The boring stuff, sorted
Legal & data
Most small businesses need four things: terms of business, a privacy policy that is true, contracts for anyone who works for them, and the ICO fee paid. That is a smaller list than it sounds.
Best fit for you
These are the things that actually decide it. Find the line that sounds like you.
- Selling to consumers online Consumer rights apply: a 14-day right to cancel and specific pre-contract information. A generic template usually misses these.
- Selling to businesses Your payment terms, what happens on late payment, and who owns the work when it is finished.
- Holding personal data The ICO fee (£52 a year for most), a privacy policy, and knowing where the data actually lives.
- Two or more owners A shareholders’ or partnership agreement. Write it while everyone still likes each other.
What catches people out
- A privacy policy copied from another site is a false statement about your own business. It names systems you do not use.
- Free template contracts are a reasonable starting point and a bad finishing point for anything with real money in it.
- The ICO exemptions are narrower than people assume. Use the ICO’s own self-assessment, not a forum answer.
Your pal saysNo provider is named on this page on purpose. CompanyPal has no commercial deals yet, and a “best buy” we haven’t actually checked would be worth less than nothing to you. We’ll tell you when real ones land.
Is this one of yours?
The plan builder works out which of these apply to what you’re actually starting, and which you can ignore.