Legal

Terms of Service

Effective Date: May 25, 2026 · Last Updated: May 25, 2026

1. Agreement to Terms

These Terms of Service (“Terms”) govern your access to and use of systemdesigncopilot.com and the related services (collectively, the “Service”) operated by an individual sole proprietor based in North Carolina, United States (“DesignCopilot,” “we,” “us,” or “our”).

By creating an account, signing in, or otherwise using the Service, you agree to these Terms and to our Privacy Policy. If you do not agree, do not use the Service.

If you are using the Service on behalf of an organization, you represent that you have authority to bind that organization, and “you” refers to both you and the organization.

2. Description of Service

DesignCopilot helps software engineers, technical leads, solo builders, and founders turn product ideas into architecture proposals, tradeoff analyses, diagrams, and implementation plans. The Service uses third-party AI models to generate output based on inputs you provide.

The Service may include features such as:

  • A 7-question intake wizard that generates architecture options;
  • Architecture Roast, which generates AI-written critiques of architectures you submit;
  • Sketches, diagrams, and refinement of generated content;
  • Project export and management tools.

Features may be added, modified, or removed over time. We may impose usage limits on any feature (see Section 4).

3. Eligibility and Account

You must be at least 16 years old to use the Service. By using the Service, you represent that you meet this requirement and that you have the legal capacity to enter into these Terms.

You must register an account using Sign in with Google. You are responsible for:

  • Maintaining the security of your account and the underlying Google account;
  • All activity that occurs under your account;
  • Providing accurate information and keeping it up to date.

Notify us promptly at legal@systemdesigncopilot.com if you suspect unauthorized use of your account.

4. Subscription Plans and Billing

4.1 Free Tier

The Service is currently available on a free tier. The free tier includes:

  • Up to 2 architecture generations per month;
  • Up to 1 Architecture Roast per month;
  • Up to 2 architecture refinements per month;
  • 0 sketch generations (sketch review is currently a Pro feature);
  • Other limits as described in the Service.

Free tier limits may change at any time. We will use reasonable efforts to notify existing users of material reductions to free-tier allowances.

4.2 Paid Plans (Coming Soon)

We plan to offer a “Pro” plan at $29 per month or $290 per year, with increased usage limits and additional features. Specific terms applicable to paid plans, including billing cycle, taxes, refund policy, and cancellation, will be presented at checkout and incorporated into these Terms by reference once available.

Until paid plans are offered, only the free tier applies, and no payment is collected.

4.3 Billing Mechanics (when paid plans launch)

Paid subscriptions are billed in advance through our payment processor (Stripe) and automatically renew at the end of each billing period unless canceled. You can cancel at any time from your account settings; cancellation takes effect at the end of the current billing period, and you will retain Pro access until that date.

Except where required by law, payments are non-refundable. We may, at our sole discretion, issue refunds on a case-by-case basis.

Prices are exclusive of taxes unless stated otherwise. You are responsible for any applicable taxes.

5. Your Content

“Your Content” means any input you submit to the Service, including intake answers, project descriptions, requirements, uploaded files (such as sketches or diagrams), prompts, and follow-up questions.

5.1 Ownership

As between you and us, you retain all rights you have in Your Content. We do not claim ownership of Your Content.

5.2 License to Us

You grant DesignCopilot a worldwide, non-exclusive, royalty-free license to host, store, transmit, process, display, and create derivative works of Your Content solely to operate, secure, and improve the Service — including by sending Your Content to our AI provider for processing. This license terminates when you delete Your Content, except to the extent retained in backups for the limited period described in our Privacy Policy.

5.3 Responsibility for Your Content

You are solely responsible for Your Content. You represent that:

  • You have the right to submit Your Content to the Service;
  • Your Content does not infringe or violate any third party’s rights (including intellectual-property, privacy, and publicity rights);
  • Your Content does not violate any law, regulation, or these Terms.

Do not submit information you are not authorized to share, including third-party trade secrets, personal information beyond what is reasonably necessary, or content covered by confidentiality obligations you cannot lawfully extend to a third-party AI service.

6. AI-Generated Output

This section is important. Please read it carefully.

6.1 Nature of the Output

The Service generates architecture proposals, tradeoff analyses, roasts, diagrams, and other content (“Output”) using third-party large language models. Output is generated probabilistically and:

  • May be inaccurate, incomplete, outdated, or inappropriate for your specific use case;
  • Does not reflect any human review by DesignCopilot;
  • Is not engineering, legal, financial, security, or professional advice of any kind;
  • Should not be the sole basis for production architecture decisions, security designs, regulatory or compliance choices, or any decision with material consequences.

The Architecture Roast feature, in particular, generates intentionally critical and opinionated content for educational and entertainment purposes. Roasts are not professional design reviews.

6.2 Your Responsibility

You are responsible for reviewing Output, exercising independent professional judgment, and validating any technical claim, recommendation, library, version number, configuration, or pattern before applying it to a real system. You assume all risk associated with use of Output.

6.3 Ownership of Output

Subject to your compliance with these Terms and the AI provider’s terms, as between you and us we do not claim ownership of Output generated for your account, and you may use it for any lawful purpose. Note that, because of how large language models work, the same or similar Output may be generated for other users, and we make no warranty of uniqueness.

6.4 Use of Inputs and Outputs

Inputs and Outputs are processed in accordance with our Privacy Policy. We do not train our own models on Your Content, and our AI provider (Anthropic) is contractually prohibited under its API terms from using API inputs and outputs to train its models.

7. Acceptable Use

You agree not to use the Service to:

  1. Violate any law or regulation, or infringe any third-party right;
  2. Submit content that is unlawful, defamatory, harassing, threatening, hateful, or sexually exploitative;
  3. Generate malware, ransomware, exploits, or designs whose primary purpose is to facilitate unauthorized access to systems or data;
  4. Generate content intended to deceive or defraud, including misleading impersonation of real individuals or organizations;
  5. Reverse engineer, decompile, scrape, or attempt to extract the underlying models, prompts, or source code, except to the extent applicable law expressly permits;
  6. Probe, scan, or test the vulnerability of the Service without our prior written permission, or interfere with its operation;
  7. Use automated means (bots, crawlers) to access the Service except as expressly permitted;
  8. Resell, sublicense, or provide the Service to third parties as a substantially similar standalone product;
  9. Circumvent usage limits, rate limits, or account restrictions;
  10. Submit prompts or content designed to manipulate the AI provider into producing content that violates its or our policies.

We may suspend or terminate accounts that we reasonably believe violate this Section. Where appropriate and feasible, we will notify you and give you an opportunity to address the issue.

8. Intellectual Property

The Service, including its software, interface, branding, name “DesignCopilot,” the domain systemdesigncopilot.com, and all related materials, is owned by DesignCopilot and protected by intellectual property laws. Subject to these Terms, we grant you a limited, non-exclusive, non-transferable, revocable license to access and use the Service for your internal use.

All rights not expressly granted are reserved. The Service may include components licensed under open-source licenses, which continue to be governed by those licenses.

8.1 Feedback

If you send us feedback, suggestions, or ideas about the Service, you grant us a perpetual, irrevocable, royalty-free, worldwide license to use them for any purpose without obligation to you.

9. Third-Party Services

The Service relies on third-party services, including Anthropic, Vercel, Neon, Cloudflare, Resend, PostHog, Google, and (when paid plans launch) Stripe. Your use of those services through the Service is also subject to their respective terms, and we are not responsible for their acts or omissions to the extent permitted by law.

10. Disclaimers

The Service and all Output are provided “as is” and “as available,” without warranties of any kind, whether express, implied, or statutory. To the fullest extent permitted by law, we disclaim all warranties, including any warranties of merchantability, fitness for a particular purpose, non-infringement, and any warranties arising out of course of dealing or usage of trade.

Without limiting the foregoing, we do not warrant that:

  • The Service will be uninterrupted, timely, secure, or error-free;
  • Output will be accurate, reliable, complete, or appropriate for any particular purpose;
  • Any defects will be corrected.

You acknowledge that AI-generated Output may contain errors and that reliance on Output is at your sole risk.

Some jurisdictions do not allow the exclusion of certain warranties, so some of these exclusions may not apply to you.

11. Limitation of Liability

To the fullest extent permitted by law, in no event will DesignCopilot be liable for any indirect, incidental, special, consequential, exemplary, or punitive damages, or for any loss of profits, revenue, data, goodwill, or business opportunity, arising out of or relating to your use of the Service or Output, whether based in contract, tort, statute, or any other legal theory, and whether or not we have been advised of the possibility of such damages.

Our total cumulative liability arising out of or relating to the Service or these Terms will not exceed the greater of (a) the amounts you paid us in the 12 months preceding the event giving rise to the claim, or (b) one hundred U.S. dollars (USD $100).

These limitations apply even if a remedy fails of its essential purpose.

Some jurisdictions do not allow the limitation or exclusion of liability for certain damages, so some of these limitations may not apply to you.

12. Indemnification

You agree to defend, indemnify, and hold harmless DesignCopilot and its operator from and against any claims, liabilities, damages, losses, and expenses (including reasonable attorneys’ fees) arising out of or related to (a) Your Content, (b) your use of Output, (c) your breach of these Terms, or (d) your violation of any law or third-party right.

13. Termination

You may stop using the Service and delete your account at any time from your account settings.

We may suspend or terminate your access to the Service at any time, with or without notice, if we reasonably believe you have violated these Terms, used the Service in a way that risks harm to us, other users, or third parties, or if we are required to do so by law. We may also discontinue the Service in whole or in part at any time.

Upon termination, your right to use the Service ends. Sections that by their nature should survive termination (including Sections 5.3, 6, 8, 10, 11, 12, 14, and 15) will survive.

14. Governing Law and Disputes

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

Any dispute arising out of or related to these Terms or the Service will be brought exclusively in the state or federal courts located in Durham County, North Carolina, and you and DesignCopilot consent to the personal jurisdiction of those courts. Each party waives any right to a jury trial to the maximum extent permitted by law.

Nothing in this Section prevents either party from seeking injunctive or equitable relief in any court of competent jurisdiction to protect its intellectual property rights.

15. Changes to These Terms

We may update these Terms from time to time. If we make material changes, we will notify you by email or through the Service at least 7 days before the changes take effect, where reasonably possible. Your continued use of the Service after changes take effect constitutes acceptance of the revised Terms. If you do not agree to the revised Terms, stop using the Service and delete your account.

16. Miscellaneous

  • Entire Agreement. These Terms, together with our Privacy Policy and any plan-specific terms presented at checkout, constitute the entire agreement between you and DesignCopilot regarding the Service.
  • Severability. If any provision is held invalid or unenforceable, the remaining provisions will continue in full force and effect.
  • No Waiver. Our failure to enforce any right or provision will not be considered a waiver.
  • Assignment. You may not assign these Terms without our prior written consent. We may assign them in connection with a merger, acquisition, financing, or sale of assets.
  • Notices. We may give notices to you by email to the address on your account or by posting in the Service. Notices to us must be sent to legal@systemdesigncopilot.com.
  • Independent Contractors. Nothing in these Terms creates a partnership, joint venture, agency, or employment relationship.

17. Contact Us

Questions about these Terms? Email us at:

legal@systemdesigncopilot.com

DesignCopilot
North Carolina, United States
Postal address available upon written request to the email above.