1. What SameSpec is

SameSpec is a buyer's-agent service for home and business projects. You tell us about your project once. We write one clear spec, send it to licensed local companies, chase them until real bids come back, and hand you one comparison packet where every number means the same thing. We work only for you: you pay us one flat fee, and no contractor pays us anything — no referral fees, no placement fees, no pay-to-rank.

We are not a contractor, not a marketplace, and not a lead seller. We do not perform project work, and we never sell your information.

2. Where we operate

We serve the San Francisco Bay Area. Coverage varies by trade and city. Before any fee, intake review tells you straight whether we can reach enough licensed companies for your trade and city to do the job properly. If we cannot, you pay nothing and no case is opened. Outside the Bay Area, you may join the waitlist for your city; expansion follows that list.

3. What you get for the fee

One flat fee — $99 Small, $199 Standard, or $349 Complex, confirmed for your project before you pay — buys this work:

1. Review of your inquiry, including the straight answer on coverage before any fee.
2. One written spec for your project — scope, materials, permits, cleanup, what is in and what is out — approved by you before it goes to any contractor (Gate 1).
3. Outreach to every licensed company we can reach for your trade and city, with follow-ups until bids come back. Contractors talk to us, never to you.
4. A comparison packet of real bids on that one spec: total price, materials, warranty, deposit, timeline, and exclusions in one table, with red flags called out and licence, bond, and insurance shown as checked on a date.
5. Your accept-or-reject decision on each quote, after you approve the final packet (Gate 2). A bid within your price range can be accepted straight from the packet.

Your packet is delivered once the quotes are in. We do not promise a delivery day: delivery timing is adjusted from real cases as we go along, and the binding timing promise is the guarantee in §5 — 14 days for the 3 quotes.

4. Fees and payment

The fee is a one-time flat fee by tier, confirmed before payment. It is shown in your portal as already paid, never as an amount due. Payment is taken through a per-case payment page and then a secure checkout. Your case moves forward only after payment is confirmed AND your Terms acceptance is recorded — see §6. Acceptance happens on the payment page, together with payment; the checkout itself carries no Terms checkbox. The fee covers SameSpec's procurement work only. It does not cover project work, and it is separate from the contractor's project price, which you pay directly to the contractor (§9). Platform pass-through fees, if any, are covered in §12.

5. The guarantee and refunds

Three legit quotes on your approved spec, or your fee back in full. A quote counts toward the guarantee only if it is a legit quote — a quote with line items and terms attached and a price. That means a real, priced bid from a company licensed for the work at the time of bidding, its licence checked before the spec was sent, against the spec you approved, delivered by the deadline shown to you before payment. Its line items state the scope and materials breakdown; its price is the total price for that spec; its terms state the warranty split (manufacturer vs. workmanship), the deposit, the timeline, and the exclusions. What does not count: placeholders, ballparks, "call for pricing," unpriced replies, duplicates, contractor declines, "site visit required" flags, and verbal summaries. Estimates prepared from your approved spec DO count as quotes: a bid priced from your spec, photos, and measurements counts even though it is labelled an estimate; only a response that does not price your spec in writing, with line items and terms, fails to count.

Guarantee window: 14 calendar days from the day you approve your spec (Gate 1). Those 14 days are for the 3 quotes: they are the time allowed to deliver 3 legit quotes on your approved spec. If fewer than 3 legit quotes are delivered by the end of that window, the full-fee refund triggers. The window is not a general service period and not a post-delivery period — it is the quote-delivery window. Before payment you see this rule; once your spec is approved, your portal shows the exact calendar deadline date for your case.

If fewer than three legit quotes have come back by that deadline, you get your full SameSpec fee back — no partial credit, no deduction for work done. The refund is issued through Stripe to your original payment method, up to whatever Stripe permits for the original charge: the full fee, never more than you paid, back to the card you paid with. Stripe's processing fee from the original charge is not returned to us, and it does not change your refund. The refund normally appears on your statement in 5–10 business days depending on your bank; a refund issued shortly after the charge may appear as a reversal, with the original charge simply dropping off. If a Stripe refund fails (for example, the card is closed), we arrange another way to return your fee and confirm it with you. The refund's ID, date, and reason are recorded against your case, and you receive confirmation that it was issued.

Instead of the refund, you may choose to have us keep working the list at no extra charge. If you choose that, we agree a new deadline with you in writing, and the same guarantee applies at the new deadline — fewer than three legit quotes by then, and the full fee comes back. Choosing continued work does not waive the refund; it postpones it to the new deadline you agreed.

When a refund is issued, your case is marked REFUNDED, your portal access link is revoked, and no further outreach happens on that case.

What is not refunded by us: project payments (you pay the contractor directly, so there is no project money for us to refund), and platform pass-through fees, which are charged at cost by the platform route (§12) — if such a fee is itself refundable by the platform, we will tell you so and help you claim it. The free bid review is free; there is nothing to refund on it.

6. Your approvals — the gates

Nothing moves without your say at each gate:

• Terms acceptance — together with payment. You agree to these Terms when you pay. On your payment page you will see a short summary of these Terms, a link to the full Terms, and a single checkbox, unchecked by default: "I have read and agree to the SameSpec Terms of Service." You must tick the box to pay — the payment step does not proceed without it, and ticking the box is recorded against your case with the date and the version of the Terms you accepted. No quotes are generated without that recorded acceptance. If you do not agree before paying, no fee is charged and no quotes are generated. If you pay and then refuse the Terms, your full fee is refunded to your original payment method, your case is closed, and no quotes are generated.
• Gate 1 — spec approval. No contractor receives your spec until you approve it.
• Gate 2 — packet approval. You approve the final packet before you accept or reject any quote.
• Site visits and platform fees are separate approvals (§11, §12) and are never bundled into the Terms checkbox.

7. When our services end

Once a quote is approved, SameSpec's services end. After acceptance, your relationship is with the contractor directly, under your contract with them. SameSpec does not supervise work, check milestones once work begins, enforce payments, hold funds, or handle warranty or dispute follow-up. SameSpec's job ends at procurement: spec, sourcing, quotes, packet, and your accept/reject decision. We confirm with the contractor you choose.

8. Your contract is with the contractor

Any project work is performed under a contract between you and the contractor you choose — not with SameSpec. Prices, timelines, warranties, and scope in a bid are the contractor's, and SameSpec does not warrant them. If a bid's terms differ from the packet's summary, the contractor's written bid governs, and you should ask us to reconcile the difference before accepting.

9. Direct pay, no escrow

You pay the contractor directly, never through SameSpec. We never hold project funds. There is no escrow, ever. Do not pay any project amount to SameSpec, and treat any request to do so as a red flag to report to us.

10. Deposit cap and verification — information, not a guarantee

Deposit cap. California law limits a down payment on a home improvement contract to 10% of the contract price or $1,000, whichever is less. Any bid asking for more is flagged in your packet before you accept it. A narrow exception exists for contractors holding a specific bond on file with the CSLB; where a bid relies on it, the packet says so and points you to the CSLB record. This is information to help you check a bid — it is not legal advice, and the final word on any contract term is your own reading of the contract.

Licence, bond, and insurance checked and dated. Every bid carries the contractor's licence number, CSLB status and date checked, and insurance/bond evidence and date checked. Where something could not be verified, the packet says so — flagged, not hidden. Verification is a check at packet time, not a guarantee of the contractor's work.

Not advice. Nothing SameSpec provides — packets, guides, cost ranges, or the free bid review — is legal, engineering, or contracting advice. Planning ranges are planning ranges only, never quotes. Your actual prices come from contractors bidding your approved spec.

11. Site visits

Estimates are normally made from your spec plus photos and measurements, with no visit. If a contractor cannot estimate without a visit, that is flagged as "site visit required" — it is not a bid. A visit needs your separate approval, and you receive a personalised visit packet first. At any approved visit your role is access only: decide, sign, and pay nothing on site. After a visit, the contractor must send everything back in writing, broken to the spec — a verbal summary is not a revised bid, and any post-visit change appears as a revised bid with the reason shown.

12. Platform fees — consent first, at cost

If getting quotes for your project requires a third-party platform, any platform fee for generating those quotes or booking through that platform is charged at cost on top of the SameSpec fee. We always tell you the exact amount first, itemised by platform and purpose, and we never incur such a fee without your consent. Each consented fee appears as a separate line in your portal, kept apart from the contractor's project price. You may decline the platform route entirely, and you may opt out of it at any time before the fee is incurred.

13. Privacy, files, retention, and deletion

Your contact details are never sold and never given to a contractor. Contractors receive a project address, a spec, and our contact details — nothing else.

Free bid-review uploads are never shared with the contractor and never sold; they are used only for your review, stored operator-only, and never publicly reachable.

Retention and deletion: bid-review uploads are kept for 90 days after your review is delivered (90 days from upload if no review has been delivered yet), then deleted — unless you ask us to keep them for a follow-up review, in which case we keep them for that review and record why. Case records (spec, bids, packet) are kept for 12 months after your case closes, then deleted. You may ask for earlier deletion at any time by replying to any email we sent you about your case or review, or by sending a new inquiry noting "deletion request" — and we will confirm once it is done, except that records needed to evidence a completed refund are kept until that refund is fully settled. Analytics on our pages are aggregate-only: no names, emails, IP addresses, cookies, or free text.

Data you provide in an inquiry that never becomes a paid case is kept only to answer that inquiry, then deleted on request as above.

14. Fair use and accuracy

You agree to describe your project honestly and to provide photos and measurements you believe are accurate. Bids priced from inaccurate information may change after a site visit, and any change must come back as a written revised bid. You agree not to use SameSpec to solicit bids you do not intend to consider, and not to misrepresent yourself as a contractor or as SameSpec.

15. Changes to these Terms

We may update these Terms. The version you accepted governs your case; a new version applies to new cases. If Terms change materially while your case is open, you will be shown the new version at your next portal step with a fresh acceptance prompt before further outreach on that case. The current Terms are always linked in the footer of every page of our site.

16. Contact and governing practicalities

To reach us about a case, a refund, or a deletion request, reply to any email we sent you about that case or review, or send a new inquiry through the inquiry form. These Terms are governed by California law. If something goes wrong, contact us first through the routes above so we can put it right.