legal

Terms and Conditions

Beta Software

slowclap is currently offered as beta software. By accepting these Terms, you acknowledge that the Service may contain bugs, experience downtime, or encounter processing delays, including delays affecting subscription billing, applause allocation, or creator payouts. Beta status does not affect the security of your payment information, which is processed and secured entirely by Stripe, our third-party payment processor, independent of Slowclap's beta status.

We reserve the right to identify and correct errors in account balances, applause allocations, or payout amounts resulting from beta-related issues, including retroactive adjustments where necessary to reflect the correct outcome. If you encounter an issue, please report it to support@slowcl.app. We will address reported issues to the best of our ability and in accordance with the other terms outlined in this agreement.

Subscriptions

slowclap enables subscribers to support creators across the internet and subscriptions are priced to make this relationship transparent. All business and operating costs including fees paid to our payment processor are taken directly from your subscription and represent the difference between the cost of subscribing and the applause pool available to each subscription tier. This allocation is set at slowclap's discretion and may change in the future if fees or operating costs demand. What will not change is that slowclap will remain committed to employing commercially reasonable efforts to keep these costs low in order to maximize the amount available to creators. Current pricing tiers average approximately 50 cents per user per month to cover slowclap's business operations after Stripe's processing fees (which represent the bulk of the overhead and are outside of slowclap's control). Each "clap" is equivalent to .01 USD and 100% of that amount goes to independent creators within the slowclap platform. There are two exceptions to this, detailed below.

In addition, slowclap may in the future and at their discretion, offer creators opportunities to utilize their applause in ways that would reduce their payout, (for example, an opportunity to cash out prior to reaching their payout threshold for an additional fee, or the ability to gift or comp their own subscription with received applause). However, slowclap has a commitment to providing an avenue for creators to receive all applause allocated to them provided a payment threshold has been met without incurring any additional fees. Any charges or reductions of applause received will be optional and at the creator's discretion.

Upgrades

Subscriptions may be upgraded at any time, which grants the subscriber an immediate increase in their applause equivalent to the difference between their current tier's applause amount and their new tier's amount minus 100. This fee is to offset Stripe's additional charge for mid month processing.

Applause allocation

All unused applause is automatically allocated at month end to creators that subscribers have supported in the past, and their applause pool is reset to either the amount specified in their subscription tier or, in the case of the first month following a subscription or upgrade, a prorated amount. Automatic allocations prioritize most recent applause and are weighted based on the amount applauded. If a subscriber uses all of their applause for a particular billing period, no applause will be automatically allocated.

Kickbacks

Creators may opt to link to other slowclap members content and route through slowclap to receive a kickback. If a current or new subscriber elects to applaud a creator and found that content via this referral route, the referrer will receive 10% of the applause amount. The recipient of this kickback is indicated at applause time with the presence of a icon.

slowclap displays and, in some cases, redirects through links provided by users — including referral links and links indicating the page a visitor came from. slowclap does not control, review, or endorse the destination of these links and is not liable for harm arising from a user choosing to visit one. Where slowclap redirects through a link, the destination is always shown in plain text as part of the URL itself; please review it before clicking and use your own judgment. If you believe a link or redirect on slowclap points to malicious, fraudulent, or illegal content, please report it to abuse@slowcl.app so we can look into it.

Exceptions

In the event that a subscriber has reached the end of a billing period and never applauded anyone ever that applause will be lost.

Due to the technical limitations inherent to secure mode (an optional opt in layer of security that disables linking your sender_id to applause events), all unused applause for secure mode enabled subscribers will be lost at the end of the month.

Cancellations and Downgrades

All subscription charges are final. Due to slowclap's model of providing applause to independent creators, once a subscription has been paid, Stripe's fees have been charged and applause has been allocated for a subscriber to use as they see fit. Subscriptions can be cancelled or downgraded at any time, however both cancellations and downgrades will take place at the start of the next billing period.

Proration

slowclap's subscriptions reset on the first of the month, but subscribers may begin a subscription at any time. In order to accomodate this and to grant users maximum applause immediately upon subscription, slowclap employs a delayed proration model. Upon a subscription (or an upgrade to an existing subscription) applause will immediately be allocated to the subscriber and they will be charged the full subscription price (or the difference between their current tier and new tier in the case of an upgrade).

At the start of their next billing period both their applause and subscription charge will be prorated to reflect how far through the month they were when they made this change. In addition, automatically allocated applause will be based on this prorated amount. In the event that a subscriber has used more applause in their first month than the prorated amount, their next month's applause allocation will be lower to account for that usage. This translates to any subscriber across the first partial and full month of any subscription period receiving the appropriate prorated amount for that period, but receiving the bulk of this amount up front.

Taxes and Fees

Prices displayed do not include applicable taxes. Where required by law, Slowclap calculates and collects sales tax, VAT, or other transaction taxes using Stripe Tax, based on your billing location. By subscribing, you authorize Slowclap to charge such taxes in addition to your subscription price where applicable.

Slowclap is responsible for remitting collected taxes to the appropriate authorities in jurisdictions where it is registered to do so. You are responsible for any taxes not collected at checkout that you may separately owe under your local law (such as use tax in some U.S. states).

Payment processing is provided by Stripe, Inc. By subscribing, you also agree to Stripe's Services Agreement, available here, governing the handling of your payment information.

Payouts

Due to slowclap's model of applying all administrative charges up front per user subscription, and the focus on keeping these administrative costs low, slowclap employs a payout threshold. All payouts below that threshold will be held and accumulate until a creator exceeds that threshold. At its discretion in the future, slowclap may provide opportunities to circumvent this delay for a fee/reduction in payout. Creators must have Stripe Connect configured in order to receive payouts. slowclap also enables people sharing links to your content to opt in to electing to receive a kickback on all applause that was directly referred from that subscriber. In this case, the referrer will receive 10% and the creator 90%. slowclap reserves the right to adjust these amounts or provide additional opportunities for content providers to receive a portion of applause, however slowclap itself will remain committed to ensuring 100% of applause is allocated to independent creators and that all secondary allocations are communicated when subscribers are applauding.

Content Moderation

slowclap does not host any user generated content and has no editorial oversight over content users post elsewhere. Any accounts reported to slowclap that are using slowclap to monetize content posted elsewhere that is hateful, abusive, or criminal will be terminated when required by law and may otherwise be terminated at slowclap's discretion. In the event of account termination, all pending applause and payouts will be forfeit. If you suspect any user engaging in hateful, abusive, or criminal behavior, report it to support@slowcl.app

Privacy

What we collect

slowclap is committed to respecting user privacy and only collecting and storing as much information as is explicitly required to appropriately allocate applause. By default this includes a record that links your account id to applause events regardless of whether or not you elect to have your name shared with the recipient. We store minimal cookies (tracking your login session, a viewer id for tracking referrals and redirects, and a temporary cookie during the login process) and your email address. We do not retain any personal financial information in our records. We retain applause and allocation records indefinitely as a matter of policy to maintain accurate financial history and resolve disputes. Session / Login data is stored for fourteen days. Referral and redirect data older than 4 hours is removed opportunistically upon the next referral or redirect.

Who we share it with

Data required to process subscription payments and payouts (including your provided email address) is provided to Stripe. Our infrastucture provider also, by necessity, has access to your information. We don't and will never sell your data.

Your choices

At your discretion you may request that we remove your email from a cancelled account, effectively anonymizing those records. This will permanently block all future access to this account. You may also enable secure mode at any time to limit what we link to your account going forward.

Children's use

slowclap is not directed at, and is not intended for use by, anyone under the age of 13.

Secure Mode

Subscribers may opt into secure mode which prevents their account id from ever being linked to applause events. If users opt into secure mode the only identifying information stored in our logs would be that their applause has been used, not where or for whom it was used. Because of this, users opting into secure mode will lose any unused applause at the end of the month and it will not be allocated.