Terms of Service

1. Who we are and what these terms cover

These Terms of Service (the "Terms") govern access to and use of Joinly (the "Service"), operated by Joinly. Our full company details, including our tax number and the authorities that supervise us, are on the Imprint page.

They apply to two different relationships, and it matters which one you are in. If you open an account to sell access to a community you run, you are a "Creator". If you buy access to a community, you are a "Subscriber". Sections that apply to only one of you say so.

By creating an account, or by placing an order at our checkout, you accept these Terms. If you are acting on behalf of an organisation, you confirm you are authorised to bind it.

2. The Service

Joinly lets Creators sell access to private communities on supported platforms — currently Telegram, Discord, WhatsApp and Slack. We provide the tools to create paid products, we operate the checkout, and our bots grant access when a payment succeeds and withdraw it when a subscription ends.

We may add, change or remove features. Where a change materially reduces core functionality we will give reasonable advance notice, and for Creators that notice will be at least the period in section 12.

3. Who sells what to whom

This is the part people most often get wrong, so it is set out plainly.

When a Subscriber buys access, the contract for that purchase is between the Subscriber and us. We are the seller of record: we take the payment, we issue the invoice, we account for the VAT, and we are who a Subscriber deals with over refunds, complaints and access problems.

The Creator supplies the community content and access to us, and we pay them the price less our commission. A Creator is responsible for what their community actually contains and for how they treat their members; we are responsible for the sale and for the mechanics of access.

Nothing here makes us the author, moderator or guarantor of a Creator's community. What is said inside a Creator's Telegram group is the Creator's business, not ours — subject to section 10.

4. Accounts and eligibility

You must give accurate information when creating an account, keep it up to date, safeguard your credentials, and take responsibility for what happens under your account.

You must be at least 16 years old to hold an account or to subscribe. If you are under 18, you may only use the Service with the consent of a parent or guardian, and you confirm you have it.

5. Prices, payment and tax

We are established in the United States and sell worldwide. Wherever you are, the price shown to you is the final price: any VAT or sales tax due on your purchase is already inside it, calculated from the billing address you give at checkout. There are no delivery charges and nothing is added at the end.

If you are in the EU or EEA, VAT is charged at the rate of the country you are in, as the EU rules for electronically supplied services require. We declare it through the non-Union One Stop Shop scheme — the scheme open to suppliers established outside the Union, which carries no turnover threshold, so VAT applies from the first sale. Where you are a business and supply a valid EU VAT identification number at checkout, the reverse charge applies and the price is charged without VAT.

Subscriptions renew automatically for successive periods at the same price until cancelled, and each renewal is charged to the payment method you provided. We will tell you before a renewal price changes, and you can cancel before it takes effect. Card details are handled by Stripe; we never see or store them.

6. Your right of withdrawal (consumers)

If you are a consumer, you normally have 14 days to withdraw from a distance contract without giving a reason, under Directive 2011/83/EU as implemented in the country you live in.

Because access to a community is digital content supplied immediately, you are asked at checkout to expressly request that performance begin at once and to acknowledge that, once access has been provided, the withdrawal right is lost. That is the exception in Article 16(m) of Directive 2011/83/EU, as implemented in the country you live in, and we rely on it only where you actively confirmed both statements — we keep a record of that confirmation.

If you did not confirm both, or if access was never actually provided, the 14-day right stands and we will refund you in full within 14 days of being told. How to exercise it, and the model withdrawal form, are on our Right of withdrawal page.

None of this affects your statutory rights if what you bought does not work, is not as described, or is not provided at all. In that case contact us and we will fix it or refund you.

7. Cancelling a subscription

Subscribers can cancel at any time from the billing portal linked in the confirmation email. Cancellation takes effect at the end of the paid period, access continues until then, and there is no cancellation fee or minimum term.

Creators can cancel a paid plan at any time from the dashboard, with the same effect. Downgrading changes the commission rate applied to sales made after the downgrade takes effect, not retroactively.

Because every subscription renews automatically, we tell you the renewal price and interval before you buy, email you a reminder ahead of each renewal, and keep cancellation available online in no more steps than it took to subscribe. That is what the Restore Online Shoppers' Confidence Act and the state automatic-renewal laws require of us for buyers in the United States, and what Article 6 of Directive 2011/83/EU requires for consumers in the EU. We apply it to everyone rather than switching it on by country.

8. Creator fees and payouts

Creators pay the plan fee and the per-transaction commission described on our pricing page. Stripe charges its own processing fees, billed by Stripe.

Payouts are settled to the Creator's own connected Stripe account on Stripe's payout schedule, which for a new account typically begins after an initial holding period set by Stripe. We do not hold Creator funds and we do not control that schedule.

We may change plan fees or commission rates. Creators will be notified at least 30 days before a change takes effect, and may cancel before then; a change never applies retroactively to sales already made.

Creators are responsible for their own tax position on the amounts we pay them, including income tax and any VAT due on their supply to us. We are responsible for the VAT on the sale to the Subscriber.

9. Creator content and responsibilities

Creators retain ownership of their content and communities, and grant us only the licence needed to display product and profile information on the public pages and to operate the Service.

Creators are responsible for what they sell, for the communities they run, for what they promise their members, and for complying with the rules of the platform their community lives on.

10. Acceptable use, illegal content, and how we moderate

The Service may not be used to:

• Sell or distribute illegal goods, services or content, or facilitate fraud.
• Infringe the intellectual property, privacy or personality rights of others.
• Distribute malware, or attempt to disrupt or gain unauthorised access to the Service.
• Violate the terms of a connected platform, including Telegram, Discord, WhatsApp, Slack or Stripe.
• Harass, threaten or endanger anyone, or sell access to material that sexualises minors.

11. Reporting illegal content, and what happens next

Anyone can report content they consider illegal using the reporting form on our Report illegal content page, which meets Article 16 of the Digital Services Act. We confirm receipt, review the notice, and tell the notifier what we decided and why.

We review reports ourselves — decisions are not made by automated tools — and we act proportionately: a first step is usually contacting the Creator, not removing anything.

If we do restrict something, we give the affected Creator a clear statement of reasons: what we restricted, on what ground, what evidence we relied on, whether a notice or an authority order triggered it, and how to contest it. A Creator who disagrees can reply to that statement and we will reconsider, and may also take the matter to a court or to the conciliation board named below.

We also act on validly issued orders from the courts and authorities that have jurisdiction over us, whether in the United States, an EU member state, or elsewhere, and we will tell you when we have, unless the law forbids it.

12. Suspension and termination

You may stop using the Service and close your account at any time from Settings.

If we restrict or suspend a Creator's account or products, we will give a statement of reasons at the latest when the restriction takes effect. If we terminate a Creator's account entirely, we will give at least 30 days' notice with reasons, as Article 4 of Regulation (EU) 2019/1150 requires, so there is time to export data and tell members.

We may act faster than that — immediately, and without prior notice — only where we are under a legal obligation to do so, where the account is being used for manifestly illegal content, or where continuing would expose us or third parties to imminent harm or a repeated breach. We will still give reasons, and the notice period does not apply to a Creator who has repeatedly and manifestly breached these Terms.

On termination, active subscriptions are cancelled and Subscribers are refunded pro rata for any period they paid for but cannot use.

13. Ranking of creators on our pages

Where we list or order Creators or products — for example in search or on discovery pages — the main parameters are the relevance of the text to the query, whether the product is currently open for subscription, and recency of activity. We do not accept payment for a higher position, and a Creator's plan tier does not affect ranking. If that ever changes we will disclose it here, as Article 5 of Regulation (EU) 2019/1150 requires.

14. Data you can access

Creators can see and export the subscriber and waitlist data for their own products from the dashboard, in CSV form, for as long as their account is open. We do not provide Creators with data about other Creators' members, and we do not use a Creator's subscriber data to compete with them.

15. Third-party platforms

The Service integrates with Telegram, Discord, WhatsApp, Slack and Stripe. Your use of those platforms is governed by their own terms, and we are not responsible for their availability, behaviour or policy changes.

16. WhatsApp automation notice

Unlike Telegram, Discord and Slack, WhatsApp offers no official API for managing group membership. Joinly automates WhatsApp access through a self-hosted integration built on WhatsApp Web. This mechanism is not provided, endorsed or supported by WhatsApp or Meta, and automating an account this way may conflict with WhatsApp's terms of service. WhatsApp may restrict or permanently ban numbers it detects as automated.

Before connecting a WhatsApp account a Creator must expressly confirm they understand and accept this risk; we record the time of that confirmation. We recommend connecting a dedicated number rather than a personal one. Subject to section 17, a Creator connects a WhatsApp account at their own risk, and we may suspend or discontinue WhatsApp support if the integration becomes unavailable or unreliable.

17. Warranties

We provide the Service with reasonable skill and care. We do not guarantee any particular level of sales, uptime or results, and features may occasionally be unavailable.

If you are a consumer, this section does not limit the statutory warranty and conformity rights the law of the country you live in gives you. In the EU and EEA those come from Directive (EU) 2019/770 on digital content and digital services, and include the right to have a defective service brought into conformity, and to a price reduction or your money back if it cannot be. In the United States, nothing here disclaims any warranty that state law does not permit us to disclaim. Nothing in these Terms excludes those rights.

18. Liability

We are liable for damage we cause intentionally, and for damage to life, physical integrity or health, without limitation. We do not attempt to exclude that liability, and in most of the countries we sell into an attempt to exclude it would be void in any case.

Beyond that, and to the extent the law allows, our liability to a Creator for other loss is limited to the fees that Creator paid us in the twelve months before the event, and we are not liable for lost profit or indirect loss.

For consumers, our liability follows the mandatory rules of the country you live in; the limitation in the preceding paragraph does not apply to you.

19. Changes to these Terms

We may amend these Terms. Creators will be notified by email at least 30 days before an amendment takes effect, as Article 3(2) of Regulation (EU) 2019/1150 requires, and may terminate their account before it does. Continuing to use the Service after that date means the amended Terms apply.

We will not apply an amendment retroactively, and a Subscriber's existing subscription continues on the terms it was bought under until its next renewal. Superseded versions are kept and can be requested at any time.

20. Complaints and dispute resolution

Please contact us first at support@getjoinly.com — we answer complaints within 30 days, in writing, giving reasons if we reject one.

If you are a consumer and we cannot resolve it, you keep every route your own country gives you: the alternative dispute resolution scheme competent there, your national consumer protection authority, and the courts of your place of residence. We have not submitted to a particular ADR body, so none of them is displaced by anything in these Terms.

(The European Commission's online dispute resolution platform was discontinued on 20 July 2025 and no longer accepts complaints.)

Creators with a complaint about the Service can raise it at the same address; we will answer within 30 days and will say what we will do about it.

21. Governing law and jurisdiction

These Terms and any dispute arising from them are governed by the laws of the State of Delaware, United States, without regard to its conflict-of-laws rules.

If you are a consumer resident in the EU or EEA, that choice of law does not deprive you of the protection of the mandatory consumer rules of the country you live in — Article 6 of the Rome I Regulation preserves them because we direct this service at your country — and you may bring proceedings in the courts of your place of residence. Nothing in these Terms limits the rights you have there. For Creators acting in a business capacity, the courts of the State of Delaware have exclusive jurisdiction.

If any provision of these Terms is found invalid, the rest remains in force.