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Terms of Service

Effective August 19, 2026 · Last updated August 19, 2026

1. Agreement to these Terms

These Terms of Service (“Terms”) form a binding agreement between you and Settle, a sole proprietor trading as Settle (“Settle”, “we”, “us”, or “our”), governing your access to and use of the Settle mobile application, the Settle website at https://joinsettle.app, the guest payment pages served at https://joinsettle.app/b/..., and all related features and services (collectively, the “Service”).

By downloading, installing, accessing, or using the Service — including by opening a shared bill link without creating an account — you agree to be bound by these Terms. If you do not agree, do not use the Service.

Our Privacy Policy is incorporated into these Terms by reference.

2. Eligibility

You must be at least 18 years old to use the Service. By using the Service you represent and warrant that you are at least 18, that you have the legal capacity to enter into this agreement, and that you are not barred from using the Service under the laws of your jurisdiction.

We rely on your representation and do not verify age or identity at registration. This age requirement exists in part because the third-party payment services the Service refers you to generally impose their own minimum age requirements, which you are responsible for meeting.

The Service is not directed to children and we do not knowingly collect information from persons under 18. If we learn that we have collected information from a person under 18, we will delete that information and terminate the associated account.

3. What Settle is — and what it is not

This Section 3 is the most important part of these Terms. Please read it in full.

3.1 Settle is a record-keeping and communication tool

Settle helps you record shared expenses, calculate how a bill divides among participants, and share a summary of what each participant owes. That is the entirety of what the Service does.

3.2 Settle does not handle money

Settle never takes possession, custody, or control of any funds.

Specifically, and without limitation, Settle:

  • does not accept, hold, store, transmit, transfer, convert, or disburse money or any monetary value, in any currency, at any time;
  • does not maintain any account, balance, wallet, ledger of value, or stored-value instrument on your behalf;
  • does not act as an intermediary, agent, escrow agent, or custodian in any payment;
  • does not process, initiate, authorize, settle, clear, or route any payment transaction;
  • does not issue, acquire, or service any payment instrument;
  • does not charge, collect, or remit any payment between users; and
  • receives no portion, fee, commission, or spread on any amount that users pay one another.

All payments between users occur entirely outside the Service. When you use the Service to pay another user, you are directed to a third-party application, website, or payment rail — including but not limited to Venmo, Cash App, PayPal, Zelle, UPI, GCash, Pix, Mercado Pago, or a bank transfer such as SPEI — where any payment takes place directly between you and the other user, subject to that third party's terms and controls. Settle is not a party to that transaction, has no visibility into it, and receives no notification of it.

3.3 Settle is not a financial institution or regulated payment service

Settle is not a bank, credit union, trust company, money services business, money transmitter, payment institution, electronic money institution, payment processor, payment facilitator, lender, debt collector, escrow service, or financial adviser, and it does not hold itself out as any of these. Settle is not licensed or registered as any of the foregoing, because the Service does not perform any activity requiring such licensure or registration.

Nothing in the Service constitutes financial, tax, accounting, or legal advice.

3.4 Settle does not create, guarantee, or enforce any debt

Amounts shown in the Service are a convenience record of what users have told the Service. They are not invoices, demands for payment, negotiable instruments, promissory notes, accounts receivable, or legally enforceable obligations created by Settle.

Settle does not:

  • guarantee that any amount will be paid;
  • advance, insure, underwrite, or indemnify any amount;
  • collect any amount on any user's behalf; or
  • take any position on whether any obligation between users exists or is owed.

Any obligation between users arises solely from their own arrangement with one another. Settle is not a party to that arrangement and has no rights or duties under it.

3.5 Disputes between users are between users

If you disagree with another user about an expense, an amount, a split, whether a payment was made, or anything else, you must resolve it directly with that user. Settle has no ability to adjudicate, reverse, refund, freeze, recover, or compel any payment, and will not attempt to do so. Settle is not obligated to mediate, investigate, or take any side in a dispute between users.

4. Accounts, handles, and guest access

4.1 Account registration

You may create an account using Sign in with Apple, Google, or an email address and password. You are responsible for maintaining the confidentiality of your credentials and for all activity that occurs under your account. Notify us at support@joinsettle.app if you believe your account has been compromised.

4.2 Handles

When you create an account you select a public handle. Handles are unique, are visible to other users, and appear on shared bill pages. We may reclaim, modify, or refuse any handle that impersonates another person or entity, infringes a trademark, is offensive, or is used in violation of these Terms.

4.3 Guest access

Some features may be used without an account, and any person holding a valid share link may view the bill it references. These Terms apply to guest use of the Service in full.

5. Payment method identifiers — self-reported and unverified

5.1 You supply them; we do not verify them

You may add identifiers for third-party payment services to your Settle profile — for example a Venmo username, a Cash App cashtag, a PayPal.me link, a Zelle email or phone number, a UPI VPA, a GCash mobile number, a Pix key, a Mercado Pago alias, or an 18-digit CLABE for SPEI (each, a “Payment Identifier”).

Settle does not verify, validate, authenticate, or confirm any Payment Identifier. We do not check that a Payment Identifier exists, that it is active, that it is correctly formatted beyond basic pattern and check-digit validation, that it belongs to the person who entered it, or that it corresponds to any account at any institution. We have no relationship with the operators of these services and no means of confirming any of the foregoing.

Any format validation we perform is a convenience only and is not a representation that a Payment Identifier is correct, valid, or safe to pay.

5.2 You are responsible for accuracy

You represent and warrant that every Payment Identifier you add is your own, is accurate, and is one you are authorized to publish. You are solely responsible for keeping your Payment Identifiers accurate and current.

5.3 Payment Identifiers are shared with others

By adding a Payment Identifier, you instruct us to display it to people you split expenses with and to any person holding a valid share link to a bill on which you are owed money. Do not add a Payment Identifier you are unwilling to have seen by those people.

5.4 Risk of misdirected payment

If you send money to a Payment Identifier, you do so entirely at your own risk. A payment sent to an incorrect, outdated, mistyped, or fraudulent Payment Identifier may be irreversible, and Settle has no ability to stop, reverse, trace, or recover it. Verify the recipient independently before sending money. Settle bears no responsibility or liability for any payment sent to any Payment Identifier for any reason.

6. Deep links to third-party payment applications

The Service may generate a link intended to open a third-party payment application with certain fields pre-filled, or may allow you to copy a payment identifier or payment code to your clipboard.

These links and codes are provided as a convenience only. Settle:

  • makes no representation that any such link will open, resolve, or function on your device;
  • makes no representation that any pre-filled amount, recipient, currency, or note will be accepted, retained, or correctly interpreted by the third-party application;
  • receives no confirmation, callback, receipt, webhook, or other notification from any third-party application about whether a payment was attempted, completed, declined, or reversed; and
  • has no control over and assumes no responsibility for the content, policies, availability, or practices of any third-party application or payment rail.

You must independently confirm within the third-party application that any payment is correct before you authorize it. Your use of any third-party payment service is governed solely by that service's own terms and privacy policy.

7. “Marked as paid” is a user statement, not a verification

The Service allows a user to indicate that a payment has been made or received. Any such indication is a statement by a user, recorded as-is. It is not a verification, confirmation, receipt, proof, or guarantee by Settle that any payment occurred, that funds were transferred, that any amount was correct, or that any obligation was discharged.

Settle has no independent means of confirming any payment and does not attempt to do so. Do not rely on the Service as evidence of payment.

8. Receipt scanning and automated extraction

The Service may allow you to photograph a receipt for automated text extraction (“OCR”) by us or by a third-party processing provider.

OCR is automated, probabilistic, and frequently imperfect. Extracted merchant names, line items, quantities, prices, taxes, tips, and totals may be inaccurate, incomplete, misattributed, or wholly incorrect. You are solely responsible for reviewing and correcting all extracted information before relying on it or sharing it. Settle makes no warranty as to the accuracy of any extracted data and is not liable for any consequence of relying on it.

You represent that you have the right to photograph and upload any receipt or document you submit, and that doing so does not violate any third party's rights.

9. Share links

The Service generates links that allow any recipient to view a bill summary without an account.

Any person holding a share link can view the associated bill, including the expense description, amounts, participant display names and handles, and the relevant Payment Identifiers. Share links are unguessable but are not otherwise access-controlled.

You are solely responsible for choosing who receives a share link and for the consequences of sharing it. Where the Service provides a means to revoke a link, revocation applies going forward only and does not retract information already viewed, copied, or forwarded.

10. Settle Pro subscriptions

10.1 Billing

Settle Pro is an auto-renewing subscription. Prices, billing periods, and any free trial are disclosed at the point of purchase. Subscriptions are sold and billed through the Apple App Store or Google Play, and your purchase is subject to that store's terms in addition to these Terms.

10.2 Auto-renewal

Your subscription automatically renews at the end of each billing period at the then-current price unless you cancel at least 24 hours before the period ends. Your account is charged for renewal within 24 hours prior to the end of the current period. Any unused portion of a free trial is forfeited when you purchase a subscription.

10.3 Cancellation and refunds

Manage or cancel your subscription in your App Store or Google Play account settings. Uninstalling the app does not cancel your subscription. All refunds are handled by the applicable app store under its own policies. Settle does not process refunds and cannot issue them.

10.4 Changes to Pro

We may add, modify, or remove features included in Settle Pro. If we make a material adverse change to the features included in an active paid subscription, we will provide notice and, where required by law, an opportunity to cancel.

10.5 Usage limits

Free accounts are subject to usage limits, including a monthly cap on receipt scans. We may adjust these limits with notice.

11. Acceptable use

You agree not to:

  • use the Service to request, demand, or collect money you are not genuinely owed;
  • use the Service to harass, threaten, intimidate, defraud, or deceive any person;
  • impersonate any person or entity, or add a Payment Identifier that is not your own;
  • use the Service for commercial debt collection, lending, factoring, or any regulated financial activity;
  • use the Service to facilitate money laundering, terrorist financing, fraud, or any transaction that is illegal in any applicable jurisdiction;
  • upload content that is unlawful, infringing, defamatory, obscene, or that contains malware;
  • attempt to access data you are not authorized to access, including bills, accounts, or share tokens belonging to others;
  • probe, scan, or test the vulnerability of the Service, or circumvent any authentication, rate-limiting, quota, or access control;
  • scrape, harvest, or systematically collect data from the Service, including Payment Identifiers or handles;
  • reverse engineer, decompile, or disassemble the Service except to the extent that restriction is unenforceable under applicable law;
  • use the Service to build a competing product; or
  • resell, sublicense, or commercially exploit the Service without our written permission.

12. Your content

You retain ownership of the content you submit, including receipt images, expense descriptions, and profile information (“Your Content”).

You grant us a worldwide, non-exclusive, royalty-free licence to host, store, reproduce, modify (for formatting and processing), transmit, and display Your Content solely for the purpose of operating and providing the Service to you and to the users you share it with. This licence ends when Your Content is deleted, except for copies retained in backups for a limited period and copies other users have lawfully received.

We do not sell Your Content and we do not use it to train machine learning models.

You represent that you have all rights necessary to grant this licence and that Your Content does not infringe any third party's rights.

13. Our intellectual property

The Service, including its software, design, text, graphics, animations, and the Settle name and logo, is owned by Settle and protected by intellectual property laws. We grant you a limited, revocable, non-exclusive, non-transferable, non-sublicensable licence to use the Service for your personal, non-commercial use in accordance with these Terms. All rights not expressly granted are reserved.

14. Third-party services

The Service integrates with or links to third-party services including authentication providers, payment applications, cloud infrastructure, and app stores. We do not control these services, are not responsible for them, and do not endorse them. Your use of them is governed by their own terms.

15. Account termination and deletion

15.1 By you

You may delete your account at any time from within the app. Deletion is subject to a 7-day grace period during which you may restore your account by signing in again. After the grace period, your personal information is deleted or irreversibly anonymized.

Bills and expenses you shared with other users are not deleted from those users' accounts. Records of shared activity remain visible to the other participants in an anonymized form, so that their own records remain intact and accurate. This is a necessary consequence of shared record-keeping and cannot be reversed.

Deleting your account does not cancel a subscription purchased through an app store. Cancel it separately in your store account settings.

15.2 By us

We may suspend or terminate your access at any time, with or without notice, if you breach these Terms, if we reasonably believe your use creates legal risk or harm to others, or if we cease operating the Service.

16. Availability and changes

The Service is provided on an as-available basis. We may modify, suspend, limit, or discontinue any part of it at any time. We are not liable to you for any modification, suspension, or discontinuation.

17. Disclaimer of warranties

THE SERVICE IS PROVIDED “AS IS” AND “AS AVAILABLE” WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND. TO THE FULLEST EXTENT PERMITTED BY LAW, WE DISCLAIM ALL WARRANTIES, EXPRESS, IMPLIED, OR STATUTORY, INCLUDING WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE, TITLE, ACCURACY, AND NON-INFRINGEMENT.

WITHOUT LIMITING THE FOREGOING, WE DO NOT WARRANT THAT: THE SERVICE WILL BE UNINTERRUPTED, SECURE, OR ERROR-FREE; ANY CALCULATION, SPLIT, BALANCE, OR EXTRACTED RECEIPT DATA WILL BE ACCURATE; ANY PAYMENT IDENTIFIER IS VALID OR BELONGS TO ANY PARTICULAR PERSON; ANY DEEP LINK WILL FUNCTION; ANY PAYMENT WILL BE MADE, RECEIVED, OR CORRECT; OR THAT ANY USER WILL PAY ANY AMOUNT.

Some jurisdictions do not allow the exclusion of implied warranties, so some of the above may not apply to you.

18. Limitation of liability

TO THE FULLEST EXTENT PERMITTED BY LAW, IN NO EVENT WILL SETTLE, ITS OWNER, CONTRACTORS, OR AGENTS BE LIABLE FOR:

  • ANY MONEY YOU PAID TO, OR FAILED TO RECEIVE FROM, ANOTHER PERSON, including any payment sent to an incorrect, outdated, or fraudulent Payment Identifier;
  • ANY INDIRECT, INCIDENTAL, SPECIAL, CONSEQUENTIAL, EXEMPLARY, OR PUNITIVE DAMAGES;
  • ANY LOSS OF PROFITS, REVENUE, DATA, GOODWILL, OR BUSINESS OPPORTUNITY; or
  • ANY DAMAGES ARISING FROM ANOTHER USER'S CONDUCT, ANY THIRD-PARTY PAYMENT SERVICE, OR ANY INACCURACY IN EXTRACTED RECEIPT DATA,

WHETHER BASED ON WARRANTY, CONTRACT, TORT, STATUTE, OR ANY OTHER THEORY, AND WHETHER OR NOT WE HAVE BEEN ADVISED OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH DAMAGES.

OUR TOTAL AGGREGATE LIABILITY ARISING OUT OF OR RELATING TO THESE TERMS OR THE SERVICE WILL NOT EXCEED THE GREATER OF (A) THE AMOUNT YOU PAID US IN THE TWELVE MONTHS PRECEDING THE EVENT GIVING RISE TO THE CLAIM, OR (B) FIFTY US DOLLARS ($50).

Some jurisdictions do not allow certain limitations of liability, so some of the above may not apply to you. Nothing in these Terms excludes liability for fraud, or for death or personal injury caused by negligence, or any other liability that cannot be excluded by law.

19. Indemnification

You agree to indemnify, defend, and hold harmless Settle and its owner, contractors, and agents from any claim, demand, loss, liability, damage, cost, or expense (including reasonable legal fees) arising out of or relating to: your use of the Service; your breach of these Terms; any Payment Identifier you provide; any content you submit; any dispute between you and another user; or your violation of any law or third-party right.

20. Governing law and dispute resolution

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

The courts of Oregon, United States will have exclusive jurisdiction, and you consent to personal jurisdiction there.

21. Changes to these Terms

We may update these Terms. If we make material changes, we will provide notice through the Service or by email at least 14 days before they take effect, unless a shorter period is required for legal or security reasons. Your continued use after the effective date constitutes acceptance. If you do not agree, stop using the Service and delete your account.

22. General

Entire agreement. These Terms and the Privacy Policy constitute the entire agreement between you and us regarding the Service.

Severability. If any provision is held unenforceable, it will be modified to the minimum extent necessary and the remaining provisions will remain in effect.

No waiver. Our failure to enforce any provision is not a waiver of it.

Assignment. You may not assign these Terms. We may assign them in connection with a merger, acquisition, or sale of assets.

No third-party beneficiaries, except that Apple Inc. and Google LLC are third-party beneficiaries of these Terms as they relate to app store distribution and may enforce them.

Force majeure. We are not liable for any failure to perform caused by circumstances beyond our reasonable control.

Survival. Sections 3, 5, 7, 12, 13, 17, 18, 19, 20, and 22 survive termination.

23. Apple-specific terms

If you obtained the app from the Apple App Store, the following applies:

  • These Terms are between you and Settle only, not with Apple. Apple is not responsible for the app or its content.
  • Apple has no obligation to provide maintenance or support for the app.
  • If the app fails to conform to any applicable warranty, you may notify Apple, and Apple will refund the purchase price; to the maximum extent permitted by law, Apple has no other warranty obligation.
  • Apple is not responsible for addressing any claim relating to the app, including product liability, regulatory non-compliance, or consumer protection claims.
  • Apple is not responsible for the investigation, defence, settlement, or discharge of any third-party intellectual property infringement claim relating to the app.
  • You represent that you are not located in a country subject to a US Government embargo or designated as terrorist-supporting, and are not on any US Government restricted-parties list.

24. Contact

General and support: support@joinsettle.app

Legal notices: privacy@joinsettle.app

Settle is operated as a sole proprietorship by Settle in Oregon, United States.