Terms of Service

Eligibility and Accounts

• Age. You must be at least 18 years old (or the age of majority where you live) to create an account, use authenticated areas of the Service, or participate in the affiliate program. The Service is not intended for minors.
• Accurate information. You agree to provide accurate, current information and to keep your account information updated.
• Account security. You are responsible for maintaining the confidentiality of your login credentials and for all activity that occurs under your account.
• Suspension/termination. We may suspend or terminate accounts to protect the Service, comply with law, or if we reasonably believe you have violated these Terms.

Your Use of the Service

We grant you a limited, revocable, non-exclusive, non-transferable license to access and use the Service for lawful purposes in accordance with these Terms. We may modify, suspend, or discontinue any part of the Service at any time.

Acceptable Use

You agree not to (and not to attempt to):

• Use the Service for illegal, deceptive, or misleading activity.
• Spam, send unsolicited bulk messaging, or run deceptive lead-gen.
• Impersonate ScaleModeTools, our products, or our staff; or use confusingly similar domains, social handles, or branding.
• Infringe or misappropriate intellectual property or other rights.
• Bypass security, probe/scan, interfere with, or disrupt the Service.
• Scrape, crawl, or automate access in a way that abuses rate limits or harms Service reliability, without our written authorization.
• Manipulate referrals, commissions, attribution, or payouts (including cookie stuffing, forced clicks, hidden iframes, adware, toolbars, or similar techniques).

Affiliate Program

If you participate as an affiliate, you agree to comply with these Terms, any program rules shown in the affiliate dashboard (if any), and all applicable laws and regulations.

Program Basics

• No participation fee. There is no fee to join the affiliate program. However, Stripe or your financial institution may charge fees for receiving payouts.
• Independent contractor. You participate as an independent contractor. Nothing in these Terms creates a partnership, joint venture, agency, or employment relationship.
• No guaranteed earnings. Commissions are not guaranteed and depend on qualifying conversions recorded by our systems.
• Program changes. We may update program rules, attribution windows, commission rates, payout schedules, minimum thresholds, and eligibility criteria from time to time. Changes apply prospectively unless we state otherwise.

Marketing Compliance; FTC Disclosures

You are solely responsible for your marketing practices. You must clearly and conspicuously disclose your material connection to us (for example, that you may receive a commission) wherever required, including in endorsements, reviews, social posts, videos, and emails, and you must comply with the FTC Endorsement Guides and applicable advertising laws.

• No misleading claims, deceptive marketing, or false endorsements.
• No impersonation of ScaleModeTools, our products, or our staff.
• No use of our trademarks, brand assets, or domains except as expressly permitted by us in writing.
• You are responsible for complying with applicable email/SMS laws (e.g., CAN-SPAM, TCPA, and similar laws) when using those channels.

Tracking and Attribution

We use referral links, attribution tokens, and cookies to attribute conversions. If cookies are blocked, cleared, restricted, or if a user switches devices/browsers, attribution may not be recorded.

• Attribution decisions are based on our systems and records and are final, subject to our review of suspected fraud or error.
• You may not manipulate tracking or attribution, including by cookie stuffing, forced clicks, hidden iframes, adware/toolbars, or any technique intended to generate referrals without genuine user intent.
• We may audit traffic and attribution patterns and may withhold, reverse, or deny commissions where we reasonably suspect fraud, abuse, or policy violations.

Commissions, Reversals, and Disputes

• Commissions are earned only on qualifying, successful, paid conversions recorded by our systems, and may be subject to a hold period shown in the affiliate dashboard.
• We may reverse commissions for refunds, chargebacks, disputes, fraudulent activity, policy violations, duplicate/self-referral activity where prohibited, or other invalid conversions.
• Dispute window. If you believe a commission was misattributed or missing, you must contact us within 60 days after the conversion is reported in your dashboard (or, if not shown, within 60 days after it occurred). After that, the record is considered final to the extent permitted by law.
• Right to offset. If commissions are reversed after payout, you authorize us to offset the reversed amounts against future commissions and/or require repayment to the extent permitted by law.
• Reserve/withholding. We may delay or withhold payouts while we investigate suspected fraud, policy violations, unusual patterns, compliance issues, or pending disputes.

Payouts via Stripe Connect

• Payouts are executed through Stripe Connect to your connected account. Payout schedules, minimum payout thresholds, and supported currencies (if applicable) are displayed in the affiliate dashboard and/or during onboarding.
• You are responsible for maintaining a valid Stripe connected account and ensuring your payout details are accurate and up to date.
• You are responsible for any fees charged by Stripe or your financial institution for receiving payouts.
• Stripe’s processing of your information is governed by Stripe’s policies and terms. To receive payouts, you may be required to agree to Stripe’s applicable terms for connected accounts.

Taxes and Legal Compliance

• You are responsible for determining and paying any taxes, reporting, or other obligations related to your commissions.
• We may require tax forms (e.g., W-9, W-8BEN, or local equivalents) and may withhold amounts as required by law (including backup withholding).
• You represent that you are eligible to receive payments and are not subject to sanctions or restrictions that would prohibit payouts under applicable law or Stripe policies.
• If we cannot complete a payout due to missing information, failed onboarding, legal restrictions, or other reasons, we may handle the amounts as unclaimed property as required by applicable law.

Third-Party Services

We use third-party providers such as Supabase (authentication and database), Stripe (payments and affiliate payouts), analytics, and hosting providers to operate the Service. Your use of third-party services may be subject to their terms and privacy policies.

Stripe’s privacy practices are described in Stripe’s Privacy Policy and Stripe’s terms may apply to connected accounts and payout flows.

Intellectual Property

The Service and its content are owned by us or our licensors and protected by intellectual property laws. Except for the limited license granted above, we reserve all rights, title, and interest in and to the Service.

You may not copy, modify, distribute, sell, lease, reverse engineer, or attempt to extract source code from the Service except where such restrictions are prohibited by law.

User Content

If you submit, upload, or otherwise make content available through the Service ("User Content"), you represent that you have the rights to do so. You grant us a non-exclusive, worldwide, royalty-free license to host, store, reproduce, and display User Content solely to operate and improve the Service.

We may remove User Content if we believe it violates these Terms or applicable law.

Feedback

If you provide feedback or suggestions, you grant us the right to use them without restriction or obligation to you.

Termination

We may suspend or terminate your access to the Service at any time, including if we reasonably believe you have violated these Terms or engaged in fraud or abuse.

You may stop using the Service at any time. Upon termination, sections intended to survive (including intellectual property, disclaimers, limitation of liability, indemnification, dispute resolution, and governing law) will continue in effect.

Termination may result in forfeiture, withholding, or reversal of pending commissions if we determine they were generated through fraud, abuse, or policy violations, to the extent permitted by law.

Disclaimers

THE SERVICE IS PROVIDED "AS IS" AND "AS AVAILABLE" WITHOUT WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND. WE DO NOT GUARANTEE UNINTERRUPTED OR ERROR-FREE OPERATION OR THAT REFERRAL TRACKING WILL ALWAYS FUNCTION WITHOUT INTERRUPTION.

Limitation of Liability

TO THE MAXIMUM EXTENT PERMITTED BY LAW, WE ARE NOT LIABLE FOR ANY INDIRECT, INCIDENTAL, SPECIAL, CONSEQUENTIAL, EXEMPLARY, OR PUNITIVE DAMAGES ARISING FROM OR RELATED TO YOUR USE OF THE SERVICE.

TO THE MAXIMUM EXTENT PERMITTED BY LAW, OUR TOTAL LIABILITY FOR ANY CLAIM ARISING OUT OF OR RELATING TO THE SERVICE WILL NOT EXCEED US $100 (OR THE AMOUNT WE PAID YOU IN AFFILIATE COMMISSIONS IN THE 12 MONTHS BEFORE THE EVENT GIVING RISE TO THE CLAIM, IF GREATER).

Indemnification

You agree to indemnify and hold harmless ScaleModeTools and its officers, directors, employees, and agents from any claims, liabilities, damages, losses, and expenses (including reasonable attorneys’ fees) arising out of or related to your use of the Service, your marketing activities, your violation of these Terms, or your infringement of any rights of another.

Dispute Resolution

We encourage you to contact us first to resolve disputes informally. If a dispute cannot be resolved informally, any claim will be resolved in the courts described below, unless mandatory consumer protection laws provide otherwise.

Governing Law and Venue

These Terms are governed by the laws of the State of South Carolina, USA, without regard to conflicts of law principles. You agree to the exclusive jurisdiction and venue of the state and federal courts located in South Carolina for disputes not subject to mandatory alternative venue requirements.

General

Assignment. You may not assign or transfer these Terms without our prior written consent. We may assign or transfer these Terms without restriction.

Severability; Waiver. If any provision is found unenforceable, it will be limited to the minimum extent necessary and the remainder will remain in effect. Failure to enforce any provision is not a waiver.

Entire Agreement. These Terms and any policies incorporated by reference constitute the entire agreement between you and us regarding the Service and supersede prior agreements on that subject.

Changes. We may update these Terms from time to time. Material changes will be effective when posted to this page with an updated “Last updated” date. Continued use after changes become effective constitutes acceptance of the updated Terms.

Electronic communications. You consent to receive service, transactional, and legal communications electronically (e.g., email), and agree that such communications satisfy any legal requirements that they be in writing.