Glossary → Contracts
Contracts

Consequential Damages

Indirect losses that flow from a breach — like lost profits.

Consequential damages are the knock-on losses a breach causes beyond the direct cost of the broken promise — lost profits, lost business, wasted spend. Contracts very often exclude them, so a clause disclaiming “consequential, incidental, or special damages” can quietly bar the largest part of what a breach actually costs you.

In practice

“In no event shall either party be liable for any consequential, incidental, or special damages.”

Don’t just look it up — see it in your document.

Before you sign, Main AI reads the actual contract and flags where a clause like this shifts risk onto you — in plain language, tied to the exact wording.

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Why the exclusion matters more than the cap

A mutual waiver of consequential damages is standard and often reasonable — it keeps a small deal from carrying unlimited downstream risk. The danger is asymmetry: if the party most likely to breach is the one you’d sue for lost profits, the waiver protects them and strips your real remedy. Read it alongside any liability cap — together the two clauses set the ceiling on everything you could ever recover.

See this in your own document: run a free analysis — findings quote the exact language.

What it looks like in a real document

“Neither party shall be liable for lost profits, lost revenue, or any indirect or consequential damages, however caused.”

“Lost profits” sitting inside the exclusion is the tell — that’s frequently your biggest number. If a category of loss is central to why you’re signing, ask to carve it out of the waiver.