Terms of Service

1. Draft status & legal review

This document is a working draft provided for transparency and is subject to revision. It is not legal advice. Before Circles relies on it, it should be reviewed and finalized by qualified counsel licensed in the applicable jurisdiction.

2. Overview

Circles Ed LLC, a Wyoming limited liability company ("Circles", "we"), operates the Circles platform, including its marketplace of paid and free classes and goods. These Terms describe what you can expect from us and what we expect from you when you use Circles as a guardian, student, host, or school.

Circles is a platform and marketplace, not the provider of the classes, sessions, or goods that hosts offer. We do not vet, endorse, or guarantee any host, and we are not a party to the arrangement between a host and a learner or guardian.

If you use Circles on behalf of an organization, you confirm you have authority to bind that organization to these Terms.

3. Eligibility & age

To create your own account and agree to these Terms, you must be at least 18 years old and able to form a binding contract. Children and teens under 18 may use Circles only through, and under the supervision of, a guardian who holds the account and is responsible for the child's use. Children under 13 use Circles only through a guardian.

Hosting for payment is limited to adults. To sell paid classes, bookings, or goods and receive payouts, you must be at least 18 and meet the requirements of the Host Payout Agreement, including U.S.-based identity and tax verification through our payments provider. Where a minor is the person teaching or presenting, an adult guardian must hold the payout account and is the seller of record, assuming all related obligations.

4. Your account

You are responsible for keeping your credentials safe and for activity on your account. We offer security features to help, including two-factor authentication using an authenticator app or an emailed code, and we encourage you to enable them.

Children under 13 use Circles only through a guardian; the guardian is responsible for the child's use. Some accounts hold more than one role (for example, a guardian who also teaches), and certain features depend on the role you are currently acting in.

You agree to provide accurate information at sign-up and to keep it current. We may suspend or terminate accounts that violate these Terms or applicable law.

5. Acceptable use

Use Circles to learn, teach, and connect. Do not use Circles to harass, defraud, distribute illegal content, scrape data, or interfere with platform safety systems.

Hosts are responsible for the content they publish and the classes they run. Guardians are responsible for supervising their child's use within Circles.

• No illegal, hateful, or sexually explicit content.
• No impersonation or misrepresentation of identity or credentials.
• No unsolicited commercial messaging inside circles or DMs.
• Respect the safety controls applied to minors.

6. Verification, safety & your own diligence

We build safety features into Circles, including minor-safety controls, content moderation, and, where offered, document-based identity verification for hosts. These features help, but they have limits, and you should understand what they are and are not.

Circles does not conduct criminal background checks on hosts or users. A host "verified" badge, where shown, reflects a document-based identity check through our payments or identity provider; it is not a criminal, professional-credential, or fitness-to-teach check. We do not independently confirm a host's qualifications, credentials, or the accuracy of what they publish.

You are responsible for your own judgement when choosing a host, class, or counterparty, and guardians are responsible for supervising a child's use of Circles and deciding what is appropriate for their child. Do not rely on the presence of a badge or safety feature as a substitute for your own diligence.

7. Payments & refunds

Free circles are free. Paid circles are sold by hosts at the price they set; Circles processes payment via Stripe and remits funds to eligible hosts on the schedule shown in the host dashboard. Some circles may also offer physical goods, which are sold by the host on the same terms. Circles retains a platform fee on paid transactions, and Stripe charges processing fees; the terms that govern selling and payouts are set out in the Host Payout Agreement, which applies to every host who receives payment.

Refund eligibility is set by each host within the bounds of our refund policy. If a class is cancelled, Circles issues an automatic refund. We are not the seller of a host's classes or goods and are not responsible for the quality of what a host provides, though we will help resolve disputes where we reasonably can.

8. AI assistant (Fez)

Circles includes an AI tutor and assistant called Fez. Fez can answer questions, help with learning, and explain how to use the platform. It applies additional guardrails for minors, and guardians can review and clear what it has remembered about their child.

AI responses can be inaccurate or incomplete and should not be relied on as professional, medical, legal, or financial advice. Use your own judgement, and supervise a child's use of AI features as you would any other part of the platform.

9. Class recordings

Hosts may record live classes. Recording only starts after a consent step, all participants see a recording indicator while it is active, and a guardian's consent is required for any class involving a minor.

By taking part in a class that is being recorded, you agree to your participation being captured for the purposes of that circle. If you do not consent, do not join while recording is active.

10. Your content

You keep ownership of the content you create on Circles. You grant us a limited, non-exclusive license to host, display, and transmit it as needed to operate the service, including processing your input through the Fez AI assistant when you choose to use it.

You agree your content does not violate someone else's rights and that you have permission to share anything that includes a third party. We may apply automated and human review to help keep the platform safe, and we may remove content that breaks these Terms.

11. Termination

You can close your account at any time from Settings. When you do, we erase your profile's personal details, purge what the Fez AI remembered about you, and revoke your active sessions, as described in our Privacy Policy.

We may suspend or close accounts that breach these Terms, harm other users, or are required by law to be suspended. On termination, the rights you grant us end, except for limited retention required for security, dispute resolution, and legal compliance.

12. Changes to these Terms

We may update these Terms as Circles evolves or as the law changes. When we make a material change, we will update the "Last updated" date above and, where appropriate, notify you in the app. Continuing to use Circles after a change means you accept the updated Terms.

13. Disclaimers & liability

Circles is provided "as is" without warranties. Because Circles is a marketplace and not the provider of hosts' classes or goods, we disclaim responsibility for the conduct, content, qualifications, safety, or performance of any host, learner, or other user, and for any interaction or transaction between them. To the extent permitted by law, our liability for any claim arising from these Terms is limited to the amount you paid us in the 12 months before the claim.

Nothing in these Terms limits liability for fraud, gross negligence, or other liability that cannot be limited under applicable law.

14. Indemnification

To the extent permitted by law, you will defend, indemnify, and hold harmless Circles and its officers, employees, and agents from claims, damages, and expenses (including reasonable legal fees) arising from your use of Circles, the content you publish, your interactions with other users, or your breach of these Terms or applicable law. This does not apply to claims caused by Circles' own fraud or gross negligence.

15. Governing law & disputes

These Terms are governed by the laws of the State of Wyoming, without regard to its conflict-of-laws rules. Subject to any binding arbitration provision the parties adopt, the state and federal courts located in Wyoming have exclusive jurisdiction over disputes arising from these Terms, and each party consents to venue there. If any provision is unenforceable, the rest remains in effect.

16. Contact us

Questions about these Terms can be sent to hello@circles.app.