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Terms of Service

Draft — prepared for legal reviewLast updated 2026-07-04

TODO(legal): confirm the contracting entity name, registered address, and company/registration number below before this page leaves draft status. Until then, "Webstead," "we," "us," and "our" refer to the operator of webstead.app, a business registered in Lithuania ([legal entity name — TODO], [registered address — TODO], [registration number — TODO]).

These Terms of Service ("Terms") govern your access to and use of Webstead's website, dashboard, and hosting services (together, the "Service"). By creating an account or otherwise using the Service, you agree to these Terms. If you don't agree, don't use the Service.

1. Acceptance of these Terms

You must be at least 16 years old (or the age of digital consent in your jurisdiction, if higher) and able to form a binding contract to use the Service. If you're using the Service on behalf of an organization, you're confirming you have authority to bind that organization to these Terms.

2. The Service, and the fact that it's a beta

Webstead is managed hosting for static and client-rendered websites on the Internet Computer (IC), a public blockchain network. We provision an IC "asset canister" for each site you deploy, fund it with the network's cycles, and handle deployment, custom domains, and monitoring on your behalf.

The Service is currently offered as a public beta. We do not provide a Service Level Agreement (SLA) or uptime guarantee during the beta period, and features described on our Features, Pricing, and FAQ pages may change, be added, or be removed without notice as the product develops. We try to be transparent about what's stable and what isn't — see the FAQ's "what works today / not in the beta yet" breakdown — but the beta label means exactly what it says: things may break, and we'll fix them as fast as we reasonably can, without a contractual uptime commitment.

3. Accounts

You're responsible for maintaining the confidentiality of your account credentials and for all activity under your account. Tell us promptly at support@webstead.app if you believe your account has been compromised. One workspace per account during the beta; team/multi-user workspaces are on our roadmap but not yet available.

4. Plans, pricing, and cycles

Current plan tiers, included quotas, and indicative pricing are published on our Pricing page and may change as we approach general availability. During the beta, all plans are free and Webstead funds the underlying network cycles for your sites, subject to the per-site and per-plan cycle budgets described in our docs. When paid billing launches, we will give notice before charging any account that hasn't explicitly opted into a paid plan.

Where Webstead processes payments (for example, cycle top-up purchases), those payments are handled by Stripe, Inc., and are subject to Stripe's own terms in addition to these.

5. Acceptable use

Your use of the Service is also governed by our Acceptable Use Policy, which is incorporated into these Terms by reference. We may suspend or terminate access for violations of that policy.

6. Your content

You retain all ownership rights in the website content, code, and data you deploy through the Service ("Your Content"). You grant Webstead a limited license to host, copy, transmit, and display Your Content solely as necessary to operate the Service (for example, publishing it to an IC asset canister and serving it to visitors). You're solely responsible for Your Content and for ensuring you have the rights necessary to publish it.

7. Blockchain-specific terms

Because the Service is built on a public blockchain network, some things work differently from a conventional web host:

  • Webstead acts as canister controller on your behalf. During the beta, the canisters backing your sites are controlled by a Webstead-operated principal, which is what lets us deploy, update, and manage cycles for you. This is a convenience arrangement, not permanent custody — see our self-custody export process for how to have a canister's control transferred to a principal you own.
  • Canister IDs are public. Every canister has a public, on-chain identifier that anyone can look up via the Internet Computer's public dashboard. This is a property of the network, not a Webstead disclosure choice, and it lets you (or anyone) independently verify what's actually deployed.
  • Content published to a canister runs on a public, replicated network. Unlike deleting a file on a private server, content that has been served from a canister may have been observed, cached, or copied by third parties outside of Webstead's control while it was live. Removing a site from your dashboard removes it from Webstead's systems and stops it being served, but we can't guarantee erasure from every downstream cache or archive on the public internet.
  • Deleting a site burns its remaining cycles. Unlike pausing or freezing (which is recoverable with a top-up), deleting a canister is final and does not refund unused cycles. Think of it as closing the account, not archiving it.
  • No cycle refunds. Cycles consumed by network computation, storage, or an intentional delete are not refundable, whether funded by you or by Webstead.

8. Third-party integrations

If you connect a GitHub account, we request the minimum OAuth scopes needed to list your repositories, read their contents for builds, and register a push webhook for auto-deploy. Access tokens are encrypted at rest. You can disconnect GitHub access at any time from your account settings and from GitHub's own application-authorization settings.

9. Termination

You may stop using the Service and delete your sites at any time. We may suspend or terminate your access if you materially violate these Terms or the Acceptable Use Policy, or if we discontinue the Service (in which case we'll give reasonable notice where practical). Sections that by their nature should survive termination (including Sections 6, 7, 10, and 11) will survive.

10. Disclaimers and limitation of liability

The Service is provided "as is" and "as available," without warranties of any kind, express or implied, to the maximum extent permitted by applicable law. We do not warrant that the Service will be uninterrupted, error-free, or secure, particularly during the beta period described in Section 2.

To the maximum extent permitted by applicable law, Webstead's total liability arising out of or relating to the Service is limited to the amount you paid us in the twelve months preceding the claim (or, for the free beta, to zero). Nothing in these Terms limits liability that cannot be limited under applicable law, including liability for gross negligence, willful misconduct, or death or personal injury caused by our negligence, to the extent such limitations are void under Lithuanian or EU law.

11. Changes to these Terms

We may update these Terms as the Service evolves. We'll update the "Last updated" date above and, for material changes, make a reasonable effort to notify active account holders (for example, by email or an in-dashboard notice). Continued use of the Service after a change takes effect constitutes acceptance of the updated Terms.

12. Governing law

These Terms are governed by the laws of the Republic of Lithuania, without regard to its conflict-of-laws principles. Any dispute arising out of or relating to these Terms or the Service will be subject to the exclusive jurisdiction of the competent courts of Lithuania, without prejudice to any mandatory consumer-protection rights you may have in your country of residence under EU law.

13. Contact

Questions about these Terms: support@webstead.app or our contact page.