Small Print

Auto-renewal clauses are in almost every SaaS contract, service agreement, and subscription term sheet. They look routine. They are not.

The basic structure: the contract renews automatically for another fixed term unless one party gives written notice of cancellation within a specified window. That window is typically 30, 60, or 90 days before the renewal date. Miss it, and you're in for another year.

The part that catches people: the window is usually measured from the renewal date, not from when you receive the invoice. So if your contract renews on 1 January and requires 90 days' notice, you need to send that notice by early October — three months before you've even seen the renewal invoice.

What to look for: the length of the notice window, whether it runs from renewal date or invoice date, whether notice has to be written and by what method, and whether there's a price increase on renewal (often there is, and it's in a different clause entirely).

A reasonable ask: if the window is longer than 30 days, push back. “We'd like to align the notice period to 30 days before renewal — this is standard for agreements of this size and avoids operational issues on both sides.” Most counterparties will accept it.

You don't have time to read every clause in every contract. Neither did I, and I was a lawyer. Here's what I actually looked for first — the five things that, if wrong, make everything else irrelevant:

1. 1.Liability cap: Is there one? Does it apply to both sides? Is it proportionate to the contract value — or capped at something laughably low?
2. 2.Indemnities: Does either side indemnify the other for third-party claims? Is it mutual, or one-sided? Does it sit outside the liability cap (it often does)?
3. 3.IP ownership: If you're the supplier, who owns what you create? If you're the buyer, are you getting an assignment or just a licence?
4. 4.Termination: How long is the notice period? Is there a right to terminate for convenience, or only for cause? What happens to work-in-progress if it ends early?
5. 5.Governing law: Which country's courts will hear a dispute? This matters more than most people realise — especially if you're contracting across borders.

If any of these five are badly wrong, flag it before anything else. They're the clauses where the financial and legal exposure is real — and where negotiation is both normal and expected.

A few things shipped this month worth knowing about:

• Isaacus Kanon 2 reranking — for longer contracts, each specialist agent now only reads the section of the document most likely to contain its clause. Less noise, better signal.
• About page — there's now a proper founder page explaining why I built this and what it actually does. Worth a read if you're new.
• Business context explained — the deal-aware inputs (team size, contract side, revenue, support capacity) are now properly explained across the site, not just surfaced in the upload flow.
• Domain consistency — all references to old domains and email addresses updated. It's pactora.uk and help@pactora.uk everywhere now.

Full changelog at pactora.uk/updates.