or personal injury caused by negligence, or for fraud.

You agree to indemnify and hold PacketGrid harmless from and against any claim, loss, liability, damage or expense (including reasonable legal costs) arising from: your breach of this Agreement; Your Content; your use of the Service in breach of section 4; or your violation of any law or the rights of a third party, except to the extent caused by PacketGrid's own breach of this Agreement or negligence.

Neither party is liable for any failure or delay in performing its obligations under this Agreement (other than an obligation to pay money) to the extent that failure or delay results from an event beyond that party's reasonable control, including natural disaster, fire, flood, war, civil unrest, act of government, widespread internet or power infrastructure failure, or a failure of a third-party service PacketGrid reasonably relies on to provide the Service.

We may update these Terms from time to time. We will email you at least 14 days before a material change takes effect. Continuing to use the Service after a change takes effect constitutes acceptance of the updated Terms; if you do not agree to a change, your remedy is to cancel your account before it takes effect.

Governing law and jurisdiction. This Agreement is governed by the laws of New Zealand. You and PacketGrid submit to the non-exclusive jurisdiction of the courts of New Zealand for any dispute arising out of or relating to this Agreement.

Severability. If any provision of this Agreement is found to be unenforceable or invalid, that provision will be limited or eliminated to the minimum extent necessary, and the remaining provisions will continue in full force and effect.

No waiver. A failure by either party to enforce a provision of this Agreement is not a waiver of that party's right to enforce it later.

Assignment. You may not assign or transfer this Agreement, or your account, without our prior written consent. We may assign this Agreement in connection with a merger, acquisition, or sale of substantially all of our assets, on notice to you.

Trade sanctions. You confirm that you are not located in, and are not ordinarily resident in, a country or territory subject to comprehensive trade sanctions under New Zealand or United Nations law, and that you are not a person or entity subject to targeted sanctions under New Zealand law (including the Russia Sanctions Act 2022 and regulations made under the United Nations Act 1946). We may refuse to provide, or may suspend or terminate, the Service where reasonably necessary to comply with those sanctions.

Notices. We may give you notice under this Agreement by email to the address on your account, or by a notice within the dashboard. You may give us notice at support@packetgrid.xyz.

Entire agreement. This Agreement (these Terms, the Privacy Policy, and the SLA) constitutes the entire agreement between you and PacketGrid regarding the Service, and supersedes any prior agreement or understanding on the same subject.