Oyabite Terms of Service

Last updated: 12 July 2026

These Terms of Service ("Terms") are a legal agreement between you and Oyabite ("Oyabite", "we", "us", or "our"), the operator of the Oyabite marketplace. The Terms govern your use of:

the Oyabite customer app ("Oyabite"),
the Oyabite Chef app ("Oyabite Chef"),
the website at https://oyabite.com, and
any related services, features, and content we provide (together, the "Services").

Please read these Terms carefully. They include important limits on our responsibility and explain how disputes are handled. If you do not agree to these Terms, do not use the Services.

1. Acceptance of these Terms

By creating an account, tapping "I agree", placing or accepting an order, or otherwise using the Services, you confirm that you have read, understood, and agree to be bound by these Terms and by our Privacy Policy at https://oyabite.com/privacy, which is part of these Terms by reference.

If you use the Services on behalf of a household, business, or other organisation, you confirm that you have the authority to bind that organisation, and "you" includes that organisation.

2. What Oyabite is, and what Oyabite is not

Oyabite is a marketplace that connects people who want real home-cooked meals ("Customers") with independent home cooks ("Chefs") in cities where we operate, starting with Lagos and Abuja, Nigeria.

Please understand our role clearly:

Oyabite is a facilitator and a record keeper, not the seller. Chefs are independent individuals, not employees, agents, partners, or franchisees of Oyabite. Each Chef prepares, prices, lists, sells, packages, and arranges delivery of their own food.
Oyabite does not cook, prepare, handle, inspect, store, or deliver any food. We do not own or operate any kitchen. All food comes from the Chef's own kitchen.
Oyabite does not process payments and does not hold your money. Oyabite is not a bank, payment processor, escrow agent, or money transmitter. Customers pay Chefs directly for the food and any delivery, outside of the apps, using methods the Chef accepts (for example bank transfer, CashApp, or Zelle).
Oyabite records the order and helps the two sides communicate, coordinate handoff, and resolve problems. That is the extent of our involvement in any transaction.

Because Customers pay Chefs directly for physical, real-world food and delivery, the Services are a marketplace for physical goods and services. Oyabite does not use Apple In-App Purchase for these transactions, consistent with App Store Review Guidelines 3.1.3(e) and 3.1.5, which do not require In-App Purchase for physical goods and services consumed outside the app.

The contract for any meal is between the Customer and the Chef. Oyabite is not a party to that contract.

3. Eligibility

To use the Services you must:

be at least 18 years old,
be able to form a legally binding contract, and
not be barred from using the Services under the laws that apply to you.

The Services are not intended for anyone under 18, and we do not knowingly allow them to create accounts. If you are a Chef, you must also meet the additional requirements in Section 6.

4. Your account

To use most features you must create an account with your email and a password, and verify your email with a one-time code (OTP). We do not offer sign in with Apple or other third-party social login, because Oyabite does not rely on any third-party social login.

You agree to:

give accurate, current, and complete information and keep it up to date,
keep your password confidential and not share your account,
take responsibility for everything that happens under your account, and
tell us promptly at hello@oyabite.com if you suspect any unauthorised use.

You may hold a Customer account, a Chef account, or both, but each must be used for its intended purpose. We may refuse, suspend, or close accounts as described in Section 15.

5. How the marketplace works

Discovery. Customers browse Chefs and dishes through the swipe deck, search ("order by the minutes"), and, where offered, AI meal-timetable suggestions. AI suggestions are guidance only and may be wrong or incomplete. Always check the actual dish details, ingredients, and allergen information before ordering.
Placing an order. When a Customer requests a dish or food plan, that request goes to the Chef, who may accept, decline, or propose changes. An order is confirmed only when the Chef accepts it.
Direct payment. The Customer pays the Chef directly, using a method the Chef accepts, at the price the Chef sets (plus any delivery the Chef charges). Oyabite does not collect, hold, escrow, or guarantee any payment, and never charges the Customer through the app.
Handoff codes. For each order we generate a per-order handoff code. The code is shared at pickup or delivery to confirm the right meal reached the right Customer. Do not share your handoff code with anyone except the other party to that specific order at the moment of handoff.
Chat. Customers and Chefs can message each other in the app to coordinate. Keep communication respectful and about the order.
Ratings and reports. After an order, Customers can rate and review the Chef and can report problems. Chefs and Customers can report conduct that breaks these Terms.

6. Chef obligations

If you use Oyabite Chef to list or sell food, you also agree to the following. These are core promises, and breaking them can lead to suspension or removal.

Verification. Before you go live you must complete human verification, which may include a government-issued ID, a utility bill, photos of your kitchen, and a short intro video. You confirm that everything you submit is genuine, current, and yours. We may re-verify at any time.
Legal right to cook and sell. You are responsible for holding any licences, registrations, permits, and approvals that the law in your area requires for preparing and selling food from your home, and for following all food-safety, hygiene, labelling, and tax laws that apply to you.
Food safety and hygiene. You are solely responsible for the safety, hygiene, storage, temperature control, freshness, and quality of everything you cook and sell, and for safe packaging and handoff.
Accurate menus and allergens. You must describe each dish honestly, including ingredients and known allergens, and keep prices, availability, and photos accurate and current. Photos must be of your own real food. You must honour the allergy and dietary information you provide.
Weekly kitchen check-ins. You must complete weekly kitchen-photo compliance check-ins when we ask, so that your kitchen conditions stay verified. Missing check-ins may pause your ability to receive orders.
Fulfilment. You must fulfil orders you accept, as described, on time, and communicate promptly if something changes.
The 1% monthly space bill. Oyabite charges Chefs a "space bill" equal to 1% of your recorded sales through the Services, billed monthly and settled out of app. This is Oyabite's only fee, it is charged to Chefs and never to Customers, and it is not a payment for the food itself. We may change the fee on notice as described in Section 16. You are responsible for your own taxes on your sales.
Payout details. If you give us bank or payout details, they must be accurate and yours. Oyabite does not pay you for the food, since Customers pay you directly. Payout details help us record and reconcile sales and the space bill.

You set your own prices, menu, hours, and service area. Nothing in these Terms makes you an employee, worker, agent, or partner of Oyabite, and you are not entitled to any employment benefits from us.

7. Customer obligations

If you use Oyabite as a Customer, you agree to:

give accurate delivery details, including address and precise location where you ask for delivery,
pay the Chef in full and on time for orders you place and receive, using an agreed method,
be available for pickup or delivery and provide the handoff code only to complete your own order,
check dish details, ingredients, and allergen information yourself before you order and before you eat, especially if you have allergies or dietary needs, and
treat Chefs with respect and use ratings, reviews, and reports honestly.

You are responsible for your own choices about what to order and eat.

8. Payments, no escrow, cancellations, and refunds

Direct and outside the app. All payment for food and delivery is arranged and made directly between the Customer and the Chef. Oyabite does not set prices for food, does not take a cut of the food price, does not process the payment, and does not hold funds in escrow.
Cancellations and refunds are between the parties. Because the sale is between the Customer and the Chef, any cancellation, refund, credit, or replacement is agreed and handled between them, in line with the Chef's stated terms and applicable law.
Oyabite appeals process ("we step in"). If a Customer and a Chef cannot resolve a problem, either side can raise it with Oyabite through the app or at hello@oyabite.com. We offer a good-faith appeals process to review reports, look at evidence such as chat, handoff records, and photos, and reach a fair outcome. As part of this we may issue warnings, adjust ratings visibility, or suspend or remove accounts. Because we do not hold the money, we cannot force a refund or move funds. Our decisions in the appeals process are about access to the Services and are not legal or financial judgments, and do not make Oyabite a party to your transaction.

9. Prohibited conduct

You agree not to, and not to help anyone else, do any of the following:

break any law, or sell or order anything illegal, unsafe, or that you are not allowed to sell,
sell alcohol, tobacco, controlled substances, or other restricted items where doing so is unlawful or against these Terms,
lie about your identity, verification documents, ingredients, allergens, photos, prices, or availability,
post content that is false, misleading, defamatory, obscene, hateful, harassing, or that infringes anyone's rights,
post fake, incentivised, or retaliatory reviews, or manipulate ratings,
try to move payment or communication off the platform in order to dodge fees, safety checks, or these Terms,
harass, threaten, stalk, discriminate against, or endanger any person,
misuse handoff codes or another person's personal information,
collect or scrape data from the Services, or use bots, scrapers, or automated means without our written permission,
interfere with, probe, or try to break the security of the Services, or introduce malware,
reverse engineer, copy, or create derivative works of the Services except where the law does not allow us to stop you, or
use the Services to compete with Oyabite by building a similar marketplace from our data.

10. Your content and reviews

"User Content" means anything you submit through the Services, including menus, dish descriptions, photos, videos, reviews, ratings, messages, and profile information.

You keep ownership. You keep whatever ownership rights you already have in your User Content.
Licence to Oyabite. You grant Oyabite a worldwide, non-exclusive, royalty-free, sublicensable, and transferable licence to host, store, use, reproduce, adapt, publish, translate, distribute, and display your User Content, for the purpose of operating, promoting, and improving the Services. For reviews and public profile content, this licence continues even if you later remove the content or close your account, to the extent needed to keep records and to keep the marketplace honest.
Your promises. You confirm that you own or have the rights to your User Content, that it is accurate and not misleading, and that it does not break any law or these Terms or infringe anyone's rights.
Verification documents. KYC documents such as a government ID and utility bill are handled as described in our Privacy Policy and are not treated as public User Content.
Moderation. We may, but do not have to, review, screen, edit, refuse, or remove User Content. We are not responsible for User Content posted by others.

11. Intellectual property

The Services, including the Oyabite and Oyabite Chef apps, the website, our software, design, text, graphics, logos, and the Oyabite name and brand, are owned by Oyabite or our licensors and are protected by intellectual property laws. Except for the rights we clearly give you in these Terms, we grant you no rights in them.

We give you a limited, personal, non-exclusive, non-transferable, revocable licence to use the apps and website for their intended purpose, subject to these Terms. You may not copy, modify, distribute, sell, or lease any part of the Services, or our trademarks, without our written permission.

12. Food safety, allergens, and other disclaimers

Please read this section carefully.

Food is the Chef's responsibility. Food sold through the Services is prepared and sold by independent Chefs. Oyabite does not cook, inspect, test, or guarantee any food, and does not verify the safety, quality, freshness, or accuracy of any listing beyond the verification and check-in steps described above, which are trust tools and not guarantees.
Allergen filters are a tool, not a guarantee. Allergy and dietary filters and hard-exclusion settings depend on the information Chefs enter and on how food is prepared in a home kitchen, where cross-contact can happen. They help you filter, but they cannot guarantee that any dish is free of a given allergen or safe for you. If you have a food allergy or medical dietary need, confirm directly with the Chef and use your own judgment. You order and eat at your own risk.
Verification and check-ins are trust tools. Human verification, weekly kitchen photos, ratings, reports, handoff codes, and the appeals process are designed to build trust and reduce risk. They do not make Oyabite responsible for a Chef's food or conduct, and they are not a promise that any Chef or dish is safe.
Services provided "as is". To the fullest extent the law allows, the Services are provided "as is" and "as available", without warranties of any kind, whether express, implied, or statutory, including any implied warranties of merchantability, fitness for a particular purpose, non-infringement, and any warranty about the conduct, food, or reliability of any Chef or Customer. We do not promise that the Services will be uninterrupted, error-free, or secure.
Third parties. Oyabite is not responsible for the acts or omissions of any Chef, Customer, or other third party, or for any dealings you have with them, including any payment made directly between them.

Some places do not allow certain warranty exclusions, so some of the above may not apply to you.

13. Limitation of liability

To the fullest extent permitted by law:

Oyabite, and our officers, directors, employees, and agents, will not be liable for any indirect, incidental, special, consequential, exemplary, or punitive damages, or for any loss of profits, revenue, data, goodwill, or other intangible losses, arising out of or relating to the Services or these Terms.
Oyabite will not be liable for any illness, injury, allergic reaction, death, property damage, financial loss, or other harm arising from food prepared or sold by a Chef, from any transaction between a Customer and a Chef, from any direct payment, or from the conduct of any user.
Our total liability for all claims relating to the Services in any twelve-month period will not exceed the greater of (a) the total fees Oyabite actually received from you in that period, or (b) ₦20,000.

These limits apply whatever the legal theory, and even if we were told a loss might happen. Nothing in these Terms limits liability that the law does not allow us to limit, such as liability for our own fraud or for death or personal injury caused by our own negligence, to the extent applicable law says so.

14. Indemnity

You agree to defend, indemnify, and hold harmless Oyabite and our officers, directors, employees, and agents from and against any claims, damages, losses, liabilities, costs, and expenses (including reasonable legal fees) arising out of or related to:

your use of the Services,
your User Content,
your food or your transactions, if you are a Chef, including any illness, injury, or allergen claim,
your breach of these Terms or of any law, or
your violation of the rights of any other person or party.

We may take over the defence of any matter subject to this indemnity, and you agree to cooperate with us if we do.

15. Suspension and termination

By you. You may stop using the Services and close your account at any time through the app or by contacting hello@oyabite.com.
By us. We may suspend or terminate your access, remove content, or restrict features, with or without notice, if we reasonably believe you have broken these Terms or the law, created risk to others, failed verification or check-ins, or if we stop offering the Services in your area.
Open orders. Termination does not by itself cancel obligations already owed between a Customer and a Chef, such as a payment owed for food already delivered, or the space bill already owed by a Chef.
Survival. Sections that by their nature should continue will survive termination, including Sections 2, 8, 10 (licence), 11, 12, 13, 14, 16, 17, and 18.

16. Changes to the Services and to these Terms

We may change, add, or remove features, and we may update these Terms from time to time. If we make a material change, we will give reasonable notice, for example in the app, by email, or by updating the "Last updated" date above. Changes take effect when posted unless we say otherwise. If you keep using the Services after a change takes effect, you accept the updated Terms. If you do not agree, stop using the Services and close your account.

17. Dispute resolution and governing law

the Federal Republic of Nigeria governs these Terms and any dispute relating to them or to the Services, without regard to conflict-of-law rules.

The parties will first try in good faith to resolve any dispute informally by contacting each other, and, for marketplace problems, through the Oyabite appeals process in Section 8. If a dispute is not resolved that way, it will be subject to the exclusive jurisdiction of the courts of Lagos State, Nigeria. Nothing in these Terms removes any mandatory consumer rights you have under the law of your country of residence..

Nothing in this section stops either party from seeking urgent injunctive relief from a court where the law allows.

18. General

Entire agreement. These Terms and the Privacy Policy are the entire agreement between you and Oyabite about the Services, and replace any earlier agreement on that subject.
Severability. If any part of these Terms is found unenforceable, the rest stays in effect, and the unenforceable part will be applied as closely as possible to its original intent.
No waiver. If we do not enforce a right, that is not a waiver of it.
Assignment. You may not assign these Terms without our written consent. We may assign them, for example as part of a merger, acquisition, or sale of assets.
No agency. Nothing here creates any partnership, joint venture, employment, or agency relationship between you and Oyabite, or between Oyabite and any Chef or Customer.
Force majeure. We are not liable for delays or failures caused by events beyond our reasonable control.
Notices. We may give you notices through the app, by email, or on the website. You can reach us at the contact below.
App store terms. When you download an app from the Apple App Store, Apple's usual terms also apply, and Apple is not responsible for the Services or these Terms.

19. Contact

If you have questions about these Terms, contact us:

Email: hello@oyabite.com
Website: https://oyabite.com
Company: Oyabite
Registered address: Lagos, Nigeria
Country of incorporation: Nigeria
Data protection contact: hello@oyabite.com