Terms of Service

Effective date: October 5, 2026 · Last updated: October 5, 2026

These Terms of Service set out the rules for using the MerkleBot website and our robotics and IoT data platform, including the API, CLI, MerkleBot Agent, storage, compute, third-party connections and remote-access robotics lab. They explain what we provide, what we expect from you, who owns what, and how responsibility is shared, especially for the safe operation of physical robots, which always remains with you.

1. Acceptance of these Terms

These Terms of Service ("Terms") are an agreement between MerkleBot ("MerkleBot", "we", "us" or "our") and the organization on whose behalf you use the Services ("Customer" or "you"). By creating an account, accepting online, signing an order form referencing these Terms, or using the Services, you agree to them and confirm you have authority to bind your organization. If you do not agree, do not use the Services.

A separately signed agreement covering the Services prevails over these Terms to the extent of any conflict. Our Privacy Policy and Cookie Policy explain how we handle personal data and browser storage.

2. Definitions

• "Services" means the MerkleBot website, platform, API, CLI, Agent, storage, compute, data extractors, integrations, remote lab and related documentation and support.
• "Platform" means MerkleBot's hosted data platform and web application.
• "Agent" means the MerkleBot software installed on Customer devices to collect, buffer and transmit machine data.
• "Customer Data" means data, files and content that you or your Users submit to, store in or process through the Services, including telemetry, logs, sensor data, video and ROS bag files.
• "Users" means your employees, contractors and other individuals you authorize to use the Services under your account.
• "Order Form" means an online plan selection or a signed order document specifying Services, fees and term.
• "Third-Party Services" means products, services, networks and data sources not provided by MerkleBot, including decentralized storage networks, payment processors, financing providers and monitoring or analytics tools.
• "Beta Features" means features labelled alpha, beta, preview, early access or similar.

3. Eligibility and business use

The Services are intended for businesses, research institutions and other organizations, not for personal, family or household use. You must be at least 18 years old and able to form a binding contract to use the Services. You may not use the Services if you are barred from doing so under applicable law, including sanctions laws described in Section 22.

4. Accounts and security

You must provide accurate and complete registration information and keep it up to date. You are responsible for all activity under your account, including activity by your Users, and for ensuring Users comply with these Terms. You must:

• keep passwords, API keys, Agent credentials and access tokens confidential and rotate them if compromised;
• use multi-factor authentication where available for administrator accounts;
• secure the devices on which the Agent and CLI are installed; and
• notify us promptly at [email protected] of any unauthorized access or security incident involving your account.

We may suspend credentials we reasonably believe are compromised and will notify you when we do.

5. The Services

5.1 Website

Our website provides information about MerkleBot, a blog, and a form to book a demo or contact us. Content on the website is for general information and may change without notice.

5.2 Platform, API, CLI and Agent

Subject to these Terms and payment of fees, we grant you a non-exclusive, non-transferable, non-sublicensable right during your subscription to use the Platform and API, and to run the CLI and Agent on devices you control, solely for your internal business purposes and in line with our documentation. The Agent may update automatically for security and compatibility; where documented, you can configure update timing.

5.3 Storage, compute and data extractors

You may choose where Customer Data is stored (edge, local data centers or decentralized networks) and run Docker-based compute jobs and data extractors, such as for ROS bag files. You are responsible for the containers, code and configurations you run.

5.4 Beta Features

We may offer Beta Features for evaluation. Beta Features are provided "as is", may be changed or discontinued at any time, may not be supported, and are excluded from any service commitments. Do not rely on Beta Features for production or safety-relevant workloads.

5.5 Changes to the Services

We continually improve the Services and may add, change or remove features. If we remove a material feature of a paid plan during your term, we will give reasonable advance notice and, where the change materially reduces the Services, you may cancel and receive a pro-rated refund of prepaid fees for the remaining term.

6. Plans, billing and payment

6.1 Free tier

We may offer a free tier with usage limits described on our pricing page. We may change or end the free tier, or suspend inactive free accounts, with reasonable notice.

6.2 Paid plans and fees

Paid plans are described on our pricing page or in an Order Form. You agree to pay all fees for your plan plus usage-based charges, such as storage, compute or data transfer above plan allowances. Unless an Order Form says otherwise, fees are in U.S. dollars, subscriptions are billed in advance and usage in arrears, and invoices are due within 30 days. You authorize us, through our payment processor, to charge your payment method on file.

6.3 Taxes

Fees exclude taxes. You are responsible for all sales, use, value-added, goods and services, withholding and similar taxes, other than taxes on MerkleBot's net income. If you are required to withhold tax, you will gross up payments so that we receive the full amount invoiced.

6.4 Automatic renewal

Paid subscriptions renew automatically for successive periods equal to the initial term (for example, monthly or annually) unless either party cancels before the end of the current term. We will notify you of any price change at least 30 days before it applies to a renewal.

6.5 Cancellation and refunds

You may cancel a self-service subscription at any time from your account settings or by contacting us; cancellation takes effect at the end of the current billing period. Except where these Terms expressly provide otherwise or where required by law, fees are non-refundable and there are no refunds for partial periods or unused allowances.

6.6 Late payment

If undisputed fees are more than 15 days overdue, we may, after notice, suspend paid features until payment is received. You must raise any good-faith billing dispute within 30 days of the invoice date.

7. Acceptable use

You and your Users must not, and must not allow anyone else to:

1. use the Services in violation of any law, regulation or third-party right;
2. use robots, devices or the Services for unlawful surveillance, including covert recording of individuals, or to collect personal data without a lawful basis and any required notice or consent;
3. use the Platform, API, CLI or Agent as the sole or primary means of controlling safety-critical functions, or issue motion or actuation commands through the Services without appropriate, independent safety systems in place (see Section 8);
4. upload or transmit malware, ransomware, or code designed to disrupt, damage or gain unauthorized access to any system;
5. probe, scan or test the vulnerability of the Services, or breach security or authentication measures, except under a written security testing agreement with us;
6. reverse engineer, decompile or disassemble the Services, except to the extent applicable law expressly permits despite this restriction;
7. exceed documented rate limits or quotas, or attempt to circumvent them, including by creating multiple accounts;
8. interfere with or overload the Services or other customers' use of them, including through cryptocurrency mining or abusive compute workloads;
9. store or process data you do not have the right to use, or content that infringes intellectual property or is unlawful, defamatory or harmful;
10. use the Services to develop or operate weapons or to harm people or property;
11. resell, sublicense or provide the Services to third parties as a service bureau, unless agreed in an Order Form;
12. use the Services to build a competing product, or copy features, designs or documentation for that purpose; or
13. misrepresent your identity or affiliation, or use the Services in breach of export control or sanctions laws.

We may investigate suspected violations and may suspend affected accounts, Agents or workloads to protect the Services, other customers or third parties. Where reasonable, we will notify you first and give you an opportunity to fix the issue.

8. Robotics and hardware safety

You remain solely responsible for the physical operation of your robots, devices and equipment, and for the safety of people and property around them. In particular, you are responsible for:

• conducting risk assessments and complying with applicable safety laws, regulations and standards, such as ISO 10218 for industrial robots and ISO/TS 15066 for collaborative robot applications, and any applicable machinery, electrical and workplace safety rules;
• maintaining hardware emergency stops, protective stops, safety-rated monitoring and other independent safety functions that operate regardless of network connectivity or the state of the Services;
• ensuring that loss of connectivity, data delays, incorrect data or failure of the Agent or Platform cannot cause unsafe behavior;
• training and supervising operators; and
• validating any analytics, alerts or recommendations produced through the Services before acting on them.

Data, dashboards, alerts and analytics provided through the Services are for informational and operational support purposes only.

9. Remote lab access

If you use our remote-access robotics lab, the following rules apply in addition to the rest of these Terms:

• sessions must be booked in advance and are limited to the booked time and the named participants;
• you must follow our lab instructions and any operating limits we set for the equipment, such as speed, payload and workspace limits;
• our staff may observe sessions and may pause, stop or end a session at any time for safety, security or equipment protection reasons;
• you must not attempt to bypass lab safety systems, access equipment or networks outside your session, or install persistent software without our permission;
• sessions may be recorded and logged for safety, security and support purposes, and these records are handled as described in our Privacy Policy; and
• you are responsible for damage to lab equipment caused by your breach of these rules or your misuse, excluding normal wear and tear.

Lab equipment is provided "as is" for testing and evaluation, and availability is not guaranteed.

10. Customer Data

10.1 Ownership

As between you and MerkleBot, you retain all rights, title and interest in and to Customer Data. We do not claim ownership of Customer Data.

10.2 License to provide the Services

You grant MerkleBot and our sub-processors a worldwide, non-exclusive, royalty-free license to host, copy, transmit, process, display and otherwise use Customer Data only as necessary to provide, secure, support and maintain the Services for you, to prevent or address technical or security issues, and as required by law. We will not use Customer Data for any other purpose, including our own marketing or training general-purpose machine learning models.

10.3 Your responsibilities

You are responsible for the accuracy, quality and legality of Customer Data, for having all necessary rights and consents to collect and process it, and for providing any notices required to individuals whose information is captured by your devices. Where Customer Data includes personal data, our Data Processing Agreement, available on request at [email protected], applies.

10.4 Aggregated and anonymized usage statistics

We may create aggregated or anonymized statistics from technical and usage information, such as request volumes, error rates and feature adoption, and use them to operate, improve and promote the Services, provided they do not identify you, your Users or any individual, or disclose Customer Data content.

11. Decentralized storage notice

If you choose to store Customer Data on a decentralized storage network, you acknowledge that:

• such networks are typically content-addressed, meaning data is identified by a hash of its contents and cannot be edited in place;
• data may be retrieved, cached and replicated by independent storage providers and nodes that MerkleBot does not own or control, and these networks are Third-Party Services;
• you should enable encryption before upload for any confidential or personal data, and you are responsible for any keys you control, as lost keys may make data permanently unrecoverable;
• deletion on these networks means that we delete encryption keys we control, remove (unpin) content from nodes we operate or contract with, and stop renewing storage deals, but we cannot guarantee physical erasure of every copy held by independent third parties; and
• storage deals may have minimum durations and network fees that vary with market conditions.

12. Third-party services and connections

12.1 General

The Services may let you connect Third-Party Services, such as monitoring, analytics, payment and financing tools. When you enable a connection, you authorize us to exchange Customer Data with that provider as you configure. Third-Party Services are governed by their own terms and privacy policies, and MerkleBot is not responsible for them, their availability or their handling of your data.

12.2 Smart Lease and financing

Smart Lease and any other financing, leasing or robot-as-a-service arrangements are subject to separate agreements between you and the relevant financing provider or MerkleBot entity, as applicable. Nothing in these Terms is an offer of credit or a commitment to provide financing. Eligibility, approval and terms are determined under those separate agreements. We share your information with financing partners only at your request.

12.3 Payment providers

Payments made through the Services may be processed by third-party payment providers that are subject to their own terms. We are not responsible for errors or delays caused by those providers.

13. Intellectual property

MerkleBot and its licensors own all rights, title and interest in and to the Services, including software, the Agent, CLI, APIs, documentation, designs, trademarks and all improvements, excluding Customer Data. Except for the limited rights expressly granted in these Terms, no rights are granted to you, whether by implication, estoppel or otherwise. You may not remove proprietary notices or use our trademarks without our prior written permission.

14. Feedback

If you provide suggestions, ideas or other feedback about the Services, you grant us a perpetual, irrevocable, worldwide, royalty-free right to use it for any purpose without obligation to you. We will not identify you publicly as the source of feedback without your permission.

15. Open-source components

Parts of the Services, including the Agent and CLI, may include open-source software. Open-source components are licensed under their own licenses, which are made available in the relevant software or documentation. Where an open-source license grants you rights that conflict with these Terms, the open-source license prevails for that component.

16. Confidentiality

"Confidential Information" means non-public information one party discloses to the other that is marked confidential or would reasonably be understood as confidential, including Customer Data, pricing, roadmaps and security information. The recipient will use it only to perform under these Terms, protect it with at least reasonable care, and share it only with personnel and advisers who need to know it and are bound by similar duties. These duties do not cover information that is public through no fault of the recipient, already known, independently developed, or rightfully received from a third party. Disclosure required by law is permitted after reasonable notice where legally allowed.

17. Availability and support

We work to keep the Services available, but we offer no service level agreement (SLA) or uptime commitment unless one is set out in an Order Form. We will try to give advance notice of planned maintenance that may significantly affect you. Support is provided as described for your plan; free-tier support is best-effort.

18. Disclaimer of warranties

Except as expressly stated in these Terms or an Order Form, the Services are provided "as is" and "as available". To the maximum extent permitted by law, MerkleBot disclaims all warranties, express or implied, including merchantability, fitness for a particular purpose, title and non-infringement. We do not warrant that the Services will be uninterrupted, error-free or secure, that data will never be lost or delayed, or that the Services are suitable for safety-critical use.

19. Limitation of liability

To the maximum extent permitted by law:

• Exclusion of indirect damages. Neither party will be liable for any indirect, incidental, special, consequential, exemplary or punitive damages, or for lost profits, revenue, business, goodwill or data, or costs of substitute services, even if advised of the possibility of such damages.
• Cap. Each party's total liability arising out of or relating to these Terms and the Services will not exceed the fees paid or payable by you to MerkleBot for the Services in the 12 months before the event giving rise to the claim, or USD 100 if you use only the free tier.
• Exceptions. These limits do not apply to your payment obligations, a party's indemnification obligations, your breach of Section 7 (Acceptable use), or liability that cannot be limited by law, such as liability for fraud or for death or personal injury caused by negligence.

These limits reflect the allocation of risk between the parties and apply even if a remedy fails of its essential purpose.

20. Indemnification

20.1 By MerkleBot

MerkleBot will defend you against any third-party claim that the Services, as provided by us and used in accordance with these Terms, infringe that party's intellectual property rights, and will pay damages and costs finally awarded or agreed in settlement. This excludes claims arising from Customer Data, Third-Party Services, open-source components, Beta Features, free-tier use, or combinations with items we did not provide. If such a claim arises or seems likely, we may modify the Services, obtain a license, or terminate the affected Services and refund prepaid fees for the remaining term.

20.2 By you

You will defend MerkleBot against any third-party claim arising from Customer Data, your breach of Section 7 (Acceptable use), or the operation of your robots, devices and equipment, including any claim for personal injury or property damage, and will pay damages and costs finally awarded or agreed in settlement.

20.3 Procedure

The indemnified party must promptly notify the indemnifying party of the claim, give it sole control of the defense and settlement (provided no settlement imposes liability or admissions on the indemnified party without its consent), and provide reasonable cooperation at the indemnifying party's expense.

21. Term and termination

21.1 Term

These Terms apply from the date you first accept them or use the Services until all subscriptions have ended and you stop using the Services.

21.2 Termination

Either party may terminate a paid subscription by written notice if the other party materially breaches these Terms and fails to cure the breach within 30 days after notice. We may suspend or terminate access immediately if necessary to prevent harm to the Services, other customers or third parties, to comply with law, or for serious or repeated breaches of Section 7. You may stop using the free tier at any time.

21.3 Effect of termination and data export

When your subscription ends, your right to use the Services ends. For 30 days afterwards, you may export Customer Data through the Platform, API or CLI, unless the law prevents it. After that window we will delete Customer Data from active systems, and from backups as they cycle, subject to Section 11 and any legal retention duties. If you terminated for our uncured material breach, we will refund prepaid fees for the remaining term. Provisions that by their nature should survive, including Sections 10.4, 13, 14, 16, 18, 19, 20, 23 and 25, survive termination.

22. Export controls and sanctions

The Services are subject to U.S. and other applicable export control and sanctions laws. You represent that you and your Users are not located in, organized in or ordinarily resident in any country or region subject to comprehensive U.S. sanctions, and are not on any U.S. government restricted party list. You will not export or transfer the Services or Customer Data in violation of these laws or use them for prohibited end uses.

23. Governing law and dispute resolution

23.1 Governing law

These Terms are governed by the laws of the State of California, USA, without regard to its conflict-of-laws rules. The United Nations Convention on Contracts for the International Sale of Goods does not apply.

23.2 Informal resolution first

Before starting any legal proceeding, the party raising a dispute must send written notice describing it to the other party (to MerkleBot at [email protected]). The parties will try in good faith to resolve the dispute through discussions between representatives for at least 30 days after notice.

23.3 Courts

If the dispute is not resolved informally, it will be resolved exclusively in the state or federal courts located in San Francisco County, California, and each party consents to the personal jurisdiction of those courts. Either party may seek injunctive or other equitable relief in any court of competent jurisdiction to protect its intellectual property or Confidential Information.

24. Changes to these Terms

We may update these Terms and will post the new version with an updated "Last updated" date. For material changes we will give at least 30 days' notice by email or in the Platform. Changes are not retroactive. If you disagree with a material change, you may cancel before it takes effect; for prepaid annual plans, the prior version applies until the end of your current term. Continued use after the effective date means you accept the updated Terms.

25. Miscellaneous

• Assignment. Neither party may assign these Terms without the other's written consent, except to a successor in a merger, acquisition or sale of substantially all relevant assets that is not a direct competitor of the other party.
• Force majeure. Neither party is liable for delays or failures (other than payment) caused by events beyond its reasonable control, such as natural disasters, war, government action, internet or utility failures, or failures of decentralized networks or other Third-Party Services.
• Severability and waiver. An unenforceable provision will be modified to the minimum extent necessary, and the rest remains in effect. Failure to enforce a provision is not a waiver.
• Entire agreement. These Terms, any Order Form, the Data Processing Agreement where applicable, and documents referenced here are the entire agreement about the Services. Terms in your purchase orders do not apply.
• Relationship. The parties are independent contractors, and there are no third-party beneficiaries.
• Notices. We may send notices to your account email or through the Platform. Send legal notices to [email protected].
• Publicity. We will not use your name or logo as a customer reference without your permission.

26. Contact

MerkleBot
San Francisco Bay Area, California, USA
Legal and terms: [email protected]
General: [email protected] or our contact page