Terms of service

Last updated: 7 October 2026. Issued by ALUMA FZ-LLC, which operates aluma.

1. The short version

aluma is a staff records and compliance tool for children's activities businesses and nurseries, for business use only. You pay a monthly or annual subscription, you own your data, and you are responsible for running your business properly. We keep the service running and keep your data safe. aluma is built for staff and business records. The only children's details it holds are in the accident book, where the law expects you to record anyone who is hurt. The rest of this page spells that out.

2. Who we are and what these terms cover

aluma is operated by ALUMA FZ-LLC, a company registered in the United Arab Emirates. These terms are a contract between ALUMA FZ-LLC ("we", "us") and the business that creates an aluma account ("you"). They cover the aluma website, the aluma app, and the staff portal.

aluma is for business use only. It is for businesses, including sole traders, using it to run their business. By creating an account or subscribing, you confirm that you are acting for the purposes of your trade, business or profession, and not as a consumer. You must not use or subscribe to aluma for personal, family or household use.

By creating an account or using aluma you agree to these terms. If you are setting up an account for a business, you confirm you are allowed to agree on its behalf. These terms, our privacy policy and our Data Processing Agreement are the whole agreement between us.

3. Your account

You must be at least 18 and running, or working for, a business.
Give us accurate details and keep them up to date.
Keep your password private. Anything done through your account is treated as done by you, so tell us straight away if you think someone else has access.
Staff members you invite get their own portal login. You decide who is invited and what they can see.

4. Free trial, billing and payment

Every account starts with a 14-day free trial. No card is needed to start. If you do not choose a plan by the end of the trial, your account is paused. We keep your data for 30 days after the trial ends so you can subscribe and pick up where you left off, then we delete it for good. We email you a week before.
Plans are billed monthly or annually through Stripe, our payment provider, in pounds sterling for UK customers or UAE dirhams for UAE customers. Your billing period starts on the day you subscribe and renews on the same date each month, or each year on an annual plan, until you cancel. We do not add a fee for paying by card. If your card is in a different currency, your bank may charge you to convert it.
Current prices are shown on our website and on the plans page inside aluma. Before you subscribe, Stripe's checkout shows the full amount you will pay and how often.
Taxes. We do not currently charge VAT, so the price you see is the full amount you pay. If that changes, we will tell you before it applies to your subscription. If you are located outside the UAE, you are responsible for accounting for any VAT, GST or sales tax due in your country on what you buy from us, including under the reverse charge where it applies.
By subscribing, you authorise us, through Stripe, to take payment at the start of each billing period until you cancel. You can see and download your invoices from Settings, which opens Stripe's secure billing page.
You can cancel at any time from Settings. Your plan stays active until the end of the billing period you have paid for. We do not refund part periods, except where the law requires it, where we end the service for a reason that is not your fault, or where we seriously break these terms. In those cases we refund the unused part of what you have paid.
If we change prices, we will tell you at least 30 days before the change affects you, and you can cancel before it does.
Plans are based on how many active staff members you have. If your team grows past your plan, we move you to the right plan and email you straight away. Nothing changes until your next renewal, when the new plan's price applies.
If a payment fails, we will let you know and try again over the following days, and your account keeps working meanwhile. If it still fails after that, your account is paused until the payment is sorted.

5. What aluma is, and what it is not

aluma helps you keep track of staff records, certificates, venues, policies, payroll paperwork and the day-to-day admin of running an activities business or nursery. It sends reminders and keeps an audit trail so you can show what you did and when.

aluma is a tool, not an adviser. It does not give legal, HR, safeguarding or tax advice. Reminders and status colours are there to help you, but you remain responsible for meeting your own legal and regulatory duties, including checking that certificates are genuine and in date.

aluma is built for staff and business records. It is not designed to hold, and must not be used to hold, information about the children who attend your sessions or their parents, except in two places. In the accident and incident book you may record an accident involving a child (the child's name, age or date of birth, room, what happened, injury, treatment, body map, and which parent or carer was told: their name and how they were contacted), keeping to the fields provided. Nurseries may also record the name and contact details of anyone who makes a complaint to them. You are responsible for telling the parent or carer, and for reporting anything that must go to the HSE under RIDDOR or to Ofsted.

You are the controller of the records you keep in aluma, including health information (such as injuries in the accident book), criminal offence information (such as DBS details and referrals), information about children, and staff records. You are responsible for having a lawful reason to record them, and for meeting the extra legal conditions that apply to health and criminal offence information. This does not move our own responsibilities onto you: as your processor, we must keep those records secure and handle them only as section 7 allows.

6. Your data

Everything you put into aluma stays yours (see section 8). We only use it to run the service for you, as described in our privacy policy.
You are responsible for having the right to add information about your staff (and, in the accident book, about children), and for telling them how you use aluma.
Each business's data is kept separate from every other business's. Your staff can only see what you choose to share with them through the portal.

7. How we process personal data for you

For the personal data in the records you keep in aluma, you are the controller and we are your processor. Our Data Processing Agreement forms part of these terms and sets out in full how we process personal data for you, as UK data protection law requires. You accept it when you accept these terms, so there is nothing to sign. This section summarises it. If the two ever differ, the one that gives the data more protection applies.

What we process, and why

Purpose: providing aluma, the staff records and compliance service you use.
How long: for as long as your account is open, plus the deletion periods in section 12.
What we do with it: store, organise, display, send reminders about, back up, share when you ask us to (for example through an inspection link), and delete it.
Types of data: the records listed in section 3 of our privacy policy, including health and criminal offence information.
Whose data: your staff members, venue contacts, the children and parents or carers recorded in your accident book, people who make a complaint to a nursery, and anyone else whose details you record.

Our commitments as your processor

We only process that data to provide aluma, on your instructions as set out in these terms and in how you use aluma. We will tell you if we think an instruction breaks data protection law.
We make sure everyone who can access it is bound by confidentiality.
We keep appropriate security measures in place, as described in our privacy policy.
We only use the sub-processors listed in our privacy policy, tell you before adding or replacing one so you can object, and remain responsible for them.
We only transfer data outside the UK as described in section 8 of our privacy policy.
We help you respond to people exercising their data rights.
We tell you without undue delay, and within 48 hours, if we become aware of a personal data breach affecting your data, and help you meet your own reporting duties.
We help you, where reasonable, with data protection impact assessments and any consultation with the Information Commission.
We delete your data at the end of the service, including from backups, as set out in section 12, after giving you the chance to export it.
We give you the information you reasonably need to show we meet these commitments, and allow audits by you or an auditor you appoint, on reasonable notice.

8. Who owns what

aluma belongs to us. The software, design, brand, documentation, and the templates and wording we provide belong to ALUMA FZ-LLC or the people we license them from. While your subscription is active, we give you a non-exclusive, non-transferable right for your business and your staff to use aluma.
Your content belongs to you. Everything you put into aluma, including templates, policies and contracts you write, stays yours. You give us permission to host, store, back up, display and process it only as needed to provide aluma to you.
Ideas you send us. If you send us suggestions, for example through the postbox, we may use them to improve aluma without owing you anything for them.

9. Confidentiality

Each of us will keep the other's confidential information confidential and only use it to carry out these terms. For you, this includes everything you keep in aluma. For us, it includes non-public information about how aluma works and how it is secured. This does not apply to information that is already public (other than through a breach of this section), that the receiving side already had or developed independently, or that the law or a regulator requires to be disclosed, in which case we will tell the other side first where the law allows. We may share confidential information with staff and providers who need it to provide aluma and are bound by confidentiality. This section continues after these terms end.

10. Fair use and suspension

Please do not:

use aluma for anything unlawful;
upload information you do not have the right to hold;
upload anything harmful, such as malware;
try to get into other accounts or parts of the service you are not meant to reach;
resell aluma or share one account across separate businesses;
copy or reverse-engineer the service.

We will only suspend an account as follows:

Urgent risks: if there is a serious security risk, a legal requirement, or a risk of harm to anyone, we may suspend access straight away, for as long as needed.
Unlawful content: we may remove or block access to specific content we reasonably believe is unlawful.
Non-payment: as set out in section 4.
Other breaches of these terms: we will tell you what is wrong and give you 14 days to put it right before we suspend your account.

We will tell you why we have suspended your account unless the law stops us. During a suspension, the account owner can still export your data, unless that would create a security or legal risk. If you think a suspension is wrong, email hello@aluma.app and we will review it promptly.

11. Keeping aluma running

aluma is provided without a service level agreement. We work hard to keep it available around the clock, but we do not promise a set uptime, response time or service credits. Like every online service, it will occasionally be unavailable.
We will tell you in advance about planned maintenance where we can, and carry it out at quiet times.
Support is by email at hello@aluma.app, Monday to Thursday, 9am to 5pm, and Friday, 9am to 12 noon, UK time and UAE time, except public holidays.
If something goes wrong that affects the service or your data, we will tell the customers affected and keep them updated.
We back up the database every day and uploaded files every night. If data is lost, we will restore it from the most recent backup we can, but we cannot promise a set recovery time or that no recent changes are lost. Backups are a safety net, not a replacement for keeping your own copies of important documents.
We keep improving aluma, which means features may change. If we ever remove something you rely on, we will give you reasonable notice.

12. Ending things

You can cancel whenever you like from Settings. To close your account straight away, the owner can delete the business from Settings, Your data, or email hello@aluma.app.
You can download all your data at any time from Settings, Your data: your records as spreadsheet (CSV) files, plus the documents you have uploaded, in one ZIP download. A staff member's own copy of their DBS certificate stays private to them. You can still do this while your account is paused or cancelled, until it is deleted.
Download anything you need first: 30 days after closure we delete your data, and our backup copies follow on the timetable in the privacy policy.
We can end this agreement if you break these terms, if your subscription stays unpaid, or if we stop offering aluma. Unless the reason is misuse or non-payment, we will give you at least 30 days' notice and time to export your data, and refund the unused part of any period you have paid for.
Our audit log is kept for 6 years after an account closes, then deleted, as described in the privacy policy. During that time we may share entries with you, or with a regulator or the police where the law requires it or to support a safeguarding investigation.
Sections 8, 9 and 13, and the audit log commitments above, continue after these terms end.

13. Our responsibility to you

We provide aluma with reasonable skill and care. Beyond that, aluma is provided as it is, and we do not promise it will meet every need or be error-free.

We are not responsible for losses that are not a foreseeable result of us breaking these terms, for indirect losses, or for business losses such as lost profits or lost contracts.

Our total responsibility to you for anything arising from aluma is limited to the subscription fees you paid us in the 12 months before the event that caused the claim. For a breach of our data protection, confidentiality or security commitments, the limit is three times that amount.

Nothing in these terms limits any responsibility that the law does not allow us to limit, including for death or personal injury caused by our negligence, for fraud, or for deliberate wrongdoing.

14. Changes to these terms

Small changes, such as clearer wording, legal or regulatory updates, or security improvements that do not reduce your rights: we update the date at the top.
Important changes, such as to prices, our responsibility to you, a significant feature, or how we process personal data for you: we email the account owner at least 30 days before they take effect, explaining what is changing. You can close your account before then, and if the change takes away something significant you have paid for, we will refund the unused part of your billing period.
A change to how we process personal data for you will never reduce the protection data protection law requires.
If you keep using aluma after a change takes effect, the new terms apply.

15. Which law applies

These terms are governed by the laws of England and Wales, and the courts of England and Wales have exclusive jurisdiction over any dispute. If you are based outside the UK, any rights under your local law that cannot be excluded still apply. If something goes wrong, please tell us first: most problems can be sorted out quickly by talking.

16. Questions?