Terms of Use.

These Terms of Use ("Terms") apply to your use of the website at www.InkCMS.ai and to any subscription service ordered through it. The InkCMS software itself is also covered by the InkCMS Commercial Source-Available License — these Terms are the commercial and conduct rules on top of the software license.

1. Who we are

"InkCMS", "we", and "us" mean InkCMS, the corporation operating InkCMS.ai and publishing the InkCMS software. "You" means you, the visitor or customer.

2. Acceptance

By using this site, signing up for an account, or installing the InkCMS software with a paid license, you agree to these Terms and to the InkCMS Commercial Source-Available License. If you don't agree, don't use the service.

3. Accounts and licenses

3.1 You're responsible for your account.

Keep your password secret. Tell us right away if you suspect unauthorized access — use the contact form with topic "General question" and we'll route it to the security team. You're responsible for activity under your account.

3.2 One subscription, one website.

Each InkCMS subscription entitles you to run the software on one website, identified by a single registered hostname (the "Licensed Hostname"). Subdomains used as part of the same website (e.g. www.example.com and example.com) count as one website. Running InkCMS on any hostname other than your Licensed Hostname requires a separate subscription. You can change your Licensed Hostname at any time (e.g. for a domain migration) without an additional charge; you cannot run two production websites on a single subscription.

3.3 Local development is free.

localhost, *.local, and *.test hostnames are short-circuited by the license guard and do not require a subscription. Production hostnames — anything resolvable on the public internet — always require an active subscription.

3.4 Page-count tier.

Your subscription tier sets a page-count limit. Going over the limit by up to 10% is allowed indefinitely (the "soft buffer"); going past 110% prevents new-page publishes from the editor but never disables your public site. Upgrade any time at /pricing.

3.5 Subscription term and lapses.

Your right to run InkCMS in production is contingent on an active subscription. If your subscription lapses, expires, or is terminated, your grant of production use ends. You may keep a copy of the source on disk for archival and to migrate your content out, but you may not continue to operate the Licensed Work for a production website without a renewed subscription. The license does not auto-convert to an open-source license after any period; the terms remain in force for the life of the Licensed Work.

4. Payment

4.1 Billing cycle.

Monthly subscriptions renew on the same calendar day each month; annual subscriptions on the same date each year. We'll email a receipt for each successful charge.

4.2 Refunds.

If something is broken on our side, we'll refund. If you change your mind, monthly subscriptions aren't refunded mid-cycle (cancel any time and use the rest of the month). Annual subscriptions are prorated and refunded within the first 14 days, no questions asked.

4.3 Failed payments.

If a charge fails, we'll email you, retry a few times over 10 days, and only then transition your license to "expired" state. Your public site continues to serve — only the editor's publish gate is affected.

5. Acceptable use

Don't use this site or the software to:

• Attack our infrastructure (DoS, vulnerability probing without coordination, etc.). Coordinated security research is welcomed via the contact form.
• Build a content site that violates applicable law in your jurisdiction or ours (illegal content, fraud, etc.).
• Run InkCMS on a hostname not covered by an active subscription (see § 3.2).
• Strip the "Powered by InkCMS" attribution from your site without a whitelabel agreement (see the License).
• Resell InkCMS as a hosted service to third parties without a separate hosted-resale agreement.
• Redistribute the InkCMS source, modified or otherwise, to anyone without their own subscription.
• Circumvent, disable, or remove the license guard, activation, heartbeat, or page-count enforcement code.

6. AI features — capabilities and limits

6.1 AI is involved in InkCMS itself.

Substantial portions of the InkCMS source were written, refactored, and reviewed with the help of large language model tooling. Every feature is reviewed by a human before shipping. AI tools occasionally introduce subtle bugs, miss edge cases, or pick patterns a more experienced human might not have. We catch and fix these on an ongoing basis. The use of AI in InkCMS's own development is real and ongoing.

6.2 AI features inside the product.

InkCMS ships two AI surfaces: the admin CMS Editing Assistant (drafts pages, proposes edits) and the public AI Advisor (answers visitor questions using your opted-in content). Both use third-party LLM providers (Anthropic, Google, OpenAI) configured with your own API keys. We don't proxy those requests through our servers, don't see their content, and don't bill you for AI usage. Your relationship with the LLM provider is governed by their terms.

6.3 AI can be wrong — review before you publish.

Generated content can be incorrect, outdated, hallucinated, biased, or off-tone. You are responsible for reviewing every AI-generated page, edit, and Advisor response that visitors might see, before it ships. The Editing Assistant uses a propose-and-confirm flow so you stay in the loop; the Advisor's answers are constrained to opted-in content and tool-verified URLs, but they are still produced by a probabilistic model and may be wrong. To the maximum extent permitted by law, we disclaim all liability for AI-generated output — both the content in InkCMS that AI helped author, and the output of the AI features inside your install. We also can't guarantee any specific LLM provider stays available, priced, or feature-stable.

7. Support

Support requests come through the contact form and reach a human inbox. We aim for same-day response during business hours (Mon - Fri, 9:00 - 5:00 EST) and next-business-day otherwise. Custom SLAs are available on enterprise plans.

8. Intellectual property

The InkCMS software is licensed to you under the InkCMS Commercial Source-Available License. The InkCMS name, logo, and the InkCMS.ai website content are ours; the license covers what you can and can't do with the software, not with our brand. Don't pass off your modifications as "InkCMS" without permission.

The content you author with InkCMS belongs to you. We don't claim any rights to your pages.

9. Disclaimer of warranties

The site and the software are provided "AS IS" and "WHERE IS," without warranty of any kind — express, implied, statutory, or otherwise. To the maximum extent permitted by law, we disclaim every implied warranty including the warranties of merchantability, fitness for a particular purpose, title, non-infringement, accuracy, and uninterrupted or error-free operation. We don't warrant that the site or software will meet your requirements, that defects will be corrected, that the service will be uninterrupted, or that it will be free from harmful components.

We take security seriously, but no application is impenetrable. We follow defensive coding practices, ship security patches quickly, encrypt sensitive data at rest, and run third-party dependency audits — and we still cannot guarantee that InkCMS, your install of it, your server, your hosting provider, or the broader internet will never be breached, downed, or impaired. The decision to deploy InkCMS in production is yours, made with full awareness that software fails, services go down, and adversaries are persistent.

You alone are responsible for: operating your server (OS patching, network hardening, TLS, backups, incident response); the content you publish; any third-party services you integrate; and reviewing the InkCMS source before deploying it, since you have the source and can.

10. Limitation of liability

To the maximum extent permitted by law, in no event will InkCMS be liable for any indirect, incidental, special, consequential, exemplary, or punitive damages, or for any loss of profits, revenue, data, business opportunities, goodwill, or substitute services, arising from or related to your use of the site, the software, or any AI feature in or with InkCMS — even if we have been advised of the possibility of such damages.

Our total cumulative liability, for all claims arising under or related to these Terms or your use of InkCMS, will not exceed the greater of (a) one hundred US dollars ($100), or (b) the amount you paid us in subscription fees during the twelve (12) months immediately preceding the event giving rise to the claim. These limits apply regardless of legal theory (contract, tort including negligence, strict liability, statute, or otherwise) and survive termination of these Terms.

11. Hold harmless / indemnification

You agree to defend, indemnify, and hold harmless InkCMS, its officers, directors, employees, agents, contractors, and affiliates from and against any and all claims, demands, actions, suits, proceedings, damages, losses, liabilities, judgments, settlements, costs, and expenses (including reasonable attorneys' fees and court costs) arising from or related to: (a) the content you publish, distribute, or store through InkCMS; (b) your operation, configuration, or maintenance of the server, network, or infrastructure on which InkCMS runs; (c) your customization, modification, or extension of the InkCMS source; (d) any breach, downtime, data loss, data exposure, or security incident affecting your site, your visitors, or your customers; (e) your use of any AI feature in or with InkCMS, including content generated by such features; (f) your integration with any third-party service (LLM provider, payment processor, analytics, storage, email, etc.); and (g) any breach of these Terms or the InkCMS Commercial Source-Available License by you or anyone you allow to access your install.

We will give you prompt notice of any such claim and reasonable cooperation in the defense. You'll have control of the defense and settlement, provided you cannot settle in a way that admits our fault or imposes obligations on us without our prior written consent.

12. Termination

You can cancel any time. We can terminate your account for material breach of these Terms — usually after a heads-up email and a chance to cure. After termination, you keep your filesystem content (it's on your server), but you can't keep running paid features after the license expires (the editor will refuse new publishes; your public site continues unaffected until the next license heartbeat decision). The disclaimers, limitations of liability, and indemnification obligations in these Terms survive any termination or expiration.

13. Governing law

These Terms are governed by the laws of the State of Michigan, USA, without regard to conflict-of-laws rules. Any dispute will be brought in the state or federal courts located in Oakland County, Michigan, unless you're a consumer with mandatory home-jurisdiction rights, in which case those apply. You and InkCMS each waive any right to a jury trial, to the maximum extent permitted by law.

14. Changes to these Terms

If we change anything material, we'll update the "Last updated" date and email active customers a heads-up at least 30 days before the change takes effect. Your continued use after that constitutes acceptance.

15. Contact

Questions, legal notices, anything else: use the contact form. All inbound mail reaches the same human inbox.