Terms of Service

01Accepting these terms

By creating an account or using SurfGlyph you agree to these terms and to our Privacy Policy. If you do not agree, do not use the service. If you are using SurfGlyph on behalf of a business, you confirm you are authorised to bind that business.

02Eligibility and your account

• You must be at least 16 years old to hold an account.
• Give accurate information and keep your login credentials secure. You are responsible for everything done through your account.
• One account per person. Do not impersonate anyone or misrepresent a business you do not run.
• Tell us promptly at hello@surfglyph.com if you believe your account has been compromised.

03What SurfGlyph provides

Surfers get the Glyph score, the forecast, a session log and community features free. Businesses can list services, take bookings and sell items through the marketplace, and can choose a paid business plan.

We are still building. Features can change, and we may add, modify or discontinue parts of the service. If we remove something material from a plan you have paid for, you can cancel for a pro-rata refund of the unused period.

Spot pages can show live cams from YouTube, played in YouTube's own player and found with the YouTube API Services. By using SurfGlyph you also agree to be bound by the YouTube Terms of Service. Cams belong to their channels; we only embed them, and we remove one if its owner asks.

04Subscriptions and billing

• Paid business plans cost the price shown when you subscribe.
• Subscriptions renew automatically at the end of each period until you cancel.
• Cancel any time by writing to hello@surfglyph.com from your account email; we stop the next renewal within two business days. Monthly plans run to the end of the current month; annual plans run to the end of the paid year. Cancelling stops the next renewal — it is not a refund of the period already paid.
• We may change prices with at least 30 days' notice before your next renewal. Your current period is never repriced.
• If you subscribe through the Apple App Store or Google Play, that store handles billing, renewals and refunds under its own rules, and you must cancel there.
• Failed payments may suspend paid plan features until payment succeeds.

Payments are processed by Stripe, and you are also bound by Stripe's terms for that transaction. Except where the law requires otherwise, subscription fees are non-refundable.

05The marketplace: our role

When you book a lesson, a photographer or any other service, or buy from a shop, the contract for that service or item is between you and the business. SurfGlyph provides the platform and collects the payment on the business's behalf through Stripe: paying SurfGlyph counts as paying the business. We are not the provider, we do not supervise sessions, and we do not employ or control the businesses listed.

Business listings are checked automatically when they are created, and anything the automated check is unsure about waits for a person on our team. Some businesses are marked verified. None of that is a guarantee of quality, qualification, insurance or safety. Confirm a provider's credentials and insurance yourself before you get in the water with them.

Contact with a business runs through in-app messaging or the booking itself. Storefronts do not show phone numbers, email addresses or social links, and business replies to reviews may not contain them either.

06Bookings, cancellations and refunds

• Payment is taken when you book. Your booking is confirmed once payment clears, and you get a 6-digit PIN that only you can see.
• Give the PIN to the provider at the start of the session. Checking it in marks the booking as delivered; after that it can no longer be cancelled in the app.
• Until it is checked in, you or the business can cancel the booking in the app. Cancelling a paid booking refunds it in full to the card you paid with, through Stripe, and our platform fee is reversed. Refunds usually reach your card within 5–10 business days, depending on your bank.
• A booking the business marks as a no-show (you did not turn up) is not refunded through the app. If you think that is wrong, write to hello@surfglyph.com.
• Surf schools set the least conditions a lesson runs in. If, 24 h or 3 h before your lesson, the forecast is below that, you and the school are offered a free move to another open time. Either of you can move it in one tap, at no fee; it stays the same booking with the same PIN. If nobody moves it, the booking stands and the cancellation rules above apply. A forecast is not a guarantee.
• If a business does not deliver the service, tell us before the money is paid out to them and we refund you in full.
• Shop orders are paid at checkout. The shop can cancel a paid order until it is collected, which refunds it in full; to ask for a cancellation, message the shop in the app. Once an order is collected, returns are between you and the shop, subject to your statutory rights.
• A photo purchase is delivered straight away as a full-resolution download, so it is non-refundable except where the law says otherwise.
• Disputes are between you and the business. We will help mediate and can refund from funds we still hold, but we are not liable for the service itself.

07Business Terms: if you sell on SurfGlyph

This section is the SurfGlyph Business Terms. You accept it, together with the rest of these terms and the Privacy Policy, when you tick the box to create a business. We record when you accepted and which version (currently 2026-10-18).

• We collect payment for you. Customers pay SurfGlyph through Stripe, and we act as your limited agent to collect that payment: a customer who has paid us has paid you.
• Listing is free. We take a platform fee, by default 10–12% depending on category, on each booking, shop order and photo sale that is paid. The rate for your business is shown in your dashboard. If a payment is refunded, its fee is reversed too.
• Founding partners: the first 50 businesses approved by 30 June 2027 pay a platform fee of 5% (or their normal rate, if lower) for 12 months from the day they are approved. After that the normal rate applies automatically. The end date is shown in your dashboard. We may end the offer for new businesses earlier; a business that already has a founding rate keeps it until its end date.
• Until we move to automated payouts (Stripe Connect), we pay you by hand, by PIX, bank transfer or Wise, to the details you give us in the business portal, less the platform fee, refunds and chargebacks. We record each payout and tell you when it has been sent.
• We release the money for a sale once it has been delivered: a booking once its PIN is checked in (or it is marked completed), a shop order once it is marked collected, a photo sale when it is bought. Until then we hold it, so a cancelled booking or order can be refunded to the customer in full.
• Your payout details are stored on our servers. Only you and the SurfGlyph team can see them, and they are never shown on your storefront or anywhere public.
• You can cancel a booking, or a paid shop order that has not been collected, from the business portal. Doing so refunds the customer in full. Cancel only when you cannot deliver, and tell the customer why through in-app messaging.
• If you run lessons, you set the least conditions each one runs in (or keep the default for its level). When the forecast at a booked lesson is below it 24 h or 3 h before, the customer and you are offered a free move to one of your open times. You accept that the customer may make that move without a fee and without your further approval; the booking, its payment and your payout stay the same. If nobody moves it, the booking stands.
• You are responsible for holding the qualifications, licences, insurance and permits your services require, for the taxes on your own income, and for honouring every booking you accept and every policy you publish.
• Keep your availability, pricing and service descriptions accurate. Do not take bookings you cannot deliver.
• You may use customer data you receive through a booking only to deliver that booking, never to market to the customer off-platform.
• Reviews tied to a booking are marked as verified. Do not solicit, incentivise or fabricate reviews.
• You can post one public reply to each review. Replies are checked automatically before they appear, and are refused if they contain contact details or break these terms.
• Your listing is checked automatically when you create the business. It can go live straight away, wait for review by our team, or be refused.
• All customer contact runs through in-app messaging or the booking flow. Do not push customers to off-platform channels to avoid the fee.

08Your content

Photos, videos, posts, reviews and session data you upload stay yours. You grant us a worldwide, non-exclusive, royalty-free licence to host, store, reproduce and display that content for the purpose of operating and promoting the service. You can revoke it by deleting the content, except where it has already been shared with others or must be retained by law.

You confirm you have the rights to what you upload — including the consent of identifiable people in your photos — and that it does not infringe anyone else's rights. We can remove content that breaks these terms.

A photo you attach to a check-in or a post at a spot may be shown as that spot's cover image, across SurfGlyph, credited to you by your first name with a link to your profile. It is checked automatically before it is shown, never if your profile is private, and anyone can report it, which removes it. Deleting the post, or making your profile private, takes it off the cover within a day.

09Acceptable use

Do not:

• Post content that is illegal, harassing, hateful, sexually explicit, or that endangers others.
• Scrape, resell or redistribute our forecast data, or use the service to build a competing dataset.
• Circumvent rate limits, paywalls or authentication, or probe the service for vulnerabilities without written permission.
• Share another surfer's precise location, or use check-in and Flare data to follow, surveil or harass someone.
• Falsify sessions or check-ins. We can remove anything obtained this way.
• Upload malware, spam, or automated traffic that degrades the service for others.

10Forecast accuracy and water safety

Our conditions data is computed from public oceanographic sources — Open-Meteo marine and weather models, NOAA CO-OPS tide stations, and METAR airport observations — and scored deterministically, with a confidence value attached. That confidence value is an honest statement that the data is imperfect: models are wrong sometimes, stations go offline, and the nearest station may be far from your break.

Nothing in SurfGlyph is advice about whether it is safe for you to enter the water. Surfing is a dangerous activity that can cause serious injury or death. A good score does not mean safe conditions, an accurate forecast does not account for rips, rocks, marine life, crowds or your own ability, and forecasts more than a few days out are especially uncertain. Always assess the ocean in front of you, respect local knowledge and lifeguard guidance, and do not paddle out beyond your ability. You surf entirely at your own risk.

11Our intellectual property

The SurfGlyph name, logo, interface, scoring methodology and software are ours and are protected by intellectual property law. These terms grant you a personal, revocable, non-transferable licence to use the service — nothing more.

12Suspension and termination

You can stop using SurfGlyph and delete your account at any time from settings. Business owners first close their business in Business › Profile: that is possible once no booking, stay or order is still to come and we have paid out every sale. A closed business disappears from SurfGlyph and takes no new sales; its bookings, sales and payouts stay on record for accounting and tax, and we can reopen it if you write to hello@surfglyph.com. We may suspend or terminate an account that breaks these terms, exposes us or other users to legal risk, or is used fraudulently. Where it is reasonable to do so, we will warn you first and give you a chance to fix the problem. If we terminate without cause, we refund the unused part of any subscription.

13Disclaimers and limits on liability

The service is provided "as is". To the fullest extent the law allows, we disclaim all implied warranties, including fitness for a particular purpose, and we do not warrant that the service will be uninterrupted, error-free or that forecasts will be accurate.

To the fullest extent the law allows, we are not liable for indirect, incidental, special or consequential damages, or for loss of profits, data or goodwill. Our total liability for any claim relating to the service is limited to the greater of the amount you paid us in the 12 months before the claim, or $100.

Nothing here excludes liability that cannot be excluded by law — including death or personal injury caused by our negligence, fraud, or your statutory consumer rights.

14Indemnity

You agree to cover our reasonable losses and legal costs arising from your breach of these terms, your content, or — if you are a business — the services you deliver through the platform.

15Governing law and disputes

Governing law and courts: Brasil, foro de Florianópolis/SC. This does not take away any right that consumer protection law in your country of residence gives you to bring a claim where you live. Talk to us first at hello@surfglyph.com: most things are settled faster that way.

16Changes to these terms

We may update these terms. If a change is material we will give notice in the app or by email before it takes effect, and the effective date at the top will change. Continuing to use SurfGlyph after that means you accept the new terms.

17Contact

SurfGlyph. Email hello@surfglyph.com; privacy questions go to privacy@surfglyph.com.