Be Wise › Be Contract Wise (Scotland) guides › SaaS / software subscription agreement
Under a SaaS (software as a service) agreement, a customer obtains access to online software on a subscription basis. It sets out the permitted users, fees and renewal arrangements, support and service levels, data protection, who owns the software and the customer's data, and liability, which is normally capped at one year's fees.
You need one when your business supplies online software to business clients, or when it subscribes to software on terms that are open to negotiation.
Permission to use the service and the number of users covered.
Uptime levels, support and service credits.
Data stays the customer's property; the provider may use it only to deliver the service.
Article 28 UK GDPR terms wherever personal data is processed.
Subscription charges, invoicing, renewal and any rise in price.
A limit, usually tied to fees paid in the prior 12 months.
Different rules can apply elsewhere in the UK: see the England and Wales version of this guide.
View a specimen SaaS agreement, a brief example showing the structure and main clauses in the layout the app generates.
The customer should own its data, and the provider should hold only a licence to use it for delivering the service. The agreement ought also to deal with the return or deletion of the data when it comes to an end.
Fee reductions that apply when the provider falls short of the availability it promised. Agreements frequently make these the only remedy the customer has for downtime.
Be Contract Wise (Scotland)'s powerful, carefully prepared drafting tools turn a short set of plain-English questions into a saas under Scots law, laid out to a professional standard, with an explanation of every clause. Simple or complex, export to Word or PDF.
Start drafting — freeBrowse all guidesReviewed 2026-09-24. General legal information about Scots law, not legal advice.
