These terms are a contract between you and Caudexus LLC, a Michigan limited liability company (“Caudexus”, “we”, “us”). By creating an account or using the service, you agree to them. If you do not agree, do not use the service.
1. The service
Caudexus is a writing application: projects that hold your writing and all the supporting material you build around it, with offline-first storage, multi-device sync, collaboration, and beta-reader sharing. The service includes the Caudexus writing app (web, desktop, and mobile), the Caudexus reader app for beta readers (web and mobile), and the caudexus.com website, as each platform becomes available.
Beta notice. Caudexus is in beta. Features may change, be added, or be removed. During the free beta period, paid features are available at no charge; we will give notice before paid plans take effect.
2. Eligibility and accounts
You must be at least 16 years old. You must give accurate account information and keep your credentials secure. You are responsible for activity under your account. Sessions are bound to registered devices; you can review and revoke devices in Settings. Tell us promptly at support@caudexus.com if you suspect unauthorized access.
3. Your content and our license to it
You own your writing. Everything you create in Caudexus — your projects and all the content inside them, including files you upload — is yours. We claim no ownership and no rights to publish it.
You grant us a limited, non-exclusive, worldwide license to host, store, transmit, back up, and display your content solely to operate the service for you: syncing it across your devices, keeping version history, and showing it to collaborators and readers you invite. This license ends when you delete the content or your account, except for copies in transient backups that expire on their own schedule, and except for content you shared with others as described in §5.
We will not read your content except as needed to operate the service, to respond to a support request you make, to enforce these terms on reported content, or as required by law. We do not use your content to train AI or machine-learning models, and we do not scan it for advertising.
4. Vault projects — read this
If you enable the Vault on a project, it is end-to-end encrypted with keys derived from your password and recovery phrase. We cannot decrypt a vault project and we cannot reset a vault password. If you lose both the password and the recovery phrase, the synced copies of that project are permanently unreadable, by you and by us. This is the designed behavior, not a defect, and we are not liable for content lost this way.
5. Collaboration and beta readers
You control who you invite. Collaborators can see and, depending on role, edit the project you invite them to. Beta readers can read the version you release and leave comments and reactions, and you can see their reading progress. You are responsible for having the right to share the content you share. Contributions others make inside your project (comments, edits, suggestions) remain in the project. If a reader later deletes their account, their comments remain but are detached from their name.
6. Offline use, sync, and backups
Your primary copy lives on your devices; sync replicates it. Sync and version history are a convenience, not an archival guarantee. Keep your own exports of work you cannot afford to lose. The built-in export is always available to you, including on a lapsed subscription (see §7).
7. Plans, billing, and cancellation
- Paid plans are subscriptions billed by Stripe, monthly or annually, and renew automatically until canceled. Prices are shown before you buy; taxes may apply.
- Plan upgrades take effect and are charged as shown at confirmation, including any proration. Downgrades and removals take effect at the end of the paid term; we do not issue partial-period refunds or credits for downgrades.
- You can cancel any time via the billing portal. Cancellation stops future charges and your plan runs to the end of the paid term.
- No hostage clause. If your subscription lapses, you keep access to your account and your content in read-only form, and export always works. Paid features (such as sync and collaboration) stop; your writing does not become inaccessible.
- Refunds outside the above are at our discretion, except where the law requires them.
- If a payment fails, we will retry per Stripe’s schedule; paid features may be suspended if payment is not completed.
8. Acceptable use
Do not:
- break the law, or store or share content you have no right to;
- upload malware or attempt to breach, probe, or overload the service;
- access another user’s account or project without invitation;
- resell or offer the service to third parties as your own;
- abuse invitations or email features to spam people.
We may suspend or terminate accounts for material violation. Where practical, we will warn you first and give you a chance to export your content. Fiction itself is not a violation: dark themes, violence, and mature content in your own creative writing are your business; the limits above are about conduct and legality, not literary content.
9. Our intellectual property
The Caudexus software, design, and branding are ours or our licensors’ and are protected by law. We grant you a limited, non-transferable license to use the apps to access the service. Do not copy, modify, or reverse-engineer them except where the law permits. Components we publish under open-source licenses (including the vault-crypto library) are governed by those licenses. If you send us feedback or suggestions, we may use them without obligation to you.
10. Third-party services
Payments are processed by Stripe under Stripe’s own terms and privacy policy. We are not responsible for third-party services.
11. Privacy
Our Privacy Policy describes what we collect and why. It is part of these terms.
12. Termination
You can stop using the service and delete your account at any time in Settings; deletion is described in the Privacy Policy. We may suspend or terminate your access for material breach of these terms, or discontinue the service with at least 30 days’ notice, during which export remains available.
Deleting your account is permanent, and you cannot undo it. We destroy or remove the identity from the data held under your account: your projects, your uploaded files, your collaborations, your beta-reader records, your devices, your sent messages, and the internal trails that named you. We cannot restore the account and we cannot restore its content. Export everything you want to keep before you delete.
Deletion does not create a refund. Deletion cancels any live subscription and stops future charges. The choice to delete your account is not a ground for a refund. Refunds remain as stated in §7.
We keep transaction records where the law requires it. Those records are the invoices and charges held by our payment processor. They are financial records of the business. They are not your account, and your account does not survive inside them.
13. Disclaimers
The service is provided “as is” and “as available”, without warranties of any kind, express or implied, including merchantability, fitness for a particular purpose, and non-infringement. We do not warrant that the service will be uninterrupted, error-free, or that content will never be lost. Some jurisdictions do not allow these disclaimers; in that case they apply to the fullest extent permitted.
14. Limitation of liability
To the fullest extent permitted by law: we are not liable for indirect, incidental, special, consequential, or punitive damages, or for lost profits, revenues, or data; and our total liability for all claims relating to the service is limited to the greater of (a) the amount you paid us in the 12 months before the claim, or (b) US $50. Nothing in these terms limits liability that cannot be limited by law.
15. Indemnity
You will defend and indemnify us against third-party claims arising from your content or your breach of these terms, except to the extent the claim results from our own breach.
16. Export compliance
You may not use the service in violation of United States export control and sanctions laws, and you represent that you are not on a US restricted-party list. The apps include encryption software distributed under applicable US export authorizations.
17. Governing law and disputes
These terms are governed by the laws of the United States and of the State of Michigan, excluding conflict-of-law rules. Disputes will be resolved in the state or federal courts located in Michigan, and both parties consent to their jurisdiction. Either party may bring qualifying claims in small-claims court instead. There is no arbitration requirement in these terms.
18. Changes to these terms
We may update these terms. During the beta period we may revise them without advance notice; the version posted at caudexus.com governs. After the beta, for material changes we will give at least 14 days’ notice by email or in-app notice; continued use after the effective date is acceptance. If you do not agree, stop using the service and export your content before the change takes effect.
19. Miscellany
These terms and the Privacy Policy are the entire agreement between us about the service. If a provision is unenforceable, the rest stand. Our failure to enforce a provision is not a waiver. You may not assign these terms without our consent; we may assign them in connection with a merger or sale, in which case they continue to bind the assignee.
20. Contact
Caudexus
support@caudexus.com
