No contract, no lock-in, no lost records

At some point the platform stops working for you. Maybe a feature you relied on moved behind a higher tier, or the contract turned out to be annual when you thought it was monthly, or the support that was promised before you signed quietly stopped showing up after. Whatever the reason, you are now paying for something that no longer fits, and the cost of leaving — rebuilding your records, your website, your member list — feels higher than the cost of staying. So you stay.

That calculation, not the software itself, is what keeps most organisations on platforms they have outgrown. This guide covers the specific things Daviah does to change that calculation: the terms that make it easier to leave, the protections that apply before anything is withheld, and the records that stay with you regardless. It is also honest about what Daviah does not fix — because the same trap has parts that no platform can answer.

No contract to sign, and no card to hand over before you know what you are getting

Signing up is free and asks for nothing except a name, an email address and a password — no card number, no phone number, no domain to transfer in. Once you are in, you can build your entire site and view it through a private link before you spend anything.

That matters because the usual way a platform locks you in is by making the cost of investigation the same as the cost of commitment. You hand over a card, start a trial, and by the time you know whether it fits, cancelling feels like losing something. Here, nothing is at stake until you decide to publish.

Signing up is free, asks for no card and never expires
The whole site can be built and previewed privately on the free plan
Both paid plans run month to month — no annual contract is required, though paying yearly costs less

The cost of leaving feels higher than the cost of staying — that is the trap, and most of it is in the terms.

What happens to your records when you stop paying

If you stop paying — whether because you cancel or because a payment fails — your records stay readable. The CSV exports for members, dues, payments and officers still work. Your site and office come back as soon as you pay again.

If a subscription payment fails, nothing is withheld for ten days, and you receive three emails before anything stops. That gap exists so a billing hiccup does not become an operational crisis.

Records stay readable and exportable even when a plan lapses
A failed payment triggers a ten-day grace period and three warning emails before anything stops
The site and office are restored as soon as payment is made

What Daviah does not answer about lock-in

This guide would not be honest without saying plainly what Daviah does not fix. If you are on proprietary hardware — card terminals or order screens tied to another vendor — Daviah does not solve that. If you have a domain registered through another platform and are unsure whether you can take it with you, Daviah does not answer that question for your current provider. And the work of migrating everything from one platform to another is real work that no terms can make disappear.

Prices rising unpredictably is a concern many organisations carry into every new platform decision. Daviah does not make a commitment to stable pricing here, because the facts do not support that claim. What is true is that both plans run month to month, so a price change never traps you inside an annual contract you cannot exit.

How this plays out for clubs

For a club, the lock-in fear usually sits with the Treasurer and the Secretary. The Membership list took years to build. The Subscriptions history is the financial record. The Committee minutes are the governance record. The fear is not the monthly cost — it is that leaving means rebuilding all of it.

The exports that work even when a plan lapses mean the Treasurer can pull the Subscriptions and payments ledger as a CSV at any point. The member records stay readable. That is not a complete answer to switching pain — rebuilding a website and re-entering records you cannot export is still real work — but it means the core records are yours to take.

Clubs concerned about software cost and platform rigidity more broadly will find the full picture in the dedicated guide.

How this plays out for restaurants

For a restaurant Owner or General Manager, the lock-in story often starts with a contract that looked monthly and turned out not to be, or support that was responsive before signing and absent after. The specific concerns Daviah answers are about terms: month to month, no card required to start, records readable when a payment fails, and a grace period before anything stops.

The concern about proprietary hardware — order screens or card terminals tied to another vendor — is not answered here. And if your current platform registered your domain, whether you can take it with you is a question for that platform, not this one.

The full guide for restaurants covers vendor trust and hidden costs in more detail.

How this plays out for stores

For a store Owner, this pain is about a platform that worked at launch and became an obstacle as the business grew — and a switching cost that made staying feel like the only option even when it clearly was not.

The terms Daviah offers — month to month, records readable when lapsed, exports that keep working — reduce the cost of leaving. They do not answer whether the platform will grow with your business, and they do not make migration to a new system painless. Those are honest limits. What they do mean is that you are not in a contract that keeps you from testing alternatives.

The guide for stores goes into the scaling and lock-in question in more depth.

Questions

Do I need to hand over a card to find out if Daviah fits?

No. Signing up is free and asks only for a name, an email address and a password. You can build your entire site and view it through a private link before you pay anything.

What happens to my records if I stop paying?

Your records stay readable and the CSV exports for members, dues, payments and officers still work. Your site and office come back as soon as you pay again.

What if a payment fails — does everything stop immediately?

No. If a subscription payment fails, nothing is withheld for ten days, and you receive three emails before anything stops.

Is there an annual contract?

Both paid plans run month to month. Paying yearly costs less, but it is not required. There is no contract to sign.

Does Daviah solve proprietary hardware lock-in?

No. If you have card terminals or order screens tied to another vendor, Daviah does not change that situation. The same is true for domain names registered through another platform — whether you can take those with you is a question for that provider.

Can I take my data with me if I leave?

The CSV exports for members, dues, payments and officers work even when a plan lapses, so that data is yours to take. Documents, events, media and other records are not included in a bulk export — that is an honest limit of what is available.

Trapped by the platform you chose — and what actually changes