terms of service

1. What you're agreeing to

You agree to use Trophic for personal cognitive offloading and journaling. You will not use the service to host illegal content, harass others, or attempt to compromise the infrastructure. You will not abuse the API beyond fair-use rate limits.

2. Tiers and what you get

Capture, Folders, Mapping, zero-knowledge encryption, vault export, vault import, and pack-up & burn are all available on every tier — including Free. Data ownership and exit are universal. Paid tiers exist to fund development of higher-order features; as of v0.6.0 the gated feature is the Insight Engine, currently in development.

• Free— Capture, Folders, Mapping, zero-knowledge encryption, full vault import / export, pack-up & burn, account management. Forever free, no credit card required.
• Monthly · The Trialist ($4.99/month) — adds the Insight Engine when it ships.
• Annual · The Intentionalist ($51.99/year) — same Insight Engine access, with two months saved over Monthly.
• Founding Member · The Early Adopter ($39.99/year, capped at 204 seats) — same Insight Engine access plus a rate locked forever (~23% off the regular Annual price), and a beta-tester seat for the native desktop and mobile apps when their development hits. Once the 204 founding seats are filled, the founding rate is no longer offered and new subscribers land on Annual at $51.99/year.

Tier features are subject to revision. If a feature is added, paid tiers gain it. If a feature is removed or moved between tiers, existing paid users keep access for the duration of any prepaid term. Founding Member subscriptions retain their locked rate indefinitely, including across future Annual price changes.

3. Payment, billing, and Lemon Squeezy

Trophic uses Lemon Squeezy as its Merchant of Record. Lemon Squeezy handles checkout, payment processing, sales tax, VAT, invoicing, and any required regulatory remittance for purchases made through the storefront. Their Terms of Service and Privacy Policy apply to the transaction itself. Trophic only receives the minimum metadata needed to provision your account (your email and the purchased product variant).

4. Cancellation

You can cancel any paid subscription — Monthly, Annual, or Founding Member — at any time from Settings. The cancel button is one click; there are no retention screens, no win-back flows, no friction. Access continues through the end of the prepaid term, after which your account drops to the Free tier. Capture, Folders, encryption, and the full vault tooling stay available; only the Insight Engine becomes inaccessible until you resubscribe. A cancelled Founding Member who later resubscribes does so at the then-current Annual rate — the locked founding rate is forfeited on cancellation.

5. Zero-Knowledge encryption — limit of liability

Trophic offers opt-in zero-knowledge encryption. When enabled, your data is encrypted in your browser before leaving your device. The keys never reach the server. This means:

• Trophic cannot recover your data.If you lose your password and your 12-word recovery phrase, the encrypted entries are mathematically unrecoverable. There is no backdoor, no support override, no “reset.”
• Your recovery phrase is your responsibility.Store it offline (paper, password manager, hardware vault). I recommend writing it down on day one and never typing it into any device that isn't yours.
• An infrastructure breach does not compromise encrypted content. The database only ever holds ciphertext and HMAC-SHA256 tag hashes. Even with full database access, an attacker recovers nothing readable about an encrypted account.
• Trusted-device storage does not change the recovery promise.The optional “trust this device” checkbox wraps your master key under a non-extractable per- device key held inside your browser. The server never sees that key. It is a convenience that lets you skip the password prompt on devices you control; it is not a backup, not a backdoor, and does not give Trophic the ability to recover your data.

By enabling zero-knowledge encryption, you accept that data loss from a forgotten password and lost recovery phrase is solely your responsibility. Trophic is not liable for irrecoverable data in this scenario.

6. Data ownership and portability

Your captured content is yours, on every tier including Free. Vault Export downloads a self-contained JSON snapshot of your account at any time. Vault Import takes the same JSON (or a CSV from a legacy spreadsheet) and restores it. Pack-Up & Burn downloads everything and then permanently wipes the server-side copy in one operation. None of these are gated by tier. The pricing model funds product development; it does not gate the right to leave with your data.

7. Account termination

You can delete your account at any time from Settings. Deletion removes the User row and cascades to all associated entries, folders, reminders, and feedback. This action is immediate and irreversible. I may suspend or terminate accounts that violate these terms, attempt to abuse the infrastructure, or pose a security risk.

8. Service availability

Trophic is provided “as is.” I aim for high uptime but do not guarantee uninterrupted service. Scheduled maintenance, third-party outages (Vercel, Supabase, Resend, Lemon Squeezy), and unforeseen incidents may temporarily affect access. Trophic is not liable for incidental losses arising from downtime.

9. Changes to these terms

I may update these terms when the product changes meaningfully. The “Last updated” date at the top will reflect any change. Material changes will be communicated via the email on your account. Continued use after a change constitutes acceptance.

10. Contact

For account questions or any concern about these terms, reply to any email you've received from Trophic. The address goes directly to me.