ℹ️ This is a simplified summary for your convenience
The legally binding terms are below. This summary helps you understand the key points quickly, but you should read the complete terms for full details.
⚠️ Beta Service: Velvet Ledger is in early access. Features may change, and bugs may occur. We recommend regular data exports during beta.
By using Velvet Ledger, you agree to these terms. We provide business management tools (tasks, contacts, finances) across multiple subscription tiers.
Age: You must be 18 or older to use Velvet Ledger. Accounts found to belong to anyone under 18 are closed.
Trial: 30 days free with Flourish plan features, then auto-downgrade to Explore if no payment.
Usage Limits: Each plan has a record and storage limit. Over it, you can't add new records until you upgrade or remove some; nothing you already have is locked or deleted.
Liability: Our maximum liability is limited to 12 months of fees paid. Service provided "as is" with no uptime guarantees.
Disputes: Resolved via binding arbitration in Delaware. No class actions.
🔒 EU Data Storage: All data stored on PostgreSQL servers in Hetzner data centers (Germany, EU). Your traffic goes straight to those servers, with DDoS protection by Hetzner. Cloudflare only runs our DNS.
We Store (to provide the service): Your business data (contacts, tasks, appointments, transactions, files, notes, groups) is stored encrypted to provide the service. We claim no ownership - it's your data.
We Collect (for analytics/debugging): Account info (name, email), aggregate feature usage counts, error logs (context only), and count-based metrics only(e.g., "user has 500 contacts") - we do NOT analyze your actual contact names, task details, or transaction content.
Third Parties: Mailjet (the emails we send you, stored in the EU), Twilio (SMS phone-number verification), Mapbox (address suggestions), Cloudflare (DNS only), Dodo Payments (Merchant of Record for paid plans). We do NOT sell your data.
💳 Explore is free. Paid plans are billed through Dodo Payments, which handles payments, tax and receipts — we never see or store your card details.
Your Rights (GDPR): Access, export (JSON), correct, delete your data anytime.
Retention: Account data deleted 7 days after account deletion (recovery window). Billing records kept 8 years (legal requirement).
Marketing: Optional promotional emails (opt-in required, unsubscribe anytime).
30-Day Trial: Free trial with Flourish plan features. Cancel anytime, no charge.
14-Day Money-Back: Full refund within 14 days of first payment, no questions asked.
Cancellation: Cancel anytime. You keep access until period ends, but no refund after 14-day window. No pro-rated refunds.
Example: Pay $29.99 on Jan 1 → Cancel Jan 15 → Keep access until Jan 31, no refund (except within first 14 days).
Downgrades: Take effect next billing cycle. No refunds for current period.
Quick Jump:
By accessing or using Velvet Ledger ("Service", "we", "us", or "our"), you agree to be bound by these Terms of Service. If you disagree with any part of these terms, you may not access the Service.
Velvet Ledger is currently in beta/early access. By using the Service during beta, you acknowledge and accept the following:
⚠️ What Beta Means
The Service may contain bugs, errors, or incomplete features. Features may be added, modified, or removed without prior notice. Service availability may be less reliable than a mature product.
🔒 Your Responsibility
You are responsible for maintaining your own backups of critical data. We strongly recommend exporting your data weekly during beta (our backups have 7-day retention).
💰 Price Protection
Early users keep their current rates: 12 months for monthly plans, through the end of term for annual plans.
⚖️ Limited Liability
Our liability is limited as described in Section 9. Beta status increases these limitations.
CRITICAL: Export Your Data Regularly
Where: User Profile → User Preferences → Security
How often: Weekly during beta (our backups have 7-day retention)
Format: JSON (includes all your business data)
Reality check: Beta means we're actively improving the product. You might find bugs (please report them!), UI may change based on feedback, and new features will be added frequently. We're working toward a 1.0 release in 2026. Early users benefit from locked-in pricing and the opportunity to shape the product.
Velvet Ledger is a cloud-based enterprise resource planning (ERP) platform providing:
🏢 Internal Business Tool — Not a Public Platform
Velvet Ledger is designed as an internal business management tool (CRM, tasks, scheduling, finances, collaboration). You may use the Service to manage your own business data and client relationships, but you may not use Velvet Ledger as public-facing infrastructure or as a delivery platform for your own products or services.
Specifically, you agree not to:
✅ You are welcome to use Velvet Ledger to track contacts, tasks, appointments, invoices, and internal notes related to any lawful business — but you may not position Velvet Ledger itself as part of your public-facing client portal.
🚫 Prohibited Uses
The following uses of Velvet Ledger are strictly prohibited and will result in immediate account termination:
🛡️ Zero Tolerance for Hate — No Exceptions
Velvet Ledger has a zero-tolerance policy for hate speech, discrimination, extremist content, and membership in or support of hate groups — including white nationalist, neo-Nazi, supremacist, antisemitic, anti-LGBTQ+, or other organizations designated as hate groups by recognized civil rights organizations (such as the Southern Poverty Law Center or Anti-Defamation League). Accounts found to contain such content or associations will be immediately and permanently terminated without warning.
This list aligns with our payment processor's Acceptable Use Policy. Violations may be disclosed to law enforcement when legally required or permitted.
🔒 Law Enforcement Requests and Disclosure
Plain English
We don't read your stuff. We can't tell on you for things we never saw. The only times we ever disclose information about your account are: (a) when a valid legal order requires it, (b) when someone's life is in immediate danger and the law lets us help, or (c) when federal law requires us to report child sexual abuse material to NCMEC. One person — the Trust & Safety Lead, currently the Founder — decides. We tell you afterwards unless we're legally prohibited. We publish the running count below.
What we receive — and what we don't
As stated above, we do not proactively monitor user content, scan messages, or run content-classification systems on your private groups, files, notes, or communications. We are not a content moderator. The only ways we ever learn about anything happening on your account are:
Decision-maker
All disclosure decisions are reviewed and authorized by the Velvet Ledger Trust & Safety Lead — a named role currently held by the Founder. The Trust & Safety Lead reviews each compelled legal request, each potential voluntary emergency disclosure, and each mandatory reporting obligation before any disclosure is made. We do not delegate this authority to support staff or to automated systems.
1. Compelled legal process
We comply with valid subpoenas, court orders, and warrants as required by applicable law. We challenge or seek to narrow legal process that appears overbroad, jurisdictionally improper, or facially invalid — but we do not impose a standard higher than the law requires as a condition of compliance. When the legal process is valid and properly scoped, we comply.
2. Voluntary emergency disclosure
Under the Electronic Communications Privacy Act, 18 U.S.C. § 2702(b)(8), a provider may divulge a customer record or communication "to a governmental entity, if the provider, in good faith, believes that an emergency involving danger of death or serious physical injury to any person requires disclosure without delay of communications relating to the emergency."
We adopt this statutory standard. We will voluntarily disclose information to a governmental entity only when the Trust & Safety Lead forms a good-faith belief that an emergency involving danger of death or serious physical injury to any person requires disclosure without delay. Disclosures are narrowly tailored to the information needed to address the emergency.
3. Mandatory CSAM reporting
Federal law, 18 U.S.C. § 2258A, requires us to report apparent child sexual abuse material (CSAM) to the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children (NCMEC) "as soon as reasonably possible" after obtaining actual knowledge. This obligation is mandatory and applies even though we do not proactively monitor content — we are not searching for CSAM, but if we obtain actual knowledge of it through any of the credible-notice channels above, federal law requires us to report it. We will report to NCMEC and may, where appropriate, also report to other authorities. We do not consider this voluntary disclosure.
Documentation
Every compelled legal request received, every voluntary emergency disclosure made, and every CSAM report submitted to NCMEC is logged internally with date, source, scope, decision, decision-maker, and any user notification status. These records are retained for as long as legally required to support subsequent legal proceedings, regulator inquiries, and our transparency reporting.
User notification
When we disclose information about your account, we will notify you — unless we are legally prohibited (for example, by a National Security Letter gag, a court-ordered nondisclosure provision, or another statutory bar) or unless notice would defeat the purpose of the disclosure during an active emergency. Default notification windows:
Where a legal prohibition expires (for example, when a gag order lapses or is lifted), we will notify you within 30 days of the date we are first permitted to do so.
Transparency snapshot
Since product launch through 2026-05-17. We update these counts when they change; the trigger is one or more numbers ticking up, not a scheduled date.
Free Trial
New users receive a 30-day trial with full Flourish plan features. No credit card is required for trial signup.
Trial End Behavior
If no payment method is added before trial expiration, your account automatically downgrades to the Explore plan. No charges are made without explicit payment authorization.
Subscription Tiers
🚀 Beta Pricing & Price Protection
Current pricing is beta/early access pricing and may change when the platform exits beta.
Price Protection for Existing Subscribers:
Features marked as "Coming Soon" will be added to the respective plans at no additional cost.
Each plan includes a number of records (contacts, tasks, appointments, income, expenses and invoices, counted together) and an amount of file storage. Yearly plans include 50% more records than the same plan paid monthly.
If you are over your plan's limit (for example after a downgrade or when a trial ends):
Switching from yearly to monthly billing: if you then have more records than the monthly plan includes, you get 30 days in which you can still add records, with reminders, before the monthly limit applies.
Example: Grow paid monthly includes 50,000 records; Focus paid monthly includes 3,000. Someone who moves from Grow to Focus with 4,000 records keeps all 4,000 and can work with every one of them, but can't add a new record until they upgrade or are back under 3,000.
Billing Cycle
Subscriptions are available on monthly or annual billing cycles and automatically renew unless canceled before the next billing date. All fees are charged in advance and are non-refundable except as specified in the Refund Policy.
Payment Processing
Payments for paid plans are processed by Dodo Payments, our Merchant of Record (MOR). Dodo handles all payment processing, billing, tax collection, and payment data storage. We do not collect, process, or store your credit card information — Dodo manages all payment data securely under PCI-DSS-compliant infrastructure. By subscribing to a paid plan, you also agree to Dodo Payments' terms of service and privacy policy in addition to these Terms.
Price Changes
We reserve the right to modify pricing with 30 days' advance notice. Price protection for existing subscribers:
Failed Payments
If payment fails, we will automatically retry charging your payment method up to 3 times over 7 days. After 7 days, your account automatically downgrades to the Explore tier and the 30-day grace period begins. You must resolve payment issues within the grace period to maintain your grandfathered rate.
You agree to:
You are responsible for all activities that occur under your account.
Your Data
You retain all ownership rights to data you upload. We claim no ownership. By using the Service, you grant us a limited license to store, process, and display your data solely to provide the Service.
Our Rights
The Service, including all software, designs, text, graphics, logos, and other content, is owned by us and protected by copyright, trademark, and other intellectual property laws. You may not use our intellectual property without written permission.
Backups
While we maintain daily automated backups (7-day retention), you are responsible for maintaining your own backups of critical data. We provide export functionality for all your data in JSON format (User Profile → User Preferences → Security). During beta, we especially recommend weekly data exports.
File Handling and Security Scanning
Files you upload (documents, images, attachments, and similar) are stored in Storj's EU1 region, encrypted at rest. As part of providing the Service, every file you upload is automatically scanned for malware, viruses, and other security threats by AttachmentAV (an EU-hosted virus scanning service) before it becomes available to you or anyone you've chosen to share with.
What this means in practice:
See Section 5 of our Privacy Policy for the data-handling details of Storj and AttachmentAV.
We strive for 99.9% uptime but provide the Service on an "AS IS" and "AS AVAILABLE" basis with no uptime guarantees. As stated in Section 1.1 (Beta Service Notice), the Service is currently in beta and you acknowledge the risks of using beta software.
We are not liable for service interruptions due to:
⚠️ CRITICAL LEGAL NOTICE
Please read this section carefully. It limits our liability and affects your legal rights.
Beta Service Acknowledgment
As stated in Section 1.1, the Service is currently in beta. You acknowledge and accept the risks of using beta software, including potential bugs, data loss, service interruptions, and unexpected changes to features or functionality.
Service Availability
We provide the Service on an "AS IS" and "AS AVAILABLE" basis. We do not guarantee uninterrupted or error-free operation. While we strive for high availability, we do not guarantee specific uptime percentages, especially during the beta period.
Data Backup Responsibility
While we implement daily automated backups (7-day retention), you are responsible for maintaining your own backups of critical data. We provide data export functionality for this purpose. During beta, we especially recommend weekly data exports. Our liability for data loss is limited as described below.
✓ Plain English:
We provide the Service "as is" without guarantees. We try our best, but we can't promise perfection, especially during beta. If you need guaranteed uptime or warranties for your business, this may not be the right service for you yet.
⚖️ Legal Language:
TO THE MAXIMUM EXTENT PERMITTED BY LAW, WE DISCLAIM ALL WARRANTIES, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE, AND NON-INFRINGEMENT. We do not warrant that the Service will meet your requirements or that operation will be uninterrupted or error-free.
✓ Plain English:
If something goes wrong, the most you can recover is what you paid us in the last 12 months (or $100 if you're on the Explore plan). We're not responsible for lost revenue or business interruption beyond your subscription fees. See the "What This Means for You" box below for specific dollar amounts.
⚖️ Legal Language:
TO THE MAXIMUM EXTENT PERMITTED BY LAW:
Some jurisdictions do not allow the exclusion or limitation of certain damages, so some of these limitations may not apply to you. In such cases, our liability is limited to the maximum extent permitted by applicable law.
Important carveout: Nothing in this Section 9 limits our liability for our own fraud, willful misconduct, gross negligence, death or personal injury caused by our negligence, or any other liability that cannot lawfully be limited under applicable law (including California Civil Code § 1668, the Massachusetts Consumer Protection Act c. 93A, and the New Jersey Consumer Fraud Act). See Section 10.3 for the full carveout.
💡 What This Means for You
Plain English
Each of us covers the other for problems we cause. You cover us for things you did with the Service that got us in trouble. We cover you if our Service itself infringes someone's IP, if we do something reckless or intentional that harms you, or if we screw up data law on our side and you get fined for it. Sections 10.3 and the cross-reference in Section 9 also confirm we don't try to dodge liability for our own fraud, willful misconduct, or gross negligence — that's not legally possible anyway, and we're not pretending otherwise.
You agree to indemnify, defend, and hold harmless Velvet Ledger, its affiliates, and their respective officers, directors, employees, and agents from any claims, damages, losses, liabilities, and expenses (including reasonable legal fees) arising from:
We will defend you against any third-party claim alleging that your authorized use of the Service — as we provide it, unmodified — infringes that third party's U.S. copyright, registered trademark, or trade secret rights. We will pay any final judgment or court-approved settlement for such a claim.
This obligation does NOT apply to claims that arise from:
If we receive a credible IP-infringement claim against the Service, we may at our option (a) procure the right for you to continue using the Service, (b) modify the Service to be non-infringing while retaining substantially equivalent functionality, or (c) terminate the affected functionality and refund any prepaid fees attributable to that functionality for the remainder of your current billing period. Options (a) and (b) are our preference; (c) is the fallback if neither is commercially reasonable.
Nothing in these Terms — including the limitation of liability in Section 9, the warranty disclaimer in Section 9, or any cap or exclusion stated elsewhere — purports to limit or exclude our liability for:
For these specific items, the Section 9 liability cap does not apply. This Section 10.3 is intended to make explicit what these laws already require of us — we are not trying to disclaim what we legally cannot.
If we materially violate the GDPR, CCPA, or other applicable data protection law in our handling of your data, and that violation — not your handling of your own clients' data, not your own data controller obligations — directly causes you to be fined or sanctioned by a competent regulator, we will indemnify you for the actual amount of that fine or sanction, up to the Section 9 liability cap.
What this does not cover: fines triggered by your own data practices, complaints from your clients about how you used the Service, your failure to comply with your own obligations as a data controller, or any indirect, consequential, or speculative losses. To exceed the Section 9 cap, the underlying conduct must meet the Section 10.3 standard (gross negligence, willful misconduct, or law that prohibits the cap).
For either party to claim indemnification under this Section 10:
By You
You may cancel your subscription at any time through your account settings (Billing Settings → Cancel Subscription). Access continues until the end of your current billing period. See the Refund Policy section for details on refunds.
Account Deletion
You may permanently delete your account via Settings → Account → Delete Account. To prevent accidental deletion, we require verification:
Important: Before deletion, you will be prompted to download all your data. This is your last opportunity to export your data.
🗂️ Account Deletion Decision Tree:
Do you need immediate deletion for safety/security?
(Examples: unauthorized access, domestic violence, stalking, legal emergency)
Deletion Options:
Standard Deletion (Recommended - 7-Day Cancellation Window):
Emergency Immediate Deletion (Cannot Be Undone):
What Gets Deleted:
What We Retain (Legal Requirements):
Re-registration After User-Initiated Deletion
If you chose to delete your account (Standard or Emergency Deletion as described above), you may create a new account with the same email addressat any time, starting fresh with no data from the previous account.
This applies only to user-initiated deletion. If we terminated your account for cause, see "Re-registration After Termination by Us" below.
By Us — Suspension vs. Termination
⚠️ Account Suspension (Temporary)
We may suspend your account temporarily while we investigate potential violations. During suspension:
⏱️ Investigation Time Limits & Anti-Abuse Protections
We may suspend or terminate your account if you:
🚨 Fraud & Abuse Handling
We will provide 30 days' notice before termination except in cases of:
Re-registration After Termination by Us
Whether you may re-register after we terminate your account depends on the reason for the termination. We use three tiers:
🚫 Tier 1 — Permanent Ban (No Re-Registration)
The following terminations are permanent. We will refuse re-registration with the same email address and reserve the right to refuse service through any other identifiable means:
⚠️ Tier 2 — Discretionary Review
For other TOS violations not listed in Tier 1, re-registration eligibility is at our discretion. We may require additional verification, a waiting period of up to twelve months, a specific remediation, or a written commitment to the conduct underlying the original termination. Re-registration in Tier 2 is not automatic — you must contact us at support@velvetledger.io and request review.
✅ Tier 3 — Automatic Restoration
Accounts terminated due to payment problems, non-renewal, or extended inactivity (and not for cause under Tiers 1 or 2) may re-register at any time with no waiting period and no review. This is equivalent to the user-initiated deletion path described earlier in this Section 11.
How We Enforce Permanent Bans (Realism)
We are committed to being honest about what we can and cannot enforce:
⚖️ How Disputes Are Resolved (Plain English)
Step 1 — Send a Pre-Dispute Notice: Email legal@velvetledger.io with the details of the problem and what you want us to do about it (the full content requirements are below). We have 60 days to respond and try to resolve it informally — most disputes get resolved at this step.
Step 2 — Small claims court: If the dispute is small (typically under $10,000), you can sue us in small claims court if talking doesn't work.
Step 3 — Arbitration (not regular court): For larger disputes, instead of going to regular court with a judge and jury, we both agree to use arbitration (a neutral third party decides). This is usually faster and cheaper than court.
No class actions: You can't join a group lawsuit with other users. Disputes must be resolved one-on-one.
Why this matters: You're giving up your right to sue in regular court for most disputes. If you disagree with this, don't use the Service.
Informal Resolution First (Pre-Dispute Notice)
Before filing any formal claim, demand for arbitration, or small-claims action, you agree to send us a written Pre-Dispute Notice and to give us a reasonable opportunity to resolve the matter informally. We commit to the same obligation in reverse — if we have a dispute with you, we will send you a Pre-Dispute Notice before initiating any formal proceeding.
Where to send your Pre-Dispute Notice
Send the notice by email to legal@velvetledger.io with the subject line "Pre-Dispute Notice", or by mail to: Velvet Ledger, 123 E San Carlos St, Unit #184, San Jose, CA 95112. We will treat the date of receipt as the start of the resolution period.
What your Pre-Dispute Notice must contain
For the notice to start the resolution period, it must include all of the following:
Notices that omit any of the above are not effective Pre-Dispute Notices and do not start the resolution period. We will tell you what's missing within a reasonable time if we receive an incomplete notice.
The 60-day resolution period
We have 60 calendar days from the date we receive a complete Pre-Dispute Notice to respond and attempt informal resolution. During this period:
If the dispute is not resolved within 60 days, either party may then proceed under the procedures below (Mandatory Arbitration or small-claims court, as applicable).
Why we require this: Most disputes are misunderstandings that can be resolved without formal proceedings. This notice procedure gives us a real chance to fix problems quickly and fairly. It also makes the rest of this Section 12 (Arbitration and Class Action Waiver) enforceable — courts generally require pre-dispute procedures to be clear and reasonable, and the procedure above meets that standard.
Governing Law
These Terms are governed by the laws of the State of Delaware, without regard to conflict of law principles.
Mandatory Arbitration
Any dispute arising from these Terms or the Service must be resolved through binding arbitration rather than in court, except you may assert claims in small claims court if they qualify. Arbitration will be conducted by a single arbitrator under the rules of the American Arbitration Association (AAA). The arbitrator's decision is final and binding. Each party bears their own costs and fees, unless the arbitrator awards costs and fees to the prevailing party.
Class Action Waiver
You agree to resolve disputes individually and waive the right to participate in class actions or class arbitrations. This means you may not join your claim with claims of other users or participate as a member of a class of claimants.
Exceptions
Either party may seek injunctive relief in court for intellectual property violations or urgent matters requiring immediate action to prevent irreparable harm.
We may modify these Terms at any time. We will notify you of material changes via email and in-app notification at least 30 days before they take effect. Minor changes (clarifications, legal updates) will be posted here with an updated "Last Modified" date. Continued use of the Service after changes become effective constitutes acceptance of the modified Terms. If you disagree with changes, you may cancel your subscription before they take effect.
Entire Agreement
These Terms, along with our Privacy Policy and Refund Policy, constitute the entire agreement between you and Velvet Ledger regarding the Service.
Severability
If any provision is found unenforceable, the remaining provisions remain in full force and effect.
No Waiver
Our failure to enforce any right or provision does not constitute a waiver of that right or provision.
Assignment
You may not assign or transfer these Terms without our prior written consent. We may assign these Terms without restriction.
Questions about Terms of Service?
Email help@velvetledger.io with "Terms Question" in the subject. We respond within 3 business days.
Quick Jump:
🔑 Privacy Policy - Key Takeaways
Your data and AI
Velvet Ledger uses no AI. No language model or machine-learning service reads your data, and your data is not used to train one. Quick Capture reads what you type with fixed rules, in your browser. Your business data is stored in Germany, on Hetzner servers. You can download all of it at any time from Settings → Your data, and delete your account from Profile → User Preferences → Security → Delete Account (the Privacy Policy lists the few records kept after that, such as billing records).
This Privacy Policy explains how Velvet Ledger collects, uses, stores, and protects your personal information. We are committed to protecting your privacy and maintaining the security of your data.
🔒 Your business data is stored in the European Union (EU) on secure servers provided by Hetzner in Germany. Web traffic is routed directly from your browser to our EU servers — it does not pass through any US-based proxy or CDN. We use Cloudflare for DNS management only.
📍 Jurisdiction & Data Location Clarification
Although Velvet Ledger is governed by U.S. law (Delaware) for contractual matters, all personal data is processed and stored in the EU under GDPR-compliant conditions. This means you benefit from EU data protection standards regardless of your location.
Account Information:
Business Data:
Billing Information:
Usage Analytics & Telemetry:
🔒 Privacy First: We collect usage counts/metrics to identify bugs at scale (e.g., issues when users have 1,000+ contacts), but we NEVER use your actual contact names, emails, addresses, or transaction details for analytics or product improvement.
We use your information to:
Velvet Ledger includes analytical tools that summarize and categorize the data you have entered. Examples include period-over-period financial summaries, savings-rate calculations, profit-per-hour calculations, and a client-payment-reliability scoring view that ranks the contacts you have added by their payment patterns.
How these tools work
What these tools are NOT
If a result looks wrong: it is almost always because of the underlying data (a missing due date, a misclassified transaction, a contact not linked as a client). Correcting the source data will update the calculation immediately. You can also email privacy@velvetledger.io if you would like a deeper explanation of how any specific calculation works.
If you save a generated document: when you choose to save a generated document (for example, an invoice PDF) to your account, the file follows the standard file-storage path described in Sections 4 and 5: it is scanned for security by AttachmentAV (EU), stored at Storj EU1, and linked to the relevant records (the invoice and the client contact) so it can be found later from either the Files page, the invoice detail view, or the contact's profile. All of this happens within the EU. The generated document is not transmitted to a US-based or non-EU service at any step.
Storage Location
All of your business data is stored within the European Union, across two purpose-specific services:
How file content and metadata are separated: the file binary itself (the PDF pages, the image data) lives at Storj. The descriptive information about the file (filename, your tags, your description, and the references that link it to an invoice or a contact) lives in our Hetzner PostgreSQL database alongside the rest of your business data. This separation lets the user interface search and display your files quickly without having to read the underlying binary content.
Web traffic goes directly from your browser to our EU servers — it does not pass through any US-based CDN or proxy. Network-layer DDoS protection is provided by Hetzner.
We use Cloudflare for DNS management only. Cloudflare answers DNS queries (the technical lookup that tells your browser where our servers are) but does NOT see or process your actual web traffic, email content, or any data you store with us.
About data transfers outside the EU: A small number of limited operational data flows involve US-based service providers under Standard Contractual Clauses (SCCs) and signed Data Processing Agreements. Specifically: address text you enter into address fields is sent to Mapbox for autocomplete and validation, and phone numbers are sent to Twilio briefly during phone-number verification. The emails we send you go through Mailjet, which stores them in the EU. None of your stored business data ever leaves the EU. See Section 5 below for details on each service.
Current Encryption (Active Now)
Future Encryption Enhancements (Under Consideration)
Security Measures
Current Data Access: Our database administrators currently have technical access to the database for debugging and security purposes. All access is logged and reviewed monthly. Access is never used for marketing, analytics, or any purpose other than Service provision and security.
If we implement server-side encryption with user keys in the future, this technical access would become cryptographically meaningless — we wouldn't be able to read your data even with database access.
While we implement strong security measures, no system is 100% secure. You are responsible for maintaining the confidentiality of your account credentials.
We share limited data with these third-party services:
Dodo Payments (Merchant of Record)
Dodo Payments is our Merchant of Record (MOR). Dodo handles all payment processing, tax collection, receipts, and payment card data storage. When you subscribe to a paid plan, Dodo collects and stores your payment information directly — we never see or store your credit card details. Subscribing to a paid plan is subject to Dodo Payments' terms of service and privacy policy in addition to ours.
Dodo shares with us only: your subscription status, billing dates, transaction amounts, and a customer ID. Dodo does NOT share your payment card details, full address (only the country and postal code as needed for tax compliance), or other payment-specific information with us.
Billing Records Retention: While Dodo handles payment processing and stores payment card data, we (Velvet Ledger) are legally required to retain billing records (transaction metadata: dates, amounts, plan names, invoice IDs) for 8 years for tax and legal compliance. These records do NOT include your payment card details or business data — only transaction metadata.
What this means for you: Your payment card data will be protected by Dodo's PCI-DSS-compliant infrastructure. We will have no access to your payment information, significantly reducing your risk in the event of a data breach on our systems.
See Dodo Payments' terms of service and privacy policy for details on how Dodo handles your payment information.
Proton Mail (Inbound business email — Switzerland)
We use Proton Mail to receive emails sent to our business addresses (privacy@, support@, security@, refunds@, dpo@, help@). When you email us directly to ask a question, report a concern, or exercise a privacy right under GDPR, your message is received and stored by Proton Mail until we read and act on it.
What Proton Mail receives:
What Proton Mail does NOT receive:
Proton Mail is operated by Proton AG, based in Switzerland. Proton uses zero-access encryption — Proton itself cannot read messages stored in our inbox without our credentials. Switzerland has an adequacy decision from the European Commission, meaning Swiss data protection is treated as equivalent to EU standards under GDPR. See Proton's privacy policy.
Mailjet (Email We Send You)
We use Mailjet to send the emails our Service relies on: verification codes when you sign up, password reset links, billing and subscription notifications, security alerts, and similar service messages, plus any emails you choose to receive, such as the daily summary.
Mailjet processes the email address you registered with whenever we send you a message, plus the subject and body of that specific message. We do not send Mailjet your business data (contacts, files, notes, financial transactions, or similar) — only the email address you've registered with and the content of the specific message we're sending you. Mailjet tells us whether each email was delivered, bounced or blocked, so we can tell you when an address isn't working. We don't track whether you open our emails or click their links.
Mailjet is part of the Sinch group and stores this data in Google Cloud data centers in Frankfurt (Germany) and Saint-Ghislain (Belgium). See Mailjet's privacy policy.
Twilio (SMS phone-number verification)
We use Twilio to send SMS verification codes when you choose to add a phone number to your Velvet Ledger profile. This is used to prove ownership of the phone number — once verified, you can choose to display the number on your invoices, in your business contact details, or in other places where you want to provide it to your own clients. We use Twilio's Verify service, which manages code generation and validation as a managed service, so we never see or store the verification code itself.
What Twilio receives during verification:
What Twilio does NOT receive:
This is a one-time data flow per phone number. Twilio sees the phone number only during the verification step. The verified phone number itself is stored on our EU servers (Hetzner), not at Twilio. Sending a new verification (for example, if you re-verify or add a new number later) creates a new one-time flow at that moment.
A verified phone number cannot be used to look up your account at Twilio — because we never send Twilio any identifier that would link the phone number to your Velvet Ledger account.
Twilio is based in the United States and operates under Standard Contractual Clauses for EU data subjects. See Twilio's privacy policy.
Hosting Provider (Hetzner)
EU-based infrastructure provider (Germany). We have signed a Data Processing Agreement (DPA) ensuring GDPR compliance. All servers are located in EU data centers.
Storj (Encrypted file storage — EU1 region)
We use Storj to store the binary content of files you upload (the PDF pages, the image data, the document bytes) and of documents we generate at your request that you choose to save (invoice PDFs and similar). Storj is a decentralized cloud storage service that's S3-compatible. Your file content is stored in Storj's EU1 region, encrypted at rest with AES-256 and distributed across EU-based storage nodes.
What Storj stores: only the file binary itself, plus minimal Storj-side metadata needed to retrieve the file (your user ID as the uploader, the original filename, an upload timestamp, a content hash for integrity, and the scan status).
What Storj does NOT store: descriptive information about the file (the description you've written, the tags you've applied, the references linking it to an invoice or a contact in your address book). All of that is kept in our Hetzner PostgreSQL database alongside your other business data — so the user interface can search and display files quickly without reading the binary content.
How files move through our system:
Storj's decentralized architecture splits file data into encrypted shards distributed across multiple storage nodes — no single node holds a complete copy of any file. See Storj's privacy policy.
AttachmentAV (Antivirus scanning — EU-hosted)
We use AttachmentAV to scan files you upload for malware, viruses, and other security threats. The scanning happens automatically every time you upload a file, before the file becomes available to you or anyone in your shared groups.
How scanning works: After you upload a file, we place it in a quarantine bucket at Storj and generate a short-lived signed URL. We send that signed URL to AttachmentAV's EU-hosted service. AttachmentAV downloads the file via that URL, scans it, and returns the result to us. If clean, we move the file to permanent storage. If a threat is detected, we delete the file from quarantine immediately.
AttachmentAV is hosted in the EU at eu.developer.attachmentav.com. File content is not retained by AttachmentAV after scanning; only scan metadata (a hash of the file, the scan result, and the scan date) is retained for their service operation. See AttachmentAV's privacy policy.
Cloudflare (DNS Management)
We use Cloudflare to manage DNS for velvetledger.io. Cloudflare answers DNS queries — the technical lookups your browser makes to find our servers — but does NOT proxy or process your web traffic, email content, or any data you store with us. When you visit our site, your browser connects directly to our EU servers; Cloudflare is not in that data path.
We do not use Cloudflare's CDN, Web Application Firewall, Bot Fight Mode, or other traffic-processing products. If we ever turn those products on, we will update this Privacy Policy to disclose the change. See Cloudflare's privacy policy.
Mapbox (Address Autocomplete and Geocoding)
We use Mapbox to provide real-time address suggestions and to validate addresses you enter — for example, when you add a client's address, your business address, or an appointment location. When you type into an address field, the text you've entered is sent to Mapbox's API to retrieve suggestions or validate the address.
What Mapbox receives: the address text you typed and the IP address your request came from. That's all. We do not send Mapbox any other information about you — no user ID, no email address, no account details, and no information about your other addresses or activity.
What Mapbox does NOT receive: Mapbox cannot distinguish between Velvet Ledger users. All queries from all of our users are made under our single account-level access token, so from Mapbox's perspective they see "queries from the Velvet Ledger account" without any way to attribute them to specific individuals.
Mapbox is based in the United States and operates under Standard Contractual Clauses with EU data subjects. See Mapbox's privacy policy.
Sentry (Error tracking and performance monitoring — EU region)
We use Sentry to detect and diagnose technical errors and to monitor the performance of the Service. Sentry receives an event when something fails in a way we should investigate — for example, an unexpected error in our server or in your browser. We have deliberately designed our Sentry integration to send the minimum useful data, with pseudonymization applied to anything that could otherwise identify a user.
What Sentry receives:
What Sentry does NOT receive:
sendDefaultPii: false) on both server and clientSentry's data is hosted in Sentry's Germany region (de.sentry.io). Sentry GmbH operates under a Data Processing Agreement that ensures GDPR compliance. See Sentry's privacy policy.
Analytics Tools (Optional)
Today, we rely on server logs and aggregate counts for product health (errors/performance and feature usage trends). If we add optional privacy-focused analytics tools in the future, they will receive anonymized or aggregated data only — never your actual business data.
⚠️ We do NOT sell your data to third parties for marketing or advertising purposes. Period.
Under GDPR and other data protection laws, you have the right to:
To exercise these rights, visit User Profile → User Preferences → Security or email privacy@velvetledger.io. We will respond within 30 days as required by GDPR.
How long we keep different types of data:
| Data Type | Retention Period | Reason |
|---|---|---|
| Active Account Data (contacts, tasks, appointments, transactions, files, notes, groups) | While account is active | To provide the Service |
| Deleted Account - Standard (business data) | 7 days (cancellation window), then permanently deleted | Allow accidental deletion recovery |
| Deleted Account - Emergency (business data) | Immediately deleted (cannot recover) | Safety/security situations requiring urgent deletion |
| Billing Records (dates, amounts, plan names, invoice IDs) | 8 years from the end of the year the record was made in | Tax and accounting duties and payment disputes (legitimate interest, GDPR Art. 6(1)(f)) |
| Moderation Records (bans, suspensions, group removals: decision, reason, rule, content references) | While the account exists, then 3 years after it closes | Defending legal claims about moderation decisions (legitimate interest, GDPR Art. 6(1)(f)) |
| Security Audit Logs (login attempts, access records) | 1 year | Security monitoring and compliance |
| Disaster Recovery Backups | 28 days (automatic rotation) | Deleted data purged from backups within 28 days |
| Deletion Request Record (date, method, whether data was exported) | 7 years | GDPR compliance and audit trail |
We only send you promotional emails, product updates, or newsletters if you've explicitly opted in — meaning you ticked a box, signed up for a list, or otherwise affirmatively said yes. We do NOT pre-check consent boxes, we do NOT bundle marketing opt-in into other agreements, and we do NOT add you to a marketing list just because you have an account.
What we keep on file: a record of when and how you opted in (date, source, and the consent text you saw). We keep this so we can demonstrate your consent under GDPR Article 7 if asked, and so we can honor a withdrawal cleanly. If you didn't opt in, we don't email you marketing — full stop.
How to unsubscribe (any of these works):
We process unsubscribe requests within 10 business days (the CAN-SPAM statutory maximum), and usually within minutes. Once you unsubscribe, we keep a record of the withdrawal so you don't get accidentally re-added — but we stop sending.
What we never do: sell, rent, share, or trade your email address with other companies for their marketing. Our marketing emails come from us, about our Service. That's it.
Note: Unsubscribing from marketing emails does NOT stop transactional emails (password resets, billing notifications, security alerts, grace period warnings). Those are necessary for the Service and cannot be disabled while your account is active. Every marketing email also includes our physical mailing address (see Section 14), as required by U.S. anti-spam law (CAN-SPAM Act, 15 U.S.C. § 7704).
We use only essential cookies required to run the Service securely. We do not use marketing, analytics, or advertising cookies, and we do not sell data to ad networks.
velvetledger.sid): keeps you signed in after you log in (HttpOnly, SameSite).csrf_token): protects forms and account actions from cross-site request forgery.These cookies may be set when you use login or other interactive features. Browsing public pages alone does not require them. You can control cookies in your browser settings; disabling essential cookies may prevent sign-in or secure actions from working.
Velvet Ledger is intended for adults (18 years of age or older) running their own businesses. The Service is not designed for, marketed to, or directed at children. Per Section 6 of our Terms of Service, users must be at least 18 years old to register or use the Service. We do not knowingly collect personal information from any user under 18.
🛡️ Special Notice for Children Under 13 (COPPA)
The U.S. Children's Online Privacy Protection Act ("COPPA", 15 U.S.C. §6501 et seq., and the FTC's COPPA Rule at 16 C.F.R. Part 312) places special protections on the personal information of children under 13. We take these obligations seriously.
How our Service is structured: Velvet Ledger is an internal business-management tool — not a social network, public messaging platform, or content-sharing site. Users can communicate only within private groups they choose to join. There is no public profile, no public feed, no search-indexed content, no targeted advertising, and no behavioral profiling. We do not buy or sell user data, and we do not run third-party ad networks.
By design, we do not collect date of birth at registration. This is a deliberate privacy choice, not an oversight: the Service is intended for adults running their own businesses, and we follow a data-minimization principle of collecting only what we need to provide the Service. We treat any new collection of age data as a privacy cost that must be justified, not assumed. We therefore rely on the 18-or-older eligibility requirement in our Terms of Service (Section 6 of the Terms requires users to attest to being at least 18) and on reports from parents, guardians, the affected user, or other users to identify any account that may belong to a child under 13.
👨👩👧 If You Are a Parent or Legal Guardian
If you believe a child under 13 has registered for an account or provided personal information to Velvet Ledger, please tell us as soon as possible, using the report form (no account needed; you get a ticket number by email straight away) or by email to privacy@velvetledger.io with the subject line "COPPA — Child Account Report". Please include, to the extent you can:
There is no fee for making this report. You also have the right at any time to review the personal information we have collected from the child, to require us to delete it, and to refuse to permit further collection or use of the child's information.
📌 Why we ask for connecting information
Identity documents prove who a person is, but email accounts are not listed on identity documents. To act on a report, we need to bridge the two — connecting the child named on your documentation to the specific account being reported. We build this connection through information you provide, through our outreach to the account holder, or both. If we cannot make the connection through reasonable efforts, we may close the report as non-substantiated, while remaining open to re-opening it if you discover additional information later.
How We Become Aware (the COPPA "actual knowledge" standard)
Under COPPA, our obligations attach when we have actual knowledge that a user is under 13 — not when we suspect it, and not when we receive an anonymous tip. We do not proactively monitor user content, scan messages, or run age-estimation systems. We become aware of under-13 use through the following channels:
Receipt of a report does not, by itself, establish actual knowledge. Reports must be triaged for credibility before they trigger action on an account (see procedure below).
Phase A — Triage (within 2 business days of receipt)
When a report is received concerning possible under-13 use, we first assess its credibility before taking any action on the reported account. Credible reports typically contain:
We acknowledge receipt of all reports within 1 business day. We do not take any action on the reported account during triage. Anonymous reports, reports lacking specifics, and reports that appear to be made in bad faith (for example, retaliatory reports identifying competitors or ex-partners) are documented and closed at this phase without affecting the reported account.
Phase B — Investigation (up to 10 business days from credibility finding)
If a report is found credible at triage, we move into investigation. During this phase we take a limited protective action rather than a full suspension — this satisfies COPPA's requirement to stop collecting data from a child once we have actual knowledge, without subjecting an account that may belong to an adult to indefinite lockout:
The account holder has 5 business days from notification to respond. The response procedure is intentionally graduated so that legitimate adult users are not required to produce sensitive documents at first contact:
Verification document handling: Any documents we receive in Tiers 2 or 3 are reviewed only for the purpose of resolving the report and are destroyed within 30 days of report closure, unless we are legally required to retain them. We do not store, copy, share, or use these documents for any other purpose.
Phase C — If the report is substantiated (under-13 use confirmed)
When investigation establishes that the account is used by or contains personal information of a child under 13, we proceed with full COPPA-compliant remediation:
Phase D — If the report is not substantiated
If investigation closes without substantiating that the account belongs to a user under 13, we immediately:
⚠️ Bad-faith reports
If at any point we identify the report as malicious or made in bad faith — for example, a knowingly false report intended to harass an adult user, to disrupt service to a competitor, or to retaliate against an ex-partner or business rival — the investigation is closed AND the reporting account (if applicable) is itself referred for review under the anti-abuse procedures described in the next section. False reports are themselves a violation of these Terms.
🛡️ Protections Against Weaponized Reporting
We are aware that report channels can be abused to harass, suspend, or deplatform users. The following protections are built into the procedure above and are part of our binding commitment to all account holders:
Reports Concerning Users Aged 13 through 17
Reports that a user is under 18 but not under 13 are handled under our general TOS-violation procedure (see Section 11 of the Terms of Service), because the user's presence on the Service breaches the 18+ eligibility requirement in Section 6 of the Terms of Service but does not trigger COPPA. The same anti-abuse protections apply, and the same graduated verification ladder (signed self-attestation → voluntary verification → requested verification) is used. The total investigation window for these reports is 14 business days, slightly longer than the COPPA window because COPPA's promptness obligation does not apply.
If a user 13–17 is confirmed, the account is terminated for breach of the 18+ representation, the data is deleted, and any payment is refunded. The minimum compliance record described in Phase C is also retained.
Why the response above is sufficient: Because Velvet Ledger is a closed, private business tool — communication happens only within groups a user actively joins — any personal information a child may have provided is not publicly indexed, searchable, distributed, or sold. We do not run advertising, do not build behavioral profiles, and do not share personal information with marketing partners or data brokers. In the rare event that a child under 13 has used the Service, no profile of that child exists outside our systems, and deletion of the account is therefore a complete remediation.
Future safeguards: If we later add features that would make the Service more attractive to or accessible by children under 13 (for example, public profiles, public sharing, advertising, or under-18 user types), we will revise this Section 10 and, where required by COPPA, implement an age screen and obtain verifiable parental consent before collecting any personal information from a child under 13.
Relationship to other rights: This Section 10 supplements, and does not limit, the broader user-eligibility requirements in Section 6 of our Terms of Service. Reports concerning users aged 13 through 17 will also be reviewed and acted on; however, the COPPA-specific procedures described in this section apply only to children under 13.
If you access the Service from outside the European Union, your data will be transferred to and stored on EU servers (France and Germany). By using the Service, you consent to this transfer and the practices described in this Privacy Policy. Your data receives the strong protections of EU data protection laws regardless of your location.
In the unlikely event of a data breach affecting your personal information, we will:
We are committed to obtaining comprehensive cyber liability insurance before we begin charging customers and processing payments. This insurance will provide additional protection and resources in the event of a security incident.
We may update this Privacy Policy from time to time. We will notify you of material changes via email and in-app notification at least 30 days before they take effect. Minor changes (clarifications, legal updates) will be posted here with an updated "Last Modified" date. Your continued use of the Service after changes constitutes acceptance.
For privacy-related questions or to exercise your rights, contact us at:
Email: privacy@velvetledger.io
Data Protection Officer: dpo@velvetledger.io
Service: Velvet Ledger
Address: 123 E San Carlos St, Unit #184, San Jose, CA 95112
Questions about Privacy Policy?
Email privacy@velvetledger.io for privacy-related questions. We respond within 3 business days.
Full Refund Within 14 Days: If you're not satisfied within the first 14 days of your first payment, we'll issue a full refund, no questions asked.
How to Request: Email refunds@velvetledger.io or use Billing Settings → Request Refund.
Processing Time: Refunds processed within 5-7 business days to original payment method.
UK and EU customers: your right to cancel
If you live in the UK or the EU, the law gives you 14 days from buying a subscription to cancel it without giving a reason. When you choose a paid plan you ask us to start it straight away. The law would let us keep a share of the payment for the days you used; we don't. Cancel within 14 days of your first payment and we refund all of it.
To cancel, use Billing Settings → Request Refund, or email refunds@velvetledger.io saying you want to cancel. Any clear statement is enough; you don't need a form. We refund you within 14 days of hearing from you, to the card or account you paid with. This applies to a new subscription, not to its later renewals; you can stop those at any time in Billing Settings.
Cancel Anytime: No cancellation fees. Cancel via Billing Settings.
Access Until Period End: You retain full access until your current billing period expires.
No Pro-Rated Refunds: After the 14-day window, cancellations do not receive partial refunds for unused time.
Example: You pay $9.99 on January 1st for the Focus plan. You cancel on January 20th. You keep access until January 31st, but receive no refund (since you're past the 14-day window).
Effective Next Cycle: Downgrades take effect at the next billing date (you keep current plan until then).
No Refunds for Downgrades: Downgrading mid-cycle does not trigger refunds for the current period.
Lower limits: If the new plan has lower limits, you keep everything you have but can't add new records while you're over them (see Terms of Service, Section 4).
Immediate Access: Upgrades take effect immediately upon payment.
Pro-Rated Billing: You're charged the difference between plans, pro-rated for the remaining days in your current billing cycle. Next cycle bills at full new plan rate.
If you choose annual billing:
Retry Policy: We automatically retry failed payments 3 times over 7 days.
Grace Period: You have 7 days to update payment info before downgrade to Explore tier.
Notification: We email you immediately when payment fails, plus reminders at day 3 and day 6.
We may issue refunds outside the 14-day window for:
All exceptional refunds are at our discretion. Contact support@velvetledger.io
We understand that disputes happen. If you believe a charge on your card or bank account is incorrect, please contact us before filing a chargeback with your bank — most billing disputes are resolved quickly and informally.
📨 Pre-Chargeback Contact
Please email refunds@velvetledger.io with subject "Billing Dispute" and include:
We commit to responding within 5 business days and to resolving legitimate billing issues fairly. Where a refund is warranted under this Refund Policy or as a billing-error correction, we will issue it directly.
✅ Your statutory rights are preserved
Nothing in this Refund Policy or our Terms of Service waives or limits your statutory right to dispute a charge directly with your bank or card issuer. Federal law (the Fair Credit Billing Act for credit cards, 15 U.S.C. § 1666, and the Electronic Fund Transfer Act for debit and ACH, 15 U.S.C. § 1693f) and applicable state laws give you the right to dispute charges through your bank. We encourage you to contact us first because most disputes are misunderstandings — but if we cannot resolve the issue to your satisfaction, you retain your full statutory right to file a chargeback.
⚠️ Consequences of chargebacks within our service
This policy does not affect your bank dispute rights, but it does describe how chargebacks are handled within Velvet Ledger:
Why this policy exists: Most billing disputes are misunderstandings — a duplicate charge, a renewal you forgot about, a charge from a partner that you didn't recognize, or a service issue we can fix. Resolving these by email is faster and easier for both of us than going through a bank chargeback process, which can take 60–90 days to resolve. We've structured this policy to preserve your statutory rights while encouraging the quickest path to resolution.
Questions about Refunds?
Email refunds@velvetledger.io for billing or refund questions. We respond within 3 business days.
Q: Can Velvet Ledger employees access my data?
A: Currently: Our database administrators have technical access to the database, but we have strict access controls and audit logging in place. Database access is:
Future (2026): We're developing server-side encryption where your data will be encrypted with your unique encryption key, making it cryptographically impossible for our staff to access your data even with database access. Once implemented, not even we will be able to read your business data.
Your Current Protection:
If you have concerns about current data access, please email security@velvetledger.io
Q: What happens if there's a data breach?
A: We notify relevant supervisory authorities within 72 hours (GDPR requirement) and affected users without undue delay, typically within 72 hours as well. You'll receive details about what data was affected, what we're doing about it, and recommended actions. We are committed to obtaining comprehensive cyber liability insurance before we begin charging customers.
Q: How often do you back up my data?
A: Automated backups run every 6 hours. We retain daily backups for 30 days, weekly backups for 3 months, and monthly backups for 1 year. Backups are encrypted and stored in geographically separate Hetzner data centers within the EU. You can also manually export your data anytime in JSON format.
Q: Can I use Velvet Ledger for healthcare/financial data (HIPAA/PCI)?
A: No. We are GDPR-compliant but not HIPAA or PCI-DSS certified, and we have no current plans for these certifications. Do not store protected health information (PHI) or credit card numbers in Velvet Ledger.
Q: How do I export my data?
A: Go to User Profile → User Preferences → Security tab. You'll receive a JSON file containing all your data within 24 hours (usually within minutes). Available on all plans (including Free).
What's included in the export:
⚠️ Important: The export includes file metadata but not the actual files. Download your files separately before account deletion if needed. Passwords and security tokens are automatically excluded from exports.
Q: What if Velvet Ledger goes out of business?
A: In the unlikely event of bankruptcy or shutdown, we commit to:
This commitment is legally binding and will be honored by any acquiring company. You always retain full ownership of your data and can export it at any time from User Profile → User Preferences → Security.
Q: Can I transfer my account to someone else?
A: Account ownership cannot be transferred directly. To move your data to another user: export your data (Settings → Export Data), then have the new user create their own account and import it. Note: You can transfer ownership of individual Groups to other group members via the group settings.
Q: I accidentally deleted my account — can I recover it?
A: It depends on which deletion method you used:
If you used standard deletion (7-day cancellation window):
If you used emergency deletion ("delete immediately for safety"):
Prevention tip: We strongly recommend downloading your data before deleting your account. Go to User Profile → User Preferences → Security to export all your data.
Q: What happens when my trial ends or if I don't pay my bill?
A: Timeline:
Your data is never deleted due to non-payment. Upgrade anytime to restore full access.
Q: Can I pause my subscription instead of canceling?
A: Not directly, but you can downgrade to the Explore plan (keeps your data, limits features). When you're ready to resume, upgrade back to your previous plan. All your data stays accessible on the Explore plan; if you have more than 250 records you can't add new ones until you upgrade again. Nothing is locked, hidden or deleted.
Q: What can I do when I'm over my plan's limit?
A: Everything except adding new records:
Example: You have 400 records on the Explore plan (limit: 250). You can view, edit and export all 400, and delete any to get under 250, but you can't add a new record until you upgrade or reduce your data.
Q: Do you support multi-factor authentication (MFA)?
A: Planned We’re working on MFA with a target of Q2 2026. In the meantime, use a strong, unique password (12+ characters with uppercase, lowercase, numbers, and symbols). If you’d like a heads-up when it’s available, email security@velvetledger.io.
Q: Do you offer discounts for nonprofits/students/startups?
A: We don't currently have a formal discount program. Our free Explore tier provides full feature access with capacity limits, which works well for many small organizations and individuals just getting started.
Q: Where exactly is my data stored?
A: Your business data is stored in Hetzner data centers in Germany (EU). Web traffic goes directly from your browser to our EU servers — it does not pass through a US-based CDN. We use Cloudflare for DNS management only (the lookup that tells your browser where our servers are); Cloudflare does not see or process your data. Network-layer DDoS protection is provided by Hetzner. Limited operational data (transactional email recipient addresses, address text for autocomplete, phone numbers during SMS verification) is processed by US-based service providers under Standard Contractual Clauses — see Section 5 of the Privacy Policy for specifics. For non-EU customers who prefer local storage, we're exploring US/APAC regions for 2026 — email dataresidency@velvetledger.io to request.
Q: Do you have an API for integrations?
A: Yes, on the Flourish plan. REST API with full CRUD access to contacts, tasks, transactions, and files. Rate limit: 1,000 requests/hour. Documentation: docs.velvetledger.io/api. Webhooks available for real-time event notifications.
Q: Can I self-host Velvet Ledger?
A: No, Velvet Ledger is a cloud-only SaaS platform and is not open source. However, you can export all your data at any time from User Profile → User Preferences → Security. For enterprise customers needing on-premise deployment, contact enterprise@velvetledger.io to discuss custom licensing options (minimum 100 users).
Q: What's your uptime/SLA guarantee?
A: We target 99.9% uptime but do not offer formal SLAs on standard plans. Check real-time status at status.velvetledger.io. Flourish plan customers with 99.5% uptime SLA available for +$20/mo (pro-rated credits for violations). Enterprise customers can negotiate custom SLAs.
Q: Are you SOC 2 compliant?
A: Not currently. We're an early-stage company focused on building a secure, privacy-respecting product. We follow security best practices (encryption, access controls, secure infrastructure), but we have not undergone formal SOC 2 certification. If you have specific security questions, please email support@velvetledger.io.
Q: Do you comply with CCPA (California privacy law)?
A: Yes. While we're EU-based and GDPR-compliant (which exceeds CCPA requirements), California residents have additional rights:
Email privacy@velvetledger.io to exercise CCPA rights.
Q: Will you comply with legal requests for my data (court orders)?
A: Yes, if legally required. We will:
To date, we've received zero legal requests for user data.
Still have questions?
We're here to help! Email support@velvetledger.io and we'll get back to you within 3 business days.
EU Data Protection Officer: For GDPR compliance inquiries, contact our DPO at dpo@velvetledger.io
Response Time: We aim to respond to all inquiries within 3 business days.
GDPR Requests: Processed within 30 days as required by law.
Last updated: October 23, 2026