One advertising slot on one edition of The Rhody Showcase. The card you reserve, the area it mails to, the category you lock, and the size of your ad are all spelled out at checkout and again in your agreement.
The slot price covers everything I am responsible for: the ad design, two rounds of revisions, the QR code and scan tracking, the printing, the postage, the EDDM mail drop, and the basic delivery report after the cards land. The $20 service fee on top of the slot price covers the per-card setup work that scales with how many editions you run on, not how big your slot is. It is charged each time you reserve a card. If you skip a month, no fee that month. If you run on three editions in a row, you pay it three times. No subscription. No auto-renew.
You owe me the slot price plus the $20 service fee at the moment you complete the Stripe payment. That is the only charge. There are no add-on fees later, no design fees on top of the two included revision rounds, no print upcharges, no mailing fees. If a third revision round becomes necessary because you want to keep iterating past the included two, I will quote you a flat fee before I do any of that work, and you decide whether to proceed.
I am paid in US dollars through Stripe. Stripe handles the card processing. I never see your card number.
You can cancel and get a full 100% refund any time before the cards ship to the printer. No restocking fee. No retained service fee. No partial-refund formula. Just email me at [email protected] and the refund happens.
Once the cards have shipped to the printer, the refund window closes. The cards are in physical production at that point and the postage and printer costs are committed. I cannot pull them back.
I will email you at least 48 hours before the cards ship. That gives you a clear final window to cancel if you change your mind.
This is the most important paragraph on this page. If you only remember one thing from this read, remember that you are protected up until the moment the press starts.
You are the only business in your category on the card you reserved. I will not place another business in your category on the same card. Period. The whole reason this works is that one HVAC ad pulls because no other HVAC ad is sitting next to it in the mailbox.
I am the one who decides whether another business falls into your category. If you ever feel like a placement creates a competitive overlap, tell me before the card ships and I will work it out in good faith. My judgment on category fit is final, but I am not in the business of cutting corners on the one promise that makes the whole model work.
Category exclusivity covers the edition you reserved. It does not automatically extend to future editions. If you want to lock your category on the next edition, you have a seven-day right of first refusal after your card mails (more on that below).
If you give me artwork, photos, copy, logos, or anything else for your ad, you are telling me you actually have the right to use them. Either you own them or you have a valid license. If a third party comes after me later because something you gave me infringed their rights, you cover the legal costs. That is standard for any direct-mail publication and it is in the agreement in plain language.
I use what you give me to design and mail your ad. That is the only thing I do with your stuff. After your card mails, you keep using your final ad creative wherever you want, with my blessing. I do not own your stuff.
What I do own: the card layout itself, the masthead "The Rhody Showcase," the templates, and the format of the publication. Those are mine. Your ad on the card is yours.
If you send me artwork or copy that breaks USPS EDDM rules, breaks the law, or just does not meet the editorial standard I hold the publication to, I get to refuse it. If I refuse, I will tell you why and try to work with you to fix it. If we cannot get to something I am willing to print, you get a full refund per the policy above. You are not stuck.
This rarely comes up. The kinds of things that trigger a refusal are obvious: USPS-prohibited content, infringing material, anything misleading enough that I would not put my own face on the card next to it. If you are advertising in good faith, you will never see this clause in action.
After your payment lands, here is what happens, in order:
If you blow past a deadline and I cannot reasonably modify the card to still hit the press date, I have to print the most recently approved version of your ad to keep the rest of the card on schedule. No refund in that scenario, because the slot was real and the work was done.
If you stay on schedule, none of the above is a problem. Most advertisers turn the worksheet around in a day or two and the proof process is fast.
I cannot promise you a specific number of phone calls. I cannot promise you a specific number of QR scans, foot traffic visits, or sales. Direct mail is direct mail. The response you get depends on a lot of things outside my control: the strength of your offer, the time of year, the weather, how you handle the calls when they come in, the mood of the local market.
What I can promise is the slot, the print, the mail, the design, the QR analytics, and the refund window. The rest is on you and on the world.
I make no warranties beyond the ones I just named. The ad design and the slot are delivered "as is" within the bounds of what is in the agreement. That language is in there because every responsible publication has it. It is not a trapdoor.
If you complete payment and then file a chargeback with Stripe or your bank for any reason that is not actually a refund I owe you under the policy above, you cover the costs that creates for me. That includes Stripe's chargeback fees and any reasonable attorney fees if it goes that far.
The reason this clause exists: chargebacks cost real money to defend even when the publisher is in the right, and the refund window above is so generous that there is rarely a reason to skip the email-me-for-a-refund route. If you change your mind, email me. I will refund you on the spot up until the cards ship.
If USPS has a service disruption, the printer hits a delay, severe weather pushes a drop date, or some other event outside my control affects the schedule, I will tell you the new timing as soon as I have it from the affected party. I am not on the hook for losses caused by these kinds of events. I will keep you posted in real time and the refund window stays open until cards actually ship.
If I drop the ball on something inside my control and you are owed money back, you are owed money back. The agreement caps my total liability to you at whatever you actually paid me. That is also standard for direct-mail publications. The cap exists so a single bad month does not wipe out the publication for the next thirty advertisers.
For seven days after I confirm to you that the cards have hit mailboxes, you have right of first refusal on your category for the next edition. You do not have to take it. If you do, I lock the category for you on the next card. If you pass, the category opens up to other advertisers in your space for the next edition.
This is why my waitlist for taken categories is honest about the wait: the current advertiser gets first call before anyone else does.
The QR code and scan tracking on your ad stay live for at least 90 days from the in-home date. Scan reports (counts, ZIP-level breakdown, time of day, device type) are available any time you ask.
When you reserve a slot, you are saying I can email, text, and call you about your ad. That includes proof delivery, approval requests, drop confirmations, and similar. You can opt out of marketing-only emails any time. Transactional messages (proof, approval, drop) keep coming because we cannot finish the project without them.
I will not sell, rent, or share your contact information. I am a one-person shop. The Privacy Policy linked in the footer covers what I do and do not do with your information in detail.
The agreement is governed by Rhode Island law. Any dispute goes to a Rhode Island state or federal court. Both of us agree to that up front so neither of us has to argue about jurisdiction later.
In practice, the disagreements I have seen so far have all been settled by email in fifteen minutes. The legal venue clause exists because every publication has one. I hope we never need it.
This summary covers the major terms. The full Advertiser Agreement has additional sections (Severability, Entire Agreement, Survival of certain clauses after the agreement ends, and so on) that are standard and not consequential to your day-to-day. They are in the PDF you will receive after payment. If anything in those sections matters to you and you want to talk it through before paying, just call.
The Stripe payment is the legal acceptance. The moment your payment clears, the agreement is in force and you have agreed to it. The Stripe receipt timestamp is the agreement date.
This is how 99% of small-business contracts are signed in 2026, and it is enforceable in Rhode Island the same way an ink signature would be. If you would prefer to sign a paper version with a pen for your own records, just ask and I will send a PDF to print and sign.
I wrote this summary because I would want one before paying for anything. The agreement underneath it is fair, the refund policy is honest, and the delivery promises are ones I can actually keep. If anything on this page raised a question, my number is (401) 422-3568. Real number, real person.
Own the Box Marketing LLC
North Kingstown, Rhode Island
Email: [email protected]
Phone: (401) 422-3568
This is a plain-English summary. The full agreement, with all the legal specifics, gets emailed to you the moment you complete payment. That is what you are signing.
