Hallo Marco Hallo Marco

Terms and conditions

General terms and conditions of Bavarian Valley UG (haftungsbeschränkt) for the Hallo Marco service. Version 1.4, as of 28 October 2026.

This English text is a translation for convenience. Only the German version at hallomarco.de/agb is legally binding.

§ 1 Scope, businesses only

  1. These general terms and conditions (terms) apply to all contracts for the Hallo Marco service between Bavarian Valley UG (haftungsbeschränkt), Passauer Str. 21, 81369 Munich, Germany, registered in the commercial register of the Munich Local Court under HRB 313613 ("Bavarian Valley", "we"), and its customers ("customer").
  2. Hallo Marco is offered exclusively to businesses (Unternehmer) within the meaning of § 14 of the German Civil Code (BGB), legal entities under public law and special funds under public law. We do not enter into contracts with consumers within the meaning of § 13 BGB. By registering or ordering, the customer expressly confirms that it enters into the contract for its commercial or independent professional activity (entrepreneur within the meaning of § 14 BGB); we store this confirmation. We may ask for suitable proof, such as an extract from the commercial register, a trade registration or a VAT identification number. If it turns out that the customer is a consumer or has given false information, we may terminate the contract without notice.
  3. Deviating, conflicting or supplementary terms of the customer do not become part of the contract, even if we do not expressly object to them. Individual agreements in text form take precedence over these terms.
  4. The contract consists of the following, in this order of precedence: individual agreements, the addendum for professional secrecy holders (where concluded), the data processing agreement with its annexes, these terms, and the service description with the plans as shown at the time of conclusion on hallomarco.com/pricing and in the application.

§ 2 Services

  1. Hallo Marco is an AI assistant that we provide as software as a service over the internet. It answers phone calls on behalf of the customer and, where enabled, can reply to messages via WhatsApp, email and a chat on the customer's website. It answers on the basis of the knowledge the customer provides, takes down requests, offers and books appointments, creates callback tasks with a summary and notifies the customer's team.
  2. The exact scope is set out in the service description and the chosen plan. Features marked "coming soon" or otherwise as not yet available are owed only once we enable them for the customer. We develop the service further and may change it as long as the agreed main services remain and the change is reasonable for the customer. If an essential feature is removed, we give at least six weeks' notice; the customer may then terminate with effect from the change.
  3. Phone numbers: We provide the customer with phone numbers for answering calls. The numbers remain numbers of Bavarian Valley or our telephony provider; the customer receives a right of use for the term of the contract. A transfer (porting) to the customer or another provider is not owed. After the end of the contract or the return of a number, we block it for 30 days and then reassign it. If the customer forwards its own number to Hallo Marco, it sets up the forwarding with its own phone provider and bears that provider's costs.
  4. For some features, Hallo Marco uses third-party services, such as public telephone networks, WhatsApp (Meta), or the customer's calendar or mailbox at Google or Microsoft. Their providers are responsible for the availability and the terms of these services. Where the customer connects its own account with such a provider, that provider's terms also apply between the customer and the provider.
  5. Voice: In every plan, Marco speaks with his own voice (the default) or with a voice from our selection; the customer chooses it after booking and can change it at any time. An employee's voice of the customer requires the plan that includes it according to the price list, and the employee's express consent in text form (data processing agreement section 4(4)). An own voice that we set up for the customer at its request is only created from the voice of a real person with that person's documented consent in text form, as with an employee's voice. All voices are artificially generated; the AI notice under § 6(2) applies to every voice.
  6. Hallo Marco is not an emergency service. If Marco recognises an emergency, he names the customer's emergency number or 112 and notifies the customer according to its settings. We do not guarantee that emergencies are recognised or that notifications are noticed in time.

§ 3 Conclusion of contract, account

  1. A contract is concluded in one of two ways: (a) The customer registers in the application at manage.hallomarco.com, also following the trial call in the browser, accepts these terms and the privacy policy, confirms that it is an entrepreneur (§ 1(2)), accepts the data processing agreement at the latest when booking, and books a plan with an obligation to pay; the contract is concluded with our confirmation or the activation of the plan. (b) After a demo call, we create the account and send an invitation; the contract is concluded when the customer accepts the invitation, agrees to the documents named and books a plan.
  2. There is no free trial period and no free trial account. The trial call in the browser at manage.hallomarco.com/start and the public demo number are free of charge, are only for trying the service and do not create a contract. A draft from the trial call for which no account is created is deleted after 24 hours.
  3. We delete registrations whose email address is not confirmed within 48 hours.
  4. The customer keeps its access data secret, protects access appropriately (we recommend a passkey or two-factor sign-in) and only invites people who work for it. It is responsible for the actions of users it invites as for its own. If misuse is suspected, it informs us without undue delay.
  5. The contract language is German. We store the contract text; the current version of these terms is available at hallomarco.de/agb, and we store the acceptance of each version in the account.

§ 4 Prices, quotas, billing

  1. The prices of the booked plan according to the price list at the time of conclusion apply. All prices are net prices plus statutory VAT. Plans start at €199 (Solo), €299 (Pro) and €499 (Enterprise) per month. Individual services and special requests are agreed separately and charged in addition.
  2. Each plan includes, per billing period (one month), a quota of minutes and a number of people and phone numbers according to the price list. Features that only one plan includes, such as an employee's voice in the Enterprise plan, are listed with that plan in the price list. The minute quota applies to all channels (phone, email, website chat, WhatsApp, SMS). Unused quotas expire at the end of the billing period and are neither carried over nor refunded.
  3. Call minutes: Each call is counted from the moment Hallo Marco answers it until it ends, including the mandatory notices, rounded up per call to the next full minute (per started minute). If Marco transfers a call live to a person at the customer's request, the time from dialling until the end of the transferred call is additionally counted in full against the quota.
  4. Messages: We count messages in minutes against the quota: every reply Marco sends by email or WhatsApp as 0.2 minutes, every website chat conversation as 0.5 minutes and every SMS as 1 minute. Notifications to the customer's people by push or email do not count.
  5. Add-on packs: The customer can buy minute packs at the price shown, at the time of conclusion: 30 minutes for €25, 60 for €45 and 150 for €75 (all net). Packs are used after the plan's quota and do not expire while the contract runs; at the end of the contract they expire without refund. If the customer switches on automatic top-up, we buy the chosen pack as soon as the remaining balance falls below the threshold shown, at most as often per billing period as stated in the application.
  6. Once the quota including packs is used up, Hallo Marco no longer takes new conversations or sends replies; callers hear a short announcement, chat visitors can leave a callback request. We notify the customer.
  7. The plan fee is payable monthly in advance, add-on packs and further numbers on purchase. Payment is made through our payment service provider with the payment methods offered in the application. We provide invoices electronically.
  8. If the customer is in default of payment, the statutory rules apply (§ 288 BGB). After notice in text form with a period of at least ten days, we may suspend the service until the outstanding amount is paid. The right to extraordinary termination remains unaffected.
  9. We announce price changes in text form at least six weeks before they take effect. The customer may terminate the contract until the change takes effect; we point this out in the announcement. Upgrading to a higher plan is possible at any time, downgrading takes effect from the next billing period.

§ 5 Term and termination

  1. The contract runs for an indefinite period. Either party may terminate it at any time with effect from the end of the current billing period. Termination is made in the application or in text form (an email to contact@hallomarco.com is sufficient).
  2. The right to extraordinary termination for good cause remains unaffected. Good cause for us exists in particular if the customer is more than 30 days in default with a payment exceeding one monthly fee, uses Hallo Marco unlawfully despite a warning, or seriously breaches obligations under § 6.
  3. Fees already paid for a current billing period are not refunded pro rata in case of ordinary termination.

§ 6 Customer obligations

  1. The customer uses Hallo Marco only in accordance with applicable law. It is responsible for the content it provides (knowledge, prepared answers, request types, greeting) and keeps it correct and up to date. It may only provide content and have websites read in for which it holds the necessary rights.
  2. AI notice: At the beginning, Hallo Marco tells callers and writers that they are talking or writing to an AI assistant. This notice cannot be switched off. The customer will neither circumvent it nor present Marco as a human or have him presented as one. Under the AI Act (Regulation (EU) 2024/1689), we are the provider of Hallo Marco and design the service so that the transparency obligation under Art. 50(1) is met; the customer is the deployer and uses the service accordingly.
  3. Recording: The customer decides in the settings whether calls are recorded. Before a recording starts, the caller hears a notice. The customer is responsible for having a legal basis for recordings and switches recording off where it is not permitted or conflicts with its professional duties. The same applies to storing conversation texts and summaries.
  4. Data protection: The customer is the controller within the meaning of the GDPR for the data of its callers, customers and employees. It informs them under Art. 13 and 14 GDPR, for example with our privacy notice template, and chooses a suitable retention period (30, 90 or 365 days).
  5. Professional secrecy holders: If the customer is subject to a professional duty of confidentiality (for example as a doctor, dentist, psychotherapist, lawyer, tax adviser, auditor or notary), it concludes the addendum for professional secrecy holders before use. It checks on its own responsibility whether the use is compatible with its professional law and chooses the settings required for that. The industry templates for such professions switch recording and WhatsApp off by default.
  6. Contact initiated by the customer: Hallo Marco is built for incoming enquiries. Reminders and other messages that the customer has sent to its customers on its own initiative are only sent if the recipients have consented or another legal basis exists (in particular § 7 of the German Act against Unfair Competition, UWG). Advertising via Hallo Marco is not permitted.
  7. Any use that infringes the rights of third parties, deceives or harms people, violates the usage policies of our AI and telephony providers or endangers the security of the service is prohibited. This includes probing for security vulnerabilities, generating calls or messages automatically and trying to make Marco produce unlawful content.
  8. The customer keeps a way in which its callers can reach it without Hallo Marco, where this is legally or practically necessary for it, in particular for urgent cases.
  9. If the customer breaches these obligations, we may temporarily block individual features or access to the extent necessary to prevent damage or violations of law. We inform the customer and lift the block as soon as the reason no longer applies.

§ 7 Replies of the AI assistant

  1. Marco generates replies with an AI language model on the basis of the customer's knowledge and settings. He is instructed to answer only from this knowledge and to pass open questions on as a callback. Nevertheless, AI replies may be incomplete, misleading or wrong. Speech may be recognised incorrectly.
  2. Marco gives no medical, legal, tax or other professional advice and makes no binding commitments on prices, services or deadlines unless the customer has expressly stored this information as knowledge. Binding decisions are made by the customer. The customer checks summaries, appointments and callback tasks and acts on them.
  3. As between the customer and its customers, the customer is responsible for statements Marco makes on the basis of the customer's content and settings. For errors caused by a breach of duty on our part, we are liable under § 10.

§ 8 Availability, maintenance, support

  1. We aim for an availability of call answering and of the application of 99% on a monthly average. Not included are announced maintenance work, which we carry out at night and at weekends where possible, and disruptions beyond our control, for example in public telephone and data networks or at third-party services under § 2(4).
  2. We may install necessary security updates at any time, also without prior notice.
  3. We provide support by email to contact@hallomarco.com on working days (Monday to Friday, except Bavarian public holidays), as a rule within one working day. At the customer's request and to fix errors, our staff may work in the customer's account; every such access is logged.

§ 9 Defects

  1. We provide Hallo Marco in a condition suitable for use in accordance with the contract. The customer reports defects without undue delay in text form with a comprehensible description. We remedy defects within a reasonable period.
  2. Strict liability for defects that already existed when the contract was concluded (§ 536a(1) first alternative BGB) is excluded. Otherwise, the statutory rights for defects apply with the limitations in § 10.
  3. The right to reduce the fee is excluded for periods in which the availability under § 8(1) is met. The right to terminate for failure to grant use under § 543(2) sentence 1 no. 1 BGB requires that we have let a reasonable period for remedy pass without success.

§ 10 Liability

  1. We are liable without limitation for intent and gross negligence, for injury to life, body or health, under the German Product Liability Act, for fraudulently concealed defects and where we have given a guarantee.
  2. In case of slight negligence, we are liable only for the breach of essential contractual obligations, i.e. obligations whose fulfilment makes the proper performance of the contract possible in the first place and on whose compliance the customer may regularly rely. In this case, liability is limited to the damage that was foreseeable and typical for the contract at the time of conclusion, per case of damage and in total per contract year at most to the fees the customer paid in the twelve months before the damaging event, but at least to €2,500.
  3. For loss of data, in case of slight negligence we are liable only for the effort that would have been required to restore the data from our regular backups.
  4. Otherwise, liability for slight negligence is excluded, in particular for lost orders, revenue and profits due to unanswered calls or incorrect AI replies, unless these are based on the breach of an essential contractual obligation.
  5. The limitations of liability also apply in favour of our officers, employees and vicarious agents. Liability towards data subjects under Art. 82 GDPR remains unaffected; the data processing agreement governs the settlement between us and the customer.

§ 11 Indemnity

The customer indemnifies us against third-party claims based on the customer using Hallo Marco unlawfully, infringing third-party rights in content it provides, or failing to obtain or give a required legal basis, consent or information towards its callers, customers or employees, and bears the reasonable costs of legal defence. This does not apply if the customer is not responsible for the breach. We inform the customer of such claims without undue delay and coordinate the defence with it.

§ 12 Rights in software and content

  1. For the term of the contract, we grant the customer the simple, non-transferable right to use Hallo Marco to the agreed extent for its own purposes. Software, templates and texts of Hallo Marco remain the property of us or our licensors.
  2. The customer grants us the rights in its content that we need to provide the service to it, in particular to store, process, search and reproduce it. We do not use the customer's content and conversation data to train our own or third-party AI models. According to its terms, our provider for the AI language model does not use data transmitted through its programming interface for training.
  3. We may evaluate usage data without personal reference and without content, such as the number and duration of calls, to operate, bill and improve the service.
  4. We only name the customer as a reference with its prior consent.

§ 13 Data protection and confidentiality

  1. Where we process personal data on behalf of the customer, the data processing agreement, which the customer accepts on conclusion of the contract, applies. For data we process as a controller in our own right, our privacy policy applies.
  2. Both parties treat confidential information of the other party, in particular trade secrets and conversation content, as confidential, also after the end of the contract. This does not apply to information that is publicly known, lawfully obtained from third parties or must be disclosed because a law, court or authority requires it.

§ 14 End of contract, export, deletion, switching provider

  1. When the contract ends, we lock access except for export, deletion and billing. The customer can export its data (conversations with messages and email replies, callback tasks, contacts, appointments and appointment types, request types, knowledge as text with source, settings and usage) at any time before and up to 30 days after the end of the contract in a common, machine-readable format (ZIP archive with JSON files). An export remains available for seven days and can be created again. The export is free of charge.
  2. When the contract ends and again one week before deletion, we send the customer an email with a link to the export. 30 days after the end of the contract, or earlier at the customer's request, we irrevocably delete all of the customer's data including the knowledge. Deleted data is no longer contained in our backups after at most 14 further days. We keep invoices and accounting records for the statutory periods.
  3. If the customer wants to switch to another provider or transfer its data to its own systems, we support it in accordance with Regulation (EU) 2023/2854 (Data Act): the notice period under § 5 is at most one month; at the customer's request, the service remains usable after termination for a transitional period of up to 30 days against continued payment of the pro rata plan fee; after that, the data remains available for export for at least 30 days. We charge no fees for switching. Settings that only make sense within Hallo Marco (such as industry templates) are not part of the transfer unless they are named as exportable data.

§ 15 Changes to these terms

We may change these terms with effect for the future if there is an objective reason, such as changes in law or case law, new features or changes at our providers, and the change does not unreasonably disadvantage the customer. We announce changes in text form at least six weeks before they take effect. If the customer does not object before they take effect, the change is deemed accepted; we point this out in the announcement. If it objects, the previous version continues to apply; both parties may then terminate the contract with effect from the date the change would have taken effect. Changes to the main services and to prices are governed by § 2(2) and § 4(9).

§ 16 Final provisions

  1. The law of the Federal Republic of Germany applies, excluding the UN Convention on Contracts for the International Sale of Goods.
  2. The exclusive place of jurisdiction for all disputes arising from and in connection with the contract is Munich if the customer is a merchant, a legal entity under public law or a special fund under public law, or has no general place of jurisdiction in Germany. We may also sue the customer at its general place of jurisdiction.
  3. Declarations relating to the contract require text form unless these terms provide otherwise.
  4. The customer may only assign rights under the contract to third parties with our consent. § 354a of the German Commercial Code (HGB) remains unaffected.
  5. If a provision is invalid, the rest of the contract remains valid; the invalid provision is replaced by the statutory rule.
  6. These terms are also available in this English translation. The German version prevails.