Terms of Service

1. Who we are, scope, contract language

These Terms govern the use of the Looly service (web app at looly.app and the Looly iOS app) provided by Tillmann Bedau (Looly), Ebertplatz 10, 50668 Köln, Germany — email support@looly.app ("Looly", "we"). Looly is a consumer service; these Terms address you as a consumer. These Terms exist in German and English. For consumers whose habitual residence is in Germany, the German version is authoritative; otherwise the English version applies.

2. The service

Looly lets you create private "circles" around a child, invite family and friends by personal invitation, and share photos and videos with them. Core characteristics: circles are private and invitation-only; there are no public links, no advertising in the product, no content scanning, and originals are stored in EU object storage; processing and playback delivery are described in our Privacy Policy. Members hold roles per circle (admin, contributor, follower) with different permissions. A companion iOS app is available; web purchases use Stripe Managed Payments, and available in-app subscriptions use Apple StoreKit.

3. Your account

• You must be at least 18 years old and provide accurate information.
• Sign-in uses one-time email codes or passkeys. Keep access to your email account secure; actions taken through your account are attributed to you.
• One account per person. Accounts are personal and not transferable.

4. Plans, prices, free members

• Only a circle's paying admin needs a subscription. It covers every circle that admin administers, with a storage allowance (currently 250 GB on the annual and monthly plans). Invited members — contributors, followers, grandparents — never pay.
• The available plans and their prices are shown on our home page and at checkout (currently: annual €99/year, monthly €12/month; a one-time "Founding Family" lifetime plan is offered in limited windows). All prices are total prices; applicable VAT is handled by our merchant of record (§ 5).
• When your storage allowance is full, new uploads pause until you free space or upgrade. Existing content is never deleted because storage is full.
• Earlier plans or storage add-ons that are no longer offered remain valid for existing customers on their agreed conditions.

5. Ordering, payment, merchant of record

Subscriptions and one-time purchases are concluded through the checkout of Stripe, which acts as merchant of record: the seller identified at checkout and on your receipt (Stripe’s Managed Payments service) is the seller of the payment transaction, collects payment, applies and remits VAT, and issues your invoice. The service relationship — everything these Terms describe — is between you and Looly. Payment methods, currency display and receipts are provided by Stripe at checkout; recurring plans renew automatically until cancelled.

Apple purchases are subject to the App Store’s displayed prices, trial eligibility, renewal, cancellation and refund terms. Manage Apple subscriptions in your Apple account; deleting Looly or your Looly account does not cancel them. The web’s voluntary refund guarantee does not replace Apple’s refund process. TestFlight purchases use Apple’s sandbox and do not charge real money.

6. Free trial

• Eligible first-time web subscriptions on annual and monthly plans start with a 14-day free trial. A payment method is collected at the start so your space never pauses, but nothing is charged before the trial ends.
• We email you a reminder 4 days before the trial ends. If you cancel before the trial ends, you pay nothing.
• After the trial, the plan you chose begins automatically and renews until cancelled.

7. Right of withdrawal (consumers)

As a consumer you have a statutory right of withdrawal. Note that for the annual and monthly plans the 14-day free trial runs alongside it: cancelling within the trial already costs nothing, and our voluntary 30-day money-back guarantee (§ 8) is broader than the statutory right. The statutory instruction follows.

Instruction on withdrawal

Right of withdrawal. You have the right to withdraw from this contract within 14 days without giving any reason. The withdrawal period is 14 days from the day of the conclusion of the contract. To exercise the right, you must inform us — Tillmann Bedau (Looly), Ebertplatz 10, 50668 Köln, Germany, email support@looly.app — of your decision by an unambiguous statement (e.g. an email). You may use the model withdrawal form below, but it is not obligatory. To meet the deadline it is sufficient to send your communication before the withdrawal period expires.

Effects of withdrawal. If you withdraw, we shall reimburse all payments received from you without undue delay and at the latest within 14 days from the day we receive your withdrawal, using the same means of payment you used, at no cost to you. If you requested that the service begin during the withdrawal period, you shall pay us an amount proportionate to the services provided up to the time you informed us of the withdrawal, compared with the full coverage of the contract. (On trial plans this amount is zero, since the trial is free.)

You can also use our Withdraw from contract function. We confirm receipt electronically without undue delay.

Model withdrawal form

8. 30-day money-back guarantee

For web purchases, independently of your statutory rights, we offer a voluntary guarantee: if Looly is not right for you, tell us within 30 days of your first charge at support@looly.app and we refund that payment in full, to the original payment method. This guarantee does not restrict your statutory rights (§ 7, § 12) in any way.

9. Term, cancellation, what happens after

• The initial paid term is one month or one year, as shown at checkout. You may cancel free of charge during the trial, and thereafter at any time for the end of the initial term. The web subscription then continues indefinitely and may be cancelled at any time with no more than one month’s notice. Annual advance billing does not create a new minimum term; we refund prepaid charges proportionally for time after the effective end. Use the billing portal or Cancel contract, without logging in. If a payment portal displays a later date, use this form to request the earlier statutory date. Your right to terminate for good cause remains unaffected. See section 5 for Apple purchases.
• If your subscription ends or a payment fails, nothing is deleted. Your circles switch to read-only for a grace period of about 90 days; after that they become inaccessible until you subscribe again. Circle export (§ 10) keeps working throughout — during the trial, the grace period, and after deactivation.
• Plan switches: before you confirm, the Stripe customer portal shows the effective date and any charge or credit. A change may take effect at the end of the current billing period. For an immediate change, the remaining time is taken into account on a prorated basis. Switching during a trial preserves the existing trial; it does not start a new trial. Your statutory cancellation and refund rights remain unaffected.
• We may terminate for good cause (§ 11) or discontinue the service with at least three months' notice, in which case prepaid, unused periods are refunded pro rata.

10. Your content — ownership, licence, export

• You keep all rights to what you upload. You grant Looly the non-exclusive, worldwide licence, limited to operating the service, to store, reproduce, transcode, generate previews of, display and export your content to the members of the circles you share it into. The licence ends when the content is deleted, except for short technical retention (trash, asynchronous cleanup).
• You are responsible for your uploads: you confirm that you hold the necessary rights and — where photos show other people, especially children — that you are entitled to share them into the circle (e.g. as a parent, or with the consent of those depicted / their guardians).
• Role semantics: the uploader owns each photo. Circle admins moderate their circle — removing a photo from a circle un-shares it there but never destroys the uploader's copy. Admin deletion moves a photo to the uploader's trash, from which the uploader can restore it.
• Export: circle admins can export a circle at any time (original files including their metadata, plus comments, albums and member lists as data files) — this works regardless of subscription status. Per-photo original download is subject to the circle's download policy.
• Deleting your account removes your content and the circles you created as described in the privacy policy; content other members uploaded stays theirs.

11. Acceptable use and content rules

You must not use Looly to:

• store or share content that is illegal, that infringes third-party rights (copyright, personality rights), or that depicts minors in a sexualised manner;
• harass others, or upload malware or content designed to compromise the service;
• circumvent technical limits, resell access, use the service for bulk storage unrelated to family sharing (a fair-use ceiling of 100 GiB of uploads per member applies within a circle's allowance), or access the service by automated means except documented interfaces.

Reporting content ("notice and action"). Anyone can report content they believe to be illegal to support@looly.app, describing the content, where it appears, and why it is unlawful. We review notices promptly. We may remove or disable content, restrict features, or — for serious or repeated violations — suspend or terminate accounts. Where we take such measures we inform the affected person with reasons, unless the law prevents it. We do not proactively scan content; moderation within circles is otherwise up to circle admins. Decisions can be contested by replying to the notice outcome; statutory rights (including under the EU Digital Services Act) remain unaffected.

12. Technical limits, availability, changes to the service

• Media limits currently: common photo formats (HEIC/JPEG/PNG/WebP/GIF) and videos (MP4/MOV) up to 2 GB and 10 minutes per video; photos up to 50 MB. Originals are always preserved; in rare fallback configurations the in-app playback rendition of a video may be shortened, while the original stays complete and downloadable.
• We aim for high availability but do not guarantee uninterrupted access; maintenance and updates may cause short interruptions.
• Changes beyond necessary updates require valid reasons, such as security, compatibility with changed operating systems or technical requirements, no extra cost, and clear information. For more than minor adverse effects, we notify you in advance on a durable medium (such as email), describing the change, its timing and your rights. You may then end the contract without charge within 30 days under § 327r BGB, unless unchanged access and usability remain available at no extra cost.

13. Statutory warranty and updates

The statutory warranty rules for digital products (§§ 327 et seq. of the German Civil Code, BGB) apply. We provide the updates necessary to keep the service in conformity with the contract for the duration of your subscription and inform you about them in the product. Defects can be reported to support@looly.app.

14. Liability

We are liable without limitation for intent and gross negligence, for injury to life, body or health, under the German Product Liability Act, and under guarantees we have given. For slight negligence we are liable only for breach of essential contractual obligations (obligations whose fulfilment makes proper performance of the contract possible in the first place and on whose observance you regularly rely), limited to the damage foreseeable and typical at contract conclusion. Otherwise, liability for slight negligence is excluded. Keep your own backups in mind: export is free and always available (§ 10), and we recommend using it regularly.

15. Changes to these Terms

We may propose amendments to these Terms for the future for valid reasons — changes in law or case law, new features, or changes in the technical or commercial environment — and where the amendment is reasonable for you. We announce amendments at least 6 weeks before they take effect, by email or in the product. If you do not agree, you can cancel before the effective date; your subscription then ends at the effective date at the latest, and prepaid unused periods are refunded pro rata. Where your agreement is required, changes take effect only with your express agreement; silence is not acceptance. Price changes never apply to a running billing period.

16. Final provisions

• German law applies, excluding the UN Convention on Contracts for the International Sale of Goods. If you are a consumer, the mandatory consumer-protection provisions of the state of your habitual residence remain unaffected.
• We are neither willing nor obliged to participate in dispute-resolution proceedings before a consumer arbitration board (§ 36 VSBG).
• Should individual provisions of these Terms be invalid, the remainder stays unaffected; statutory law replaces the invalid provision.