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Free template

Sou sou agreement template

Fill in your circle’s details and the rules you have agreed, then print it or save it as a PDF for every member to sign. Leave it blank to print a form to fill in by hand. No sign-up, and nothing you type leaves your browser.

Where the circle runs

The circle

Optional. It goes in the agreement’s title.

Include the currency, e.g. $100 or £50.

How often

e.g. every Friday, or by the 1st of the month.

e.g. cash to the organiser, or bank transfer.

Fills in the date of every round.

Members, in payout order

  1. 1.
  2. 2.
  3. 3.
  4. 4.
  5. 5.
  6. 6.
The order

Late and missed payments

If the pot is short on payout day
Swapping places in the order
Anything else is decided by

Sou sou agreement

We, the members who sign below, agree to run a rotating savings circle on these terms.

1. Contributions

Each member pays _______________ every month, due _______________, by _______________.

There are 6 members, so the circle runs 6 rounds. In each round one member receives every member’s contribution. Over the whole circle, each member pays in exactly what they receive.

2. The organiser

_______________ organises the circle: keeps the record of who has paid, reminds members when a payment is due, and tells the group when one is late.

3. Payout order

The order was decided by drawing lots before the first payment. It is fixed for the whole circle, and every member has a copy.

RoundDateReceivesReceived (initials)
1_________________________
2_________________________
3_________________________
4_________________________
5_________________________
6_________________________

4. Late and missed payments

A contribution not received 3 days after it is due is late, and the organiser tells the group.

If a round’s pot is short on payout day, the payout waits until every contribution for that round is in.

A member who misses 2 contributions is removed from the circle.

5. Leaving the circle

A member who leaves or is removed before their turn gets back what they have paid in, after the last round. A member who leaves or is removed after their turn still owes every remaining contribution, because the others have already paid toward their payout. The group decides together whether to fill an empty place.

6. Swapping places

Two members may swap places in the order if both agree and the organiser is told before either turn.

7. Anything not covered here

Anything this agreement does not cover is decided by a majority vote of the members.

8. What this circle is not

Nobody earns interest, nobody receives more than they pay in, and nobody is paid for bringing in new members.

Signed

NameSignatureDate

Made with the free template at thesusu.app/sou-sou-agreement-template/

Why write it down

Somebody in every circle misses a payment eventually. Circles that survive it agreed what happens next while everyone was still calm; circles that do not are left arguing about it in month six. A page everyone signed in week one settles that argument before it starts.

The clauses follow the decisions in how to start a savings circle: the contribution and schedule, a fixed payout order, and what happens when someone is late, stops paying or wants to swap. Change any of them to fit your group; the point is that everyone agrees to the same version.

Is it legally binding?

Treat it as a record of what everyone agreed, not as a contract you plan to take to court. Whether a court would enforce an informal agreement like this depends on where you live and on the facts, and this template is not legal advice. Its real job is to make sure nobody can later say they agreed to something else.

Whatever you write, a real sou sou keeps two rules, the ones the FTC uses to tell a savings club from a scam: nobody gets back more than they paid in, and nobody is paid for recruiting. If a group needs new members to pay out, it is a pyramid scheme. Here is how to spot one.

Running it in The SUSU App

Choose The SUSU App at the top of the form and the agreement describes what the app decides for you: it sets the payout order with the organiser last, pays a round out only once everyone has paid it, reminds late members and lowers their trust score, and moves the money through Stripe straight to whoever’s turn it is, so the organiser never holds the pot. Nobody signs up to a rule the app will not follow. What it leaves to you is what members do among themselves if someone stops paying, so agree that here.

The payout calculator shows what each member receives after the app’s fees.

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