Terms of Service

Use CostCanary to monitor your AI costs. Don't use it to do anything illegal, abusive, or that would make our lawyers cry. Pay for what you use. We'll do our best to keep the lights on and your data safe. If something goes wrong, let's talk like adults.

Now, the version that keeps us legally compliant…

By accessing or using CostCanary ("Service"), you agree to be bound by these Terms of Service ("Terms"). If you're using CostCanary on behalf of an organization, you're confirming you have the authority to bind that organization to these Terms. If you don't agree, don't use the Service. (We'll be sad, but we'll understand.)

CostCanary is an AI cost monitoring platform that helps SaaS teams track per-user LLM spending, calculate profitability, and receive alerts when margins are at risk. The Service includes:

• The web dashboard at costcanary.com
• The @costcanary/sdk npm package
• The REST API
• Email digests and alert notifications
• The VS Code extension

We are not a financial advisor, accountant, or replacement for your CFO. Our profitability calculations are based on the data you send us — garbage in, garbage out. Please verify important business decisions independently.

You need a GitHub account to sign up. You're responsible for:

• Keeping your account credentials secure
• All activity that occurs under your account
• Not sharing your CostCanary API key with unauthorized parties
• Notifying us immediately if you suspect unauthorized access

We reserve the right to suspend accounts that show signs of unauthorized access — not to be mean, but to protect you and our other users.

You agree to use CostCanary for its intended purpose: monitoring AI costs for your legitimate SaaS application. You agree not to:

• 🚫 Use the Service for any unlawful purpose
• 🚫 Attempt to reverse-engineer, decompile, or disassemble the Service
• 🚫 Send us fabricated telemetry data to manipulate benchmarks
• 🚫 Hammer our API beyond reasonable limits (we have rate limiting, and we're not afraid to use it)
• 🚫 Resell or redistribute CostCanary's data, benchmarks, or analytics to third parties
• 🚫 Use the Service to compete with CostCanary (if you want to build a competitor, at least come up with your own mascot 🐤)
• 🚫 Attempt to access other users' data, accounts, or systems

Let's be crystal clear:

• Your data is yours. The telemetry you send through our SDK, your Stripe revenue data, your alert configurations — all yours.
• Our platform is ours. The dashboard, algorithms, benchmark aggregations, email templates, the adorable canary mascot — all ours.
• You grant us a limited license to process, store, and display your data solely for the purpose of providing the Service to you.
• We may use anonymized, aggregated data for benchmarks and service improvement. This data cannot be traced back to you or your users.

The CostCanary SDK is provided as an npm package under the MIT license. When you integrate it into your application:

• You're responsible for ensuring the SDK is configured correctly
• You're responsible for the end-user IDs you send us (don't send us raw emails or PII unless you intend to)
• The SDK sends telemetry asynchronously and is designed to never throw errors that break your application — but we can't guarantee it in every edge case
• We are not responsible for cost calculations if you send us incorrect token counts or model names

We aim for high availability but we're honest: we don't guarantee 99.999% uptime. We're a small, focused team, not AWS.

• We'll do our best to keep the Service running and perform maintenance during low-traffic hours
• We'll communicate planned downtime in advance when possible
• If the Service is unavailable, the SDK is designed to fail silently — your LLM calls will still work, we just won't track them

We are not liable for losses caused by Service interruptions. If we have an extended outage, we'll be transparent about what happened and what we're doing to fix it.

To the maximum extent permitted by law:

• CostCanary is provided "as is" without warranties of any kind, express or implied
• We are not liable for indirect, incidental, consequential, or punitive damages
• Our total liability to you shall not exceed the amount you paid us in the 12 months preceding the claim
• We are not responsible for business decisions you make based on our analytics (if you fire a profitable customer because you misread the margin chart, that's on you)

This isn't us being shady — it's standard SaaS terms. We genuinely want you to succeed, but we need legal guardrails too.

You can leave anytime. Cancel your subscription, stop using the SDK, and your data will be deleted according to our retention policy.

We can terminate your account if you violate these Terms, engage in abusive behavior, or if we reasonably believe your use poses a security risk to our platform or other users. We'll give you notice when possible.

Upon termination, your right to use the Service ends immediately. Any data within your retention window will be deleted within 30 days.

CostCanary, including its name, logo (the canary 🐤), dashboard design, algorithms, email templates, and documentation, is our intellectual property. You may not copy, modify, or create derivative works of the Service beyond what's necessary to use it as intended.

The SDK source code is available under the MIT license — that part, you can fork to your heart's content.

If we have a disagreement, let's try to resolve it like reasonable humans first. Email us at support@costcanary.com and we'll work it out.

If that fails, any disputes shall be resolved through binding arbitration in accordance with applicable law. These Terms are governed by the laws of the State of Delaware, USA.

We may update these Terms from time to time. Material changes will be communicated via email at least 14 days before they take effect. Continued use of the Service after changes constitutes acceptance.

We won't sneak in a clause that says we own your firstborn — we promise.

• Entire agreement: These Terms, along with our Privacy Policy and Refund Policy, constitute the entire agreement between you and CostCanary.
• Severability: If any provision is found unenforceable, the rest remain in effect.
• No waiver: Our failure to enforce a right doesn't waive it.
• Assignment: You may not assign your rights under these Terms without our consent. We may assign ours in connection with a merger or acquisition.

For anything Terms-related:

📧 support@costcanary.com

We read every email. Yes, even the angry ones. (Especially the angry ones.)