Terms of Service

These terms govern your use of the HandsFree macOS application, the HandsFree account service, and this website (together, "HandsFree"). By creating an account or using the app, you agree to them. If you don't agree, don't use HandsFree.

1. Your account

Using HandsFree requires an account, created by verifying an email address with a one-time code. There is no password. You are responsible for keeping access to that mailbox secure — anyone who can read your email can sign in as you.

You must be at least 13 years old, and old enough in your jurisdiction to enter a contract. One account is for one person. You may sign in on up to three Macs at a time; signing in on a fourth requires removing one.

You may delete your account at any time from within the app. We may suspend or terminate an account that breaches these terms, and will tell you why unless we're legally prevented from doing so.

2. Licence to use the software

We grant you a personal, non-exclusive, non-transferable, revocable licence to install and use the HandsFree app on Macs you own or control, for the duration of your trial or subscription. You may not resell, sublicense, rent, or redistribute the app; remove or alter its notices or signature; or reverse-engineer, decompile, or circumvent its licensing, metering, or entitlement checks except to the extent that applicable law expressly permits.

HandsFree includes third-party open-source components, which remain under their own licences; those licences prevail over this section for the components they cover, and the notices shipped with the app list them.

3. The free trial

A new account receives a one-time allowance of 2,000 words of dictation. There is no time limit, no card required, and no automatic conversion to a paid plan — the trial simply stops when the allowance runs out.

• The allowance is tied to your verified email address, not to a device. Creating additional accounts to obtain additional allowances is a breach of these terms.
• Words are counted after a dictation is delivered, by splitting the resulting text on whitespace. The count is maintained on our servers and, where they disagree, the server's figure is authoritative.
• A dictation that crosses the 2,000-word line completes and is inserted normally; the next attempt is what's blocked. You may therefore end up slightly over the allowance, and we won't ask you to pay for that.
• When the allowance is exhausted, dictation refuses to start until you subscribe. The rest of the app, and everything already stored on your Mac, remains accessible.
• We may change the size of the trial for new accounts at any time. That doesn't retroactively reduce an allowance you already have.

4. Payment and subscriptions

HandsFree Pro is offered at $6 per month or $68 per year, in US dollars, exclusive of any tax.

Payment is arranged directly with us, out of band. There is no checkout on this website and none in the app: you send payment by one of the methods listed on the payment page — stablecoin, Bitcoin, Ethereum, bank transfer, or UPI — you email us the transaction reference, and we issue you a subscription key which you redeem inside the app. We do not accept card payments, and no card details are handled at any stage.

• Activation is by key, not by charge. Redeeming a valid key extends your subscription expiry date by the period the key represents. Redemption is what activates the subscription; the payment itself grants you nothing until a key is issued and redeemed.
• Keys are single-use and non-transferable. A key can be redeemed exactly once, and it belongs to the person we issued it to. Publishing, selling, reselling, auctioning, gifting, or otherwise passing on a key is a breach of these terms, and we may revoke a key at any time before it is redeemed if we believe it has been passed on, disclosed publicly, or obtained by fraud or by a payment that was reversed or never arrived.
• Extension, not replacement. Redeeming a key while a subscription is still active adds to the time remaining rather than replacing it, so paying early never costs you days.
• Delivery turnaround. Keys are generated by hand by a person, and the turnaround stated on the payment page is a best-effort target, not a guarantee or a service-level commitment. Illness, travel, time zones, a network still confirming a transfer, or a bank taking days to settle can all make it longer. We are not liable for delay in issuing a key beyond that stated target.
• No automatic renewal, and therefore no automatic charge. Nothing recurs. We hold no card, no mandate, no standing instruction, and no stored payment method of any kind, so we are incapable of charging you without your action. To continue past your expiry date you must actively pay again and redeem another key. The app warns you in advance — currently 7 days before expiry, followed by a short grace period during which dictation still works — but the responsibility to renew in time is yours.
• Verification is manual. We issue a key when we are satisfied the payment arrived. If a payment cannot be identified — no reference, sent from an address or account we cannot match, or an amount that does not correspond to a plan — we may ask you for more information before issuing a key.
• Wrong-network and mistaken transfers. A crypto transfer sent on a network an address does not support, or to a mistyped address, is unrecoverable by anyone, including us. The network beside each address on the payment page is part of the address; it is your responsibility to match it. We cannot credit, refund, or recover such a transfer.
• Price changes. We may change prices. A change never affects a subscription you have already activated; it applies to the next payment you choose to make.
• Tax, currency, and fees. Prices are exclusive of any tax that may apply. Network fees, bank charges, currency conversion, and foreign transaction fees are yours, and you should send the plan amount as the amount that arrives. Any tax reporting on your own side — for example on the disposal of a crypto asset — is your affair.

5. Not renewing

There is nothing to cancel, because nothing renews. A subscription simply runs to its expiry date and stops unless you choose to pay again and redeem another key. No cancellation request, portal visit, or email to us is needed, and we cannot charge you for a period you did not pay for.

When the date passes, the app reverts to the exhausted-trial state after a short grace period: the app keeps working, dictation doesn't. Any unused free trial words you still have remain available. Nothing stored on your Mac is deleted by a subscription lapsing.

Deleting your account ends any active subscription immediately and without refund of remaining time. See the privacy policy for what deletion erases.

6. Refunds

The 2,000-word trial exists so you can evaluate HandsFree properly before paying anything, and it matters more here than it would elsewhere: crypto payments are irreversible. Once a transfer is confirmed on a public network, neither we nor you nor any intermediary can undo it. There is no chargeback mechanism, and none of the payment methods we accept gives you one.

So: refunds are discretionary and manual. There is no automated refund, no self-service refund button, and nothing that can return money to you without a person deciding to send it. Payments are generally non-refundable, and we do not refund unused time on a subscription you chose not to continue.

That said, we would rather you were not out of pocket for something that did not work:

• If you email us within 14 days of your first payment and HandsFree isn't working for you, we will refund it.
• If a payment was clearly a mistake — a duplicate transfer, or a second payment for a period you had already paid for — tell us and we will fix it, normally by extending your subscription rather than by sending money back, since the latter is slow and lossy.
• Any refund we do agree to is sent by a method and in an asset we choose — typically the one you paid with, to an address or account you nominate — less network or transfer fees, and at the exchange rate applying when we send it, which may not be the rate when you paid. Volatility risk between those two moments is yours.
• Where consumer law in your country grants you a statutory right of withdrawal or a refund right, that right applies regardless of anything in this section.

Refund requests go to support@handsfree.app from the email address on the account, with the payment reference.

7. Acceptable use

You agree not to:

• use HandsFree to record or transcribe anyone without whatever consent the law where you are requires — recording laws vary and complying with them is your responsibility;
• use HandsFree to produce content that is unlawful, that harasses or threatens, or that infringes someone else's rights;
• circumvent, disable, or interfere with the trial metering, entitlement checks, device limit, or signature verification;
• create multiple accounts to obtain additional free allowances, or share one account beyond the permitted devices;
• publish, sell, resell, or otherwise pass on a subscription key, or attempt to redeem a key that was not issued to you — see section 4, where keys are single-use and non-transferable;
• attack, overload, probe, or attempt to gain unauthorised access to our servers or accounts other than your own; or
• resell HandsFree or offer it as a service to third parties.

HandsFree runs with macOS Accessibility permission in order to insert text into other applications. Granting that permission is your decision, and you're responsible for whether it's appropriate on machines you don't personally own — including any workplace policy that applies.

8. Your dictations are yours

We claim no rights over anything you dictate. Audio and transcripts stay on your Mac; we never receive them and could not use them if we wanted to. Nothing you dictate is used to train any model of ours, because we never have it.

If you enable the optional AI polish feature with a third-party provider and your own API key, transcript text is sent from your Mac to that provider, and that provider's terms — including any training or retention terms — apply to it. Choosing to enable it is your decision, and any usage charges from that provider are yours.

9. Availability and changes to the service

Dictation is local, so the app keeps working when our servers don't: entitlement is cached and the app deliberately fails open for a period rather than locking you out during an outage. The account, entitlement, and key-redemption services themselves, however, are provided on an as-available basis, without any uptime commitment, and sign-in and model download do require a connection.

Issuing a key is a manual act by a person and is not a service with an uptime commitment either. See section 4 on turnaround.

We may add, change, or remove features, and may discontinue HandsFree entirely. If we discontinue it, we'll stop accepting payment, give reasonable notice, and honour subscriptions that are already paid for as far as we reasonably can.

10. Disclaimer of warranties

HandsFree is provided "as is" and "as available", without warranties of any kind, whether express, implied, or statutory, including any implied warranties of merchantability, fitness for a particular purpose, accuracy, and non-infringement, to the fullest extent the law allows.

In particular, and without limitation: speech recognition is inherently imperfect and we do not warrant that transcripts are accurate, complete, or correctly punctuated. Automatic cleanup and optional AI polish alter text and can change meaning. Text insertion depends on the behaviour of other applications and may fail or land in the wrong place. Do not rely on HandsFree unreviewed for anything where an error would matter — medical, legal, financial, or safety-critical text included. Always read what was inserted before you send, sign, or commit it.

Some jurisdictions don't allow the exclusion of certain warranties, so parts of this section may not apply to you.

11. Limitation of liability

To the fullest extent permitted by law, we are not liable for any indirect, incidental, special, consequential, exemplary, or punitive damages, nor for lost profits, lost revenue, lost or corrupted data, lost text, loss of goodwill, or business interruption, arising out of or relating to your use of HandsFree — even if we were told such damages were possible.

Our total aggregate liability for all claims relating to HandsFree is limited to the greater of the amount you actually paid us in the twelve months before the event giving rise to the claim, or US $50.

Nothing in these terms limits liability that cannot lawfully be limited, including for death or personal injury caused by negligence, or for fraud or fraudulent misrepresentation. Some jurisdictions don't allow these limits, in which case they apply only as far as the law permits.

12. Indemnity

You agree to indemnify and hold us harmless from claims, damages, and reasonable costs arising from your use of HandsFree in breach of these terms or of applicable law — including claims relating to recording or transcribing other people without the required consent.

13. Changes to these terms

We may update these terms. For material changes we'll email account holders and update the date at the top of this page, and the change takes effect no sooner than 30 days later — or when you next pay, whichever is later. Continuing to use HandsFree after that means you accept the revised terms. If you don't, cancel and delete your account.

14. Governing law and disputes

15. General

These terms, together with the privacy policy, are the entire agreement between us about HandsFree. If any provision is held unenforceable, the rest stays in force. Our failure to enforce a provision isn't a waiver of it. You may not assign these terms; we may assign them to a successor in connection with a merger, acquisition, or sale of assets. Sections 8 through 12 survive termination.

16. Contact

Questions about these terms: support@handsfree.app (placeholder address — see Support).