Terms of Service

These terms are an agreement between you and hootform ("we", "us"). They cover hootform's website, the dashboard at https://app.hootform.com and the forms it serves (together, "the service").

By creating an account or using the service you agree to them. If you use hootform for an organization, you agree on its behalf and confirm you're allowed to. If you don't agree, don't use the service.

People who only fill in a form built with hootform ("respondents") don't need an account and aren't bound by these terms; the organization that owns the form is responsible to them. Our Privacy Policy explains how that works.

Accounts and organizations

• You sign in with a one-time code sent to your email, or with Google. Keep access to that inbox secure, because anyone who can read it can sign in as you.
• Forms belong to an organization, not to the person who built them. An organization's owners decide who can join and what each member can do, and they're responsible for what its members do in it.
• You must be at least 16, and old enough to enter a contract where you live.
• Give us accurate information, and tell us if you think someone else has used your account.

Plans and payment

• The free plan costs nothing and includes unlimited forms and responses, subject to fair use and the Acceptable Use Policy, and up to 3 people in an organization.
• Premium costs $19 a month per organization, plus any tax due. It renews automatically each month until it's cancelled.
• Premium is sold by our payment provider, Dodo Payments, as merchant of record. When you buy it, you buy it from Dodo, under Dodo's terms of sale; Dodo charges your card, issues invoices and handles sales tax and VAT. We never see your full card details.
• You can cancel at any time from Organization settings → Billing → Manage billing. Premium stays on until the end of the period you've paid for, then the organization moves to the free plan. Nothing is deleted when that happens: forms keep working and keep collecting, and only Premium features stop applying.
• Refunds are covered by our Refund Policy.
• We may change prices. We'll tell organization owners by email at least 30 days before a new price applies to them, and it takes effect from the next renewal after that, so you can cancel first.

Your content

"Your content" is everything you or your respondents put into hootform: forms, pictures and files you upload, and the responses your forms collect.

• You own your content. You give us permission to host, copy, process and display it only as needed to run the service for you, including through the subprocessors we use.
• You're responsible for it, and for having the right to collect what your forms ask. Content must follow the Acceptable Use Policy.
• You can export responses as CSV at any time, and delete responses, forms or a whole organization from the dashboard.

Your respondents' personal data

When your forms collect personal data, you are the controller of it and we are your processor: we process it only to provide the service to you. You're responsible for:

• having a lawful basis for collecting it, and for telling respondents who you are and how you'll use their answers — for example with a privacy notice in a form's footer links;
• not asking for data you don't need, and turning on encryption and retention where they suit what you collect;
• answering respondents who ask to see, correct or delete their answers. You can do this from the responses table, and we'll help if you can't.

As your processor, we:

1. process respondents' data only on your instructions — which are these terms and how you set up your forms — unless the law requires otherwise, in which case we'll tell you unless the law forbids it;
2. make sure everyone at hootform who can reach it is bound to keep it confidential;
3. protect it with the measures described in our Privacy Policy;
4. use only the subprocessors listed on our Subprocessors page, bound by data protection terms at least as protective as these, and give you at least 30 days' notice on that page before adding one, so you can object or leave;
5. help you respond to respondents exercising their rights, and with security, breach notification and data protection impact assessments, as far as is reasonable given what we know;
6. tell you without undue delay, and within 72 hours, after we become aware of a personal data breach affecting your respondents' data;
7. delete it when you delete it, or when your organization is deleted, apart from copies in backups, which roll off within 7 days;
8. give you the information you need to show these obligations are met, and answer reasonable questions about them.

Where data leaves the EU or UK to reach a subprocessor, the transfer relies on an adequacy decision (such as the EU–US Data Privacy Framework) or the European Commission's Standard Contractual Clauses. If your organization needs these terms signed as a separate data processing agreement, email [email protected].

AI features

Some features use a large language model to write or read text: building a form from a description, follow-up questions, AI insights, response summaries, translations and checking typed answers for spam. Our Privacy Policy says exactly what's sent.

What a model writes can be wrong, incomplete or unsuitable. Review it before you rely on it or show it to respondents. You can turn follow-ups and the spam check off per form.

Things you connect

If you connect Google Sheets, set a webhook, embed a video or pick an Unsplash photo, your content goes to that service because you asked for it to, and that service's own terms apply. We're not responsible for what a third-party service does with it.

What you mustn't do

Follow the Acceptable Use Policy. Also don't try to get around plan limits or rate limits, reach data that isn't yours, probe or disrupt the service's security, or resell the service without our written permission.

Suspension and ending the agreement

• You can stop using hootform at any time, and delete your organization from its settings. To delete your account itself, email [email protected].
• We may suspend or take down a form, or suspend an account, if it breaks these terms or the Acceptable Use Policy, if the law requires it, or if it puts the service or other people at risk. Where it's safe and lawful, we'll tell you why and give you a chance to fix it first.
• We may end a free account that has been inactive for over a year, after emailing its owners at least 30 days ahead.
• If we stop offering hootform, we'll give at least 60 days' notice so you can export your responses, and refund any Premium period you'd paid for but won't get.

Changes to the service and these terms

The service changes as we improve it. If we change these terms in a way that matters, we'll update the date at the top and email organization owners at least 30 days before the change applies. Continuing to use hootform after that means you accept the new terms.

Availability and warranties

We work hard to keep hootform running and your data safe, but the service is provided "as is" and "as available", without an uptime guarantee. To the extent the law allows, we disclaim all warranties not stated here, including fitness for a particular purpose and non-infringement. Keep your own copies of responses that matter to you.

Liability

Nothing in these terms limits liability that can't be limited by law, such as for fraud, or for death or personal injury caused by negligence.

Otherwise, to the extent the law allows:

• neither of us is liable for indirect or consequential loss, or for lost profits, revenue or goodwill;
• each side's total liability under these terms in any 12 months is limited to the greater of the amount you paid for hootform in those 12 months and US$100.

If you use hootform as a consumer in the EU or UK, you keep every right the law gives you, and these limits apply only as far as consumer law allows.

Indemnity

If someone brings a claim against us because of your content, or because of how you used the service in breach of these terms, you'll cover our reasonable costs of dealing with it, as long as we tell you about the claim promptly and let you take part in defending it.

Ownership of hootform

We own hootform: the software, the design and the name. These terms give you the right to use it, not ownership of it. If you send us ideas or feedback, we may use them without owing you anything.

General

• Your local law. If you're a consumer, you keep the protection of the consumer law where you live, and can bring a claim in the courts there.
• Entire agreement. These terms, with the pages they link to, are the whole agreement between us about the service.
• If part is invalid, the rest still applies.
• Assignment. You may not transfer these terms without our consent. We may transfer them as part of a merger, acquisition or sale of the business, and will tell you if we do.
• Not waiving. If we don't enforce something straight away, we can still enforce it later.
• Notices to us go to [email protected]; notices to you go to the email address on your account.

Contact

Email [email protected].