Terms of use
Last updated 2 August 2026. These are the terms on which you may use Plaata. Plain language on purpose: if you cannot tell what you are agreeing to, the terms have failed.
What Plaata is
Plaata helps you design number plates, apply for personalised registrations, renew licence discs and deal with traffic fines. Some of those services are still being built, and the site says so where that is the case.
What Plaata is not
We are not a licensing authority, and we cannot issue anything. This matters more than it sounds:
- A personalised registration is issued by a provincial licensing authority. We prepare and lodge your application; the province decides. That is why we ask for up to three choices - refusal is common, and it is not something we control or can appeal for you.
- An availability check tells you whether a combination appears on the national vehicle register. Absence is evidence that it is unissued; it is not permission to have it. A combination may be reserved, allocated but not yet fitted, or refused as offensive.
- A licence disc renewal is us running an errand for you at the authority. The fee the authority charges is theirs, not ours.
- Traffic fines are spread across the national AARTO system and separate municipal systems that do not talk to each other. No service can promise you a complete picture, and we will not pretend otherwise - we will always tell you exactly which sources we checked. Unpaid fines alone cannot block a licence renewal; only an AARTO enforcement order can.
- Plates must be manufactured by a certified embosser. A design you export from Plaata is a design, not a legal plate.
Your account
You need an account for anything tied to a vehicle. Keep your password to yourself - anything done by your account is treated as done by you. Tell us immediately if you think someone else has access.
The information you give us must be accurate, and the vehicles you add must be ones you are entitled to act for. Applying for a registration or a renewal on someone else's car without their authority is not something we can detect for you, and it is your responsibility.
Prices and payment
Prices are shown in South African rand and include VAT where VAT applies. Where we collect a fee on behalf of an authority or a supplier, we will show it separately from what we charge for our own service.
Prices can change, but never for an order you have already placed: the amount is fixed when the order is made and is calculated by our own systems, not by anything your browser sends us.
Cancellations and refunds
You may cancel while nothing has been committed on your behalf - before production starts on a plate, or before an application has been lodged with an authority. Both are available in your account, and the buttons disappear at exactly the point they stop being possible.
After that, contact us. Where money has already been paid to an authority or a supplier, we cannot recover it, and we will tell you plainly rather than leaving you to find out. Nothing here takes away your rights under the Consumer Protection Act.
A personalised registration that the province refuses is not a failure you pay for. Where a refusal means we cannot deliver what you asked for, you get your money back for that part.
Acceptable use
Do not use Plaata to impersonate someone, to apply for a registration for a vehicle that is not yours to act for, or to design plates intended to mislead. We refuse combinations that are reserved, official, or offensive, and a province will refuse more besides.
What we can promise
We will do our work carefully and honestly. We cannot promise that an authority will approve anything, how long it will take, or that data drawn from external registers is complete and current - those systems are not ours.
Where we get something wrong, we will fix it or refund it. Beyond that, our liability is limited to what you paid us for the service in question. Nothing in these terms limits liability that cannot lawfully be limited, including for death, injury or fraud.
Your information
Covered separately in our privacy policy, including how to get a copy of everything we hold and how to have it deleted.
Changes and ending
We may update these terms; the date at the top changes when we do, and anything material we will tell you about directly. You can close your account whenever you like, from your account settings. We may suspend an account that is being used to break these terms.
These terms are governed by South African law.
Contact
hello@plaata.co.za · +27 67 008 3283 · Mon–Fri, 09:00–17:00 SAST