Terms of service

Umoja is a marketplace for digital products — courses, templates, ebooks and similar files — operated from Kenya. We give creators a storefront, take payment from buyers, deliver the file, and pay the creator their share.

We are the marketplace, not the author. Every product is created, described and priced by the creator selling it. Where these terms say “we” or “Umoja”, they mean the operator of this platform; “you” means whoever is using it, as a buyer or a creator or both.

You sign in with a one-time code sent to your email. Anyone who can read that inbox can reach your account, so keep it secure — we treat a correctly entered code as you.

Give us an email address and phone number that actually reach you. Purchase receipts, download links and payout notices go to them, and we are not responsible for a delivery that failed because the address was wrong.

You must be at least 18 to hold an account. One person, one account.

Prices are shown in Kenyan shillings and include everything you pay. When payment is confirmed, we email you a download link and add the item to your account.

• Download links are valid for 48 hours and can be reissued from your account for as long as the account is open.
• A licence to use a product is personal to you. You may not resell, redistribute or publish a file you bought unless the creator’s own licence says you can.
• The creator, not Umoja, owns the product and sets the licence terms.

If you pay and do not receive your file, you are covered. See the refund and dispute policy — we re-deliver, or refund you if we cannot.

You keep ownership of everything you upload. By listing it you give us permission to store it, show its title, description and preview images on the marketplace, and deliver the file to people who buy it. That permission lasts as long as the listing does, plus the time needed to honour purchases already made.

You are responsible for what you list. You confirm that:

• You made the work, or hold the rights to sell it.
• The description, preview and price honestly represent what the buyer receives.
• The file is complete, works, and contains no malware.
• Selling it is lawful in Kenya.

We do not review every listing before it goes live. We do remove listings we find to be infringing, misleading or unlawful, and we act on reports from rights holders.

Do not use Umoja to sell or distribute:

• Work you do not have the right to sell, including pirated or resold material.
• Sexual content involving minors, or any content that sexualises a child.
• Malware, credential stealers, or tools whose purpose is to break into systems.
• Content that incites violence or hatred against people for who they are.
• Guaranteed-returns schemes, pyramid schemes, or anything designed to defraud.
• Regulated goods you are not licensed to sell.

Do not use the platform to launder money, test stolen cards, manipulate rankings or reviews, or to scrape it at a scale that degrades it for everyone else.

Umoja takes a commission on each sale, deducted before the balance reaches your wallet, and a fee on withdrawal. The rates that apply to you are shown in your creator dashboard before you list and again on every payout — that display is the authoritative figure, not any example given elsewhere.

Payment processing costs are included in the commission; there is no separate charge at checkout. Buyers pay the price on the listing and nothing more.

We may change our rates. Existing creators get at least 30 days’ notice by email before a change takes effect, and a change never applies retroactively to a sale already made.

Sales settle into your Umoja wallet. You withdraw to an M-Pesa number or a bank account you have registered and we have verified.

• Before your first withdrawal we verify your identity. This is a legal requirement, not a preference, and we cannot pay out without it.
• We may hold a payout while a dispute, a chargeback or a suspected-fraud review is open on the sales behind it. We tell you when we do and why.
• Payouts go to the registered destination only. We will not redirect a payout to a third party.
• Your wallet balance is money we owe you, not a deposit account. It earns no interest.

Your earnings are your income. You are responsible for your own tax on them, including registering and filing where you are required to. We keep the transaction records the law requires and will produce them to a revenue authority that lawfully demands them.

Digital products deliver instantly, so we do not offer blanket returns. We do guarantee delivery: the refund and dispute policy sets out how that works and how to open a dispute.

Where a dispute is resolved in the buyer’s favour, or a card payment is charged back, the refunded amount is reversed out of the creator’s earnings for that sale. If the wallet balance no longer covers it, the shortfall is recovered from later earnings.

You can close your account at any time from your settings. Closing it does not cancel purchases already made, and does not erase the financial records we are required to keep — the privacy policy explains exactly what goes and what stays.

We may suspend or close an account that breaks these terms, that we reasonably believe is being used for fraud, or where the law requires it. Where we can, we tell you why first and give you a chance to put it right. For serious cases — fraud, illegal content, risk to other users — we act immediately.

On suspension, we settle any balance you are genuinely owed once open disputes are closed. We do not keep a creator’s earnings as a penalty.

We work to keep Umoja available and correct, but we do not promise it will be uninterrupted or error-free. Payment providers, mobile-money rails and email delivery are run by other companies and occasionally fail; when that happens we queue and retry rather than lose your transaction.

Products on the marketplace are sold as they are described by their creators. We do not warrant that a product is fit for your particular purpose. That is between you and the creator, subject to our delivery guarantee.

Nothing here limits liability that cannot be limited by law, including for fraud or for death or personal injury caused by negligence — and nothing here removes rights you have as a consumer under Kenyan law.

Beyond that: we are not liable for indirect or consequential loss, lost profits, or lost data. Where we are liable, our total liability to you for any claim is limited to the greater of the amount you paid or earned through Umoja in the three months before the claim arose, or KES 10,000.

We update these terms as the platform changes. The date at the top always shows the current version. For a change that materially affects your rights we give at least 30 days’ notice by email. Continuing to use Umoja after a change takes effect means you accept it; if you do not, close your account.

These terms are governed by the laws of Kenya, and the courts of Kenya have jurisdiction. If a clause turns out to be unenforceable, the rest stays in force.

Talk to us first — most problems are a support conversation, not a court case. Email support@umoja.co.ke.