Terms of service
The terms, in plain English
Two things are covered here. First, using this website. Second, a summary of how buying ChapterRoots works, so nothing about money or cancelling is a surprise. When a chapter signs up, the full Services Agreement it signs is the contract; if anything here differs from it, the agreement wins.
1 · Using this website
You're welcome to read it, share it, and use the walkthrough form to reach us. Please don't try to break it, scrape it, or misrepresent yourself on the form. The information on the site describes the service as it is today; we improve it continually, and screenshots or feature lists are illustrations, not promises of a specific screen.
2 · The demo chapter
The live demo is a private site with a fictional chapter in it, shared by invitation after a walkthrough. Please don't post its address publicly or share the sign-in we give you. It exists so you can click around a real one.
3 · Prices and quotes
Nothing on this website is an offer. Every chapter gets a written quote after a walkthrough, and that quote — not anything you read here — is the price. The one number that never varies is the subscription: $199 a month, the same for every chapter regardless of size, locked at the rate you signed at for as long as you stay subscribed.
4 · How buying works
- Setup fee. Quoted in writing, invoiced through Stripe in two halves: half to begin, half before launch. Payable online by card or bank transfer. Once work has begun the setup fee isn't refunded, except as the Services Agreement provides if either side ends the work early.
- Subscription. $199 a month, charged automatically to the card on file from launch day, then the same day each month. There is no contract term.
- Cancel any time. From the billing page linked in every receipt, or by emailing us. No notice period, no cancellation fee. The site stays live to the end of the month already paid for; that month isn't refunded, and nothing further is charged.
- If a payment fails. We email and retry. After 30 days unresolved the site pauses — offline, nothing deleted. Your data stays stored, and exportable at no charge, for twelve months. Restarting the subscription un-pauses it.
- Leaving with everything. At any time, for a flat fee, we move the whole site — code, data, configuration — into accounts the chapter owns, with a written guide, and the chapter runs it independently from then on. Your data is always yours either way: a full export is one click, any time.
5 · Your data, our platform
The chapter owns its roster, lineage, photos, posts, name, letters, and crest; we claim no rights to any of it and never sell or share it (see the privacy policy). We own the platform — the code, design, and infrastructure the service runs on. A chapter's subscription buys the service, not the platform; a chapter that takes its site into its own accounts gets a perpetual license to run its own copy, and agrees not to set the platform up for other organizations.
6 · What we don't promise
The website and the service are provided as they are. We don't guarantee the site will be uninterrupted or error-free, and we don't promise a specific uptime percentage — though while a chapter subscribes, choosing sound infrastructure and moving the site if a provider fails is our job and our cost. To the extent the law allows, our total liability to a customer is capped at what that customer paid us in the twelve months before the claim, and neither side is liable to the other for indirect or consequential losses. The Services Agreement states this precisely.
7 · Where disputes go
New York law applies. If we ever can't settle something by talking — and we'll always try that first, in good faith, for 30 days — it goes to the courts of Livingston County, New York, small claims included.
8 · Changes and contact
We may update these terms; the date at the top says when. Material changes to a customer's terms only happen through the Services Agreement, in writing. Questions: hello@chapterroots.com.