These Terms govern your access to and use of the CharacterBug website and service (the "Service"). The Service is operated by TheMarketBug LLC ("we," "us," or "our"). By creating an account or using the Service, you agree to these Terms.
If you do not agree, do not use the Service.
1. Eligibility
You must be at least 18 years old (or the age of majority in your jurisdiction) to use the Service. By using the Service you represent that you meet this requirement. The Service is not directed at minors, and we do not knowingly collect information from anyone under 18.
2. Your account
- You are responsible for maintaining the security of your account credentials and for all activity under your account.
- You agree to provide accurate information at registration and to keep it current.
- One person, one account. Sharing accounts in a way that circumvents usage limits or billing is not permitted.
- Notify us promptly if you believe your account has been compromised.
3. Acceptable use
You agree not to use the Service to generate, store, or distribute content that:
- Depicts or promotes sexual content involving minors, or content that sexualizes minors in any form. This is an absolute prohibition with no exceptions and will result in immediate account termination and reporting to authorities.
- Is illegal in your jurisdiction or ours, including content that violates intellectual property, privacy, or computer-fraud laws.
- Harasses, threatens, or doxxes another person.
- Impersonates another real person without their consent.
- Attempts to extract a model's underlying weights, training data, or system prompts in order to reconstruct or compete with the Service.
- Interferes with the Service's infrastructure — rate-limit evasion, scraping, automated abuse, or attacks on the Service or its model providers.
We may suspend or terminate access at our discretion when use violates these rules. Where the violation is serious (e.g. CSAM, illegal content), termination is immediate and we may refer the matter to authorities.
4. User-generated content
Characters, worlds, scenes, and other content you create ("Your Content") remain yours. You retain ownership of Your Content to the extent you hold it.
- You grant us a limited license to host, process, and display Your Content solely as needed to operate the Service for you — including passing it to model providers to generate responses, and storing it so your memory system works.
- You are responsible for ensuring you have the rights to upload anything you upload. If you import a character card or persona that someone else created, respect their license.
- Publicly-published characters (in the marketplace) are licensed to other users under the terms you set on the listing. If you publish, you confirm you have the right to do so.
- You may delete Your Content at any time. Deletion is final — we do not keep recoverable backups of user content beyond standard operational backups, which age out within 90 days.
5. AI-generated content
Responses generated by the Service are produced by third-party language models (currently MiMo, operated by Xiaomi) and are not authored by us. They may be inaccurate, biased, or inappropriate. You are responsible for evaluating and editing AI output before relying on or sharing it. We do not guarantee any specific quality, accuracy, or fitness for a particular purpose from generated content.
6. Subscription plans and billing
6.1 Plans
The Service offers the following subscription plans, with current pricing displayed on the pricing page:
- Free: No charge. Includes full chat, character creation, the three-tier memory system, voice generation, and the ability to bring your own model key. Message volume may be capped.
- Pro ($15/month): Everything in Free, plus a hosted model with no API key required, higher message caps, and priority on shared infrastructure.
- BYO Key ($5/month): Everything in Free, at a lower platform fee for users who connect their own model API key. You pay your model provider directly; we charge only the platform fee.
We may add, modify, or discontinue plans. Changes to pricing or plan features do not affect a billing period you have already paid for.
6.2 Payment processing
Subscription payments are processed by Stripe, Inc. We do not store your full card number or banking details — those are handled entirely by Stripe. By subscribing, you agree to Stripe's terms of service and privacy policy in addition to ours. Your payment method is stored with Stripe and charged automatically according to your subscription cycle.
6.3 Auto-renewal and cancellation
- All paid subscriptions renew automatically at the end of each billing period until you cancel.
- You can cancel anytime from the billing settings page or via the Stripe Customer Portal. Cancellation takes effect at the end of your current billing period — you retain access until then.
- Cancelled subscriptions do not renew. Your account reverts to the Free tier automatically when the paid period ends.
6.4 Refunds
- Fees are billed in advance and are non-refundable except where required by applicable law.
- If you cancel mid-period, you keep access until the end of the period. No partial refunds are issued for unused time within a billed period.
- If you believe you were charged in error, contact us and we will review your case in good faith.
- Chargebacks initiated without first contacting us may result in account suspension while the dispute is resolved.
6.5 BYO Key tier — your relationship with your model provider
The BYO Key tier lets you connect your own API key for any supported model provider (MiMo, OpenAI, Anthropic, OpenRouter, etc.). When you use this tier:
- You are solely responsible for your relationship with your model provider, including their separate fees, rate limits, terms of service, and data handling practices.
- We are not a party to that relationship and do not control your provider's pricing, availability, or policies.
- Your API key is stored encrypted at rest. We use it only to forward your requests to the provider you selected — we do not share it with third parties.
- We are not liable for any charges your model provider bills you, any downtime on their service, or any content their models produce.
6.6 Plan upgrades and downgrades
You can upgrade or downgrade your plan at any time via the billing settings or Stripe Customer Portal. Upgrades take effect immediately; downgrades take effect at the end of the current billing period. Stripe handles proration of charges according to its standard billing logic.
6.7 Free tier
The Free tier is provided at no charge and may be modified, rate-limited, or discontinued at any time. We are not liable for any loss of access to Free-tier features. Free-tier users are not customers for billing purposes and have no payment obligation.
7. Intellectual property
The Service's software, design, branding, and documentation are owned by TheMarketBug LLC and licensed to you on a revocable, non-exclusive, non-transferable basis for the duration of these Terms. Nothing in these Terms gives you any right to use our trademarks, service marks, or trade dress.
8. Marketplace and community content
The marketplace allows users to publish characters for others to discover and fork. When you publish to the marketplace:
- You confirm you have the rights to publish the character and its content.
- You grant other users a license to fork and use the character for their own roleplay.
- We may remove marketplace content that violates these Terms, infringes third-party rights, or is reported as harmful.
- We are not liable for the quality, safety, or legality of user-published marketplace content.
9. Termination
You can stop using the Service and delete your account at any time. We may suspend or terminate your access if you violate these Terms, if your account is inactive for an extended period, or if we discontinue the Service (in whole or in part) with reasonable notice where possible.
On termination by you, your active subscription remains valid until the end of the current billing period. On termination by us for cause (violation of these Terms), no refund is owed. On termination by us without cause, a pro-rata refund of the current period will be issued.
Sections that by their nature should survive termination — including intellectual property, disclaimers, limitation of liability, and indemnity — do survive.
10. Disclaimers
The Service is provided "as is" and "as available," without warranties of any kind — express or implied — including merchantability, fitness for a particular purpose, or non-infringement. We do not warrant that the Service will be uninterrupted, error-free, secure, or that any generated content is accurate or reliable.
11. Limitation of liability
To the fullest extent permitted by law, neither TheMarketBug LLC nor its affiliates, officers, employees, or model providers shall be liable for any indirect, incidental, special, consequential, or punitive damages, or for any loss of data, roleplay content, revenue, or goodwill, arising out of or related to the Service — regardless of the theory of liability and even if we have been advised of the possibility of such damages.
Our total aggregate liability for any claim arising out of or related to the Service shall not exceed the amount you paid us in the twelve months preceding the claim, or fifty dollars ($50), whichever is greater.
12. Indemnification
You agree to indemnify and hold TheMarketBug LLC harmless from any claims, damages, losses, or expenses (including reasonable attorneys' fees) arising out of Your Content, your violation of these Terms, or your misuse of the Service.
13. Changes to these Terms
We may update these Terms from time to time. If we make material changes, we will notify active users (typically by email or an in-app notice) and update the "Last updated" date above. Continued use after the effective date constitutes acceptance of the revised Terms.
14. Governing law and dispute resolution
These Terms are governed by the laws of the State in which TheMarketBug LLC is registered, without regard to conflict-of-law principles. You agree to the exclusive jurisdiction of the courts located in that jurisdiction for any dispute arising out of or related to these Terms or the Service, except that we may seek injunctive relief in any court of competent jurisdiction to protect our intellectual property or enforce these Terms.
15. Contact
Questions about these Terms can be directed to support@themarketbug.com. We aim to respond within a reasonable time.