saler.ai Terms of Service

1. Service Definition and Scope

1. Service form: the Service is delivered over three channels — API, CLI and MCP server — which share one account system and one billing basis.
2. Data is provided as-is: we do not warrant the accuracy, completeness or timeliness of upstream data.
3. No performance guarantee: output from the Service is an input to your decisions. We make no promise of any SEO/GEO ranking, visibility improvement or traffic outcome — which is what rules out "I used you and I still do not rank" claims.
4. Third-party data: data is supplied by third-party vendors such as DataForSEO, and you must comply with their terms as well.
5. Scope boundaries: we do not provide consulting, do not operate sites on your behalf, and do not promise rankings.

2. Accounts, API Keys and Access Control

1. Account holder and real-name / KYC requirements (aligned with the payment side).
2. API key security is your responsibility: consumption caused by a leaked key is for you to bear; we provide key revocation and rotation (this is also the legal premise for our not making "goodwill refunds").
3. Sharing an account or key is prohibited, and reselling the key itself is prohibited (reselling the data product is addressed separately in the AUP and the Reseller terms).
4. We reserve the right to adjust per-key rate and concurrency limits at any time.

3. Billing: Prepaid Credits and Monthly Subscriptions

We offer two parallel billing methods: prepaid credits consumed per call (§3.1) and the brand-monitoring subscription renewed monthly (§3.2). The two are accounted for separately and do not offset one another.

3.1 Prepaid credits (consumed per call)

1. Prepaid credits model: you top up first and consume afterwards; credits are not a deposit, bear no interest, and are not transferable.
2. Order of consumption: we charge before executing (architecture contract C1), and automatically reverse the charge on failure.
3. Asynchronous tasks (site audit and similar): pre-authorization hold → settlement on the successfully completed volume → release on failure.
4. The price difference between the cache tier and the live tier, and the fact that a cache miss on the cached tier returns CACHE_MISS rather than silently upgrading — stating this plainly directly reduces support tickets.
5. Credits validity: any unused portion expires 24 months after top-up (state it, or it may be characterised as a liability).
6. Right to adjust prices: 30 days' notice; adjustments do not apply retroactively to topped-up balances (or the retroactive rule is stated explicitly).
7. How to query usage and billing (the balance_after_micro (balance) and charged_micro (amount charged for this call) fields in the billing response, plus the statement in the operator console).

3.2 Brand-monitoring subscription (auto-renewed monthly)

The subscription is billed monthly, and visibility-window queries for brands covered by the subscription are no longer charged per call. Current tiers and monthly fees:

1. Subscription entitlement: visibility-window queries for brands covered by the subscription are no longer billed per call (no credits are deducted). Coverage is measured by the number of currently authorized brands in the period; if the number of validly authorized brands exceeds the tier limit, the subscription does not cover any of them (fail-closed) and the relevant queries are billed normally at the published prices — we do not make "the first N free", so that you never face an entitlement boundary you cannot predict.
2. Automatic renewal (prominent disclosure): the subscription renews automatically on a one-month cycle at the monthly fee of the tier in effect for that period (see the table above), and on a successful renewal the service term is extended by one month. We disclose the cycle, the amount and the cancellation method at the time of first order.
3. Cancellation: you may cancel at any time by emailing service@saler.ai or through the operator console (once MoR is integrated, you may also self-serve in its customer portal). After cancellation there are no further renewals; entitlement already paid for in the current period continues until that period ends, at which point the subscription stops automatically and no further charges arise.
4. Failed renewal: if collection for the period fails, the subscription enters the past-due state and entitlement is suspended immediately; entitlement is restored automatically once payment is completed, with no need to re-order. No charges accrue while the subscription is past due.
5. Merchant of record and invoicing: once MoR is integrated, the MoR acts as merchant of record, collecting payment, issuing invoices and handling the refund money flow; before integration we collect payment and issue our own vouchers. For refunds, cancellation and automatic renewal of subscriptions, see §4 of the Refund Policy.
6. Price adjustments: 30 days' email notice; the new price does not apply retroactively to the period you have already paid for and takes effect from the next renewal cycle.

4. Acceptable Use Policy (AUP)

See the separate document, the Acceptable Use Policy.

5. Data Sources and Flow-Down of Third-Party Terms

1. We are only the interface layer and the value-added processing layer; the data is supplied by third-party vendors.
2. Attribution obligation: where an upstream vendor requires attribution (for example DataForSEO), we retain the source attribution in its data output.
3. If upstream terms change, we may adjust endpoints or replace vendors (this is the legal significance of the multi-layer supply arrangement).

6. Intellectual Property

1. The domains, keywords and other raw materials you submit remain yours.
2. Our derived data, aggregate data, metric definitions and scoring models belong to saler.ai (the basis of the data-asset ownership right).
3. We assert no rights — and may not assert any — in upstream raw data.

7. Data Use and Authorization (key clause)

The text below quotes the effective version of docs/data-authorization-terms.md §2 (bilingual) verbatim, and is not reworded here, to avoid any drift in meaning. This clause is a precondition for the moat data to be lawfully used in external data products.

Chinese (effective)

A7 数据使用与授权

A7.1 两条授权相互独立。 您在使用本服务时，需分别就以下两项用途作出选择，二者不可合并表述、不可默认连带授予：

（一）服务改进授权（service_improvement）。 您提交的域名、关键词与问句，以及本服务针对其产生的观测记录，可用于改进本服务的质量、优化数据源路由、异常检测与内部基准测算。本项随您接受本条款自动授予，您可随时按 A7.4 撤回。

（二）对外数据产品授权（external_data_product）。 上述数据可用于形成并对外发布跨主体聚合的数据产品（行业指数、基准、行业报告、可见度评分基准）。本项默认不授予，须由您以独立勾选方式明确同意。

A7.2 聚合化承诺。 无论是否取得 A7.1（二）的授权，本服务对外发布的一切数据产品仅发布跨主体聚合结果，且每一组聚合须满足：参与该组聚合的主体（品牌 / 域名）数量不少于 5 个（k≥5）。本服务不对外提供、出售或披露任何单一主体的个体查询记录、选品或关键词策略。该门槛为技术强制，非仅有承诺。

A7.3 数据权属。 您提交的域名、关键词等原始资料归您所有。由本服务产生的派生指标、聚合数据、指标计算口径与评分模型归 saler.ai 所有。本服务不就上游第三方数据主张权利，亦不主张对第三方内容的著作权。

A7.4 撤回。 您可按服务后台或书面通知的方式撤回 A7.1 项下任一授权。撤回自我们处理完成之时生效，不影响撤回前已进行的合法处理。就已形成的聚合数据：因聚合结果不可逆、无法定位于个体，该等聚合数据不因撤回而删除。

A7.5 冻结。 撤回"服务改进授权"后，本服务仅保留计费、对账、反欺诈与法律合规所必需的日志。

English (effective)

A7 Data Use and Authorization

A7.1 Two independent grants. Your use of the Service requires separate choices for the following two purposes. They may not be combined into a single statement, and neither is granted by implication from the other:

(a) Service-improvement grant (service_improvement). The domains, keywords and prompts you submit, together with the observations the Service derives from them, may be used to improve the Service, optimize data-source routing, detect anomalies, and compute internal benchmarks. This grant is given automatically upon your acceptance of these Terms and may be withdrawn at any time under A7.4.

(b) External-data-product grant (external_data_product). The same data may be used to produce and publish cross-subject aggregate data products (industry indices, benchmarks, industry reports, visibility-score baselines). This grant is NOT given by default and requires your separate, explicit opt-in.

A7.2 Aggregation commitment. Regardless of whether the grant in A7.1(b) has been given, every data product we publish contains only cross-subject aggregates, and each aggregate must include no fewer than five (5) distinct subjects (brands/domains) — k ≥ 5. We do not provide, sell, or disclose any single subject's individual query records, product-selection data, or keyword strategy. This threshold is technically enforced, not merely promised.

A7.3 Ownership. The domains, keywords and other materials you submit remain yours. The derived metrics, aggregate data, metric definitions, and scoring models produced by the Service belong to saler.ai. We claim no rights in third-party upstream data, and we do not claim copyright in third-party content.

A7.4 Withdrawal. You may withdraw either grant under A7.1 via the service console or by written notice. Withdrawal takes effect when we process it and does not affect processing lawfully carried out before that point. As to aggregates already produced: because aggregation is irreversible and cannot be traced to any individual subject, such aggregate data is not deleted upon withdrawal.

A7.5 Retention after withdrawal. After withdrawal of the service-improvement grant, we retain only the logs necessary for billing, reconciliation, fraud prevention, and legal compliance.

8. Disclaimers and Limitation of Liability

1. Liability cap = the amount you actually paid in the 12 months preceding the dispute (without this clause the exposure is unlimited).
2. Indirect and consequential losses are excluded (loss of profit, loss of goodwill, loss of traffic).
3. Force majeure and upstream outages are excluded.
4. You are responsible for the lawfulness of your use of the data.

9. SLA and Availability

1. If we commit to availability (for example 99.5%), the remedy is limited to credits and is not paid in cash.
2. We state the "planned maintenance windows" and that "upstream vendor outages do not count towards the SLA".
3. Status page address: to be determined (observability is visible to customers).

10. Termination, Suspension and Balance Handling

1. How the balance is handled when we terminate for cause (breach / risk).
2. How the balance is handled when you close your account (consistent with the Refund Policy).
3. Time commitments for data export and deletion (consistent with the retention periods in the Privacy Policy).
4. Termination and subscriptions: when the account is terminated or suspended, the subscription is no longer renewed; the period already paid for is not refunded pro rata, and entitlement is provided until the end of that period under §3.2 — except that where the period cannot be provided for reasons attributable to us (including breach or risk handling), we refund pro rata for the days not provided or extend the term by an equivalent period, as set out in §4.3 of the Refund Policy. Credit balances are handled under items 1 and 2 above.

11. Changes and Notices

1. Material changes are notified 30 days in advance by email plus a notice on the site.
2. Continued use after a change takes effect constitutes acceptance.

12. Governing Law and Dispute Resolution

1. Relationship of the parties under MoR: the MoR is the merchant of record, and the consumer-facing sales terms must not conflict with the MoR's terms.
2. Governing law and forum (aligning them with the entity's location reduces conflict).
3. Escalation order for disputes: support → email → arbitration / litigation.

Open items (not operative clauses; require a business or legal decision)

• Legal form of the contracting entity (individual / HK company / US LLC) — affects §12 governing law, consistency with the MoR entity, and tax (legal-checklist §G).
• Number of days for credits validity and for the refund window, to be calibrated together with break-even.
• The timing of MoR (merchant of record) integration is undetermined — until then subscriptions are opened manually and reconciled manually; the relevant clauses are marked "effective once MoR is integrated" and must be reviewed one by one at that point. Subscription tiers, entitlement and automatic-renewal disclosure are set out in §3.2 (already live).
• The pii_stripped flag has no implementation consuming it and must not be referenced in external terms (data-authorization-terms §4).