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TERMS OF SERVICE

Backmonkey · Effective September 23, 2026 · tos-v2

These Terms of Service ("Terms") are a binding agreement between you and the operator of Backmonkey (the "Operator"). The Operator is currently Sebastian Larsen, an individual doing business as Backmonkey. "Backmonkey", "we", "us", and "our" mean the Operator. If the Service is transferred to a company or other entity under Section 19, that entity becomes the Operator and every reference to "we" means it. These Terms govern your use of the Backmonkey mobile app and website (together, the "Service").

"Backmonkey Parties" means the Operator, every past and future Operator, Sebastian Larsen personally, and each of their heirs, estates, successors, assigns, contractors, collaborators, and contributors. Every disclaimer, limit, release, and indemnity in these Terms protects each Backmonkey Party.

By creating an account, placing a pledge, or otherwise using the Service, you agree to these Terms and to our Privacy Policy. If you do not agree, do not use the Service.

Please read carefully. Section 4 explains when your card is charged and why charges are final. Sections 10 through 17 say you use the Service at your own risk, limit our liability to a small amount, release us from claims about other users, require you to cover our costs if your conduct causes a claim against us, waive your right to a jury trial and to class actions, and require you to bring any claim within one year.

1. What Backmonkey is

Backmonkey is a habit-change app. You create monkey avatars that represent habits you want to stop, log, or build, and you check in with them over time. Backmonkey is a motivational tool. It is not medical, psychological, or addiction treatment, and nothing in the Service is professional advice. Section 10 explains what that means for you.

2. Eligibility and accounts

2.1 Excluded States

The Service is not offered to anyone who lives in, or is using it from, the State of Washington (an "Excluded State"). We may add or remove Excluded States by updating this Section, and we may use your answers, your IP address, and your billing address to enforce it. You represent that you do not live in and are not using the Service from an Excluded State. If you move to an Excluded State, you must stop using the Service and tell us; we will close your account and settle any open pledge for what it had accrued and no more. Using the Service in breach of this Section is at your sole risk, and Section 16 applies to any claim that results.

3. Free monkeys

Free monkeys use lives. A monkey has a set number of lives, loses lives on missed check-ins or logged slips, and can recover lives through clean days. When a monkey runs out of lives it dies and may be revived under the rules shown in the app. Free monkeys involve no money and no charge of any kind.

We may change how lives, streaks, banana passes, revivals, weekly targets, and similar free-mode mechanics work at any time. Where a change affects an active paid window, Section 4 controls.

4. Pledges (paid monkeys)

A pledge lets you put real money on the line for a 30-day window. This section is the complete description of how that works. It applies together with the short pledge terms you accept in the app each time you place a pledge, and those in-app terms are part of these Terms.

4.1 A pledge is not a deposit

4.2 Authorization to charge your saved payment method

By placing a pledge you authorize Backmonkey, through Stripe, to charge the payment method you saved for the amounts that become due under this Section, at the times described in Section 4.6, without further notice and while you are not actively using the app. This authorization stays in effect until every pledge you placed has settled, been waived, or been converted, and until any failed settlement has been paid. You can update your saved payment method in the app. You cannot revoke this authorization for a pledge that is already open; you can end a pledge early under Section 4.7 instead.

4.3 Two modes

If, after a Hard fall, you re-enter the same window on Easy, the new pledge is split across the days that remain in that window rather than across 30.

4.4 How a day is judged

4.5 Surviving the window

If the monkey is alive when the window ends, it pauses. Nothing is judged while it is paused, and your streak clock stops where it was. The owner then chooses what comes next: pledge again on Easy or Hard, or continue as a free monkey. Paused days are never judged and never cost anything.

4.6 When you are charged

Your saved payment method is charged:

If the amount due is under $1.00 we waive it and nothing is charged.

Charges appear on your statement as Backmonkey Pledge. We send a receipt for every settlement.

4.7 Ending early by deleting or leaving

Deleting a pledged solo monkey, or leaving a pledged crew, ends the pledge early. Ending early counts as missing every remaining day: your accrued losses plus one unit for every unjudged day, today included, are charged immediately. Days you already defended stay defended. Before you confirm, the app shows you exactly what you are forfeiting and the amount that will be charged. If that charge fails, the monkey stays until it clears or your request under Section 4.10 is resolved. A Hard pledge that has not fallen forfeits the full amount if you end it.

4.8 Transaction history

Settings includes a Transaction History page listing every completed charge and every pending charge from a running Easy window. When you place a pledge you acknowledge that this page is available to you. It is the record we will point to in any dispute.

4.9 Refunds

Because you are only ever charged for days you actually lost under rules you agreed to before the window opened, settlements are final. We keep the exact wording of the pledge terms you accepted, the timestamp of your acceptance, and your day-by-day judgment record, and we will use them to respond to any payment dispute.

Backmonkey runs on the honor system. If you truly believe you are entitled to a refund on a completed charge, you have 7 days from the charge completing to request one from the Transaction History page, selecting the charges and telling us why. We review every request in good faith and decide at our sole discretion, and the Transaction History page shows where each request stands. Requests outside the 7-day window, or for charges that are still pending, are not eligible.

If we find that a charge was caused by an error in our systems, we will refund the amount charged in error. That refund is your sole and exclusive remedy for a charging error.

Contact us through the app or at support@trybackmonkey.com before disputing a charge with your bank. Disputing a charge with your bank that you knew to be correct is a breach of these Terms.

4.10 Failed charges

If a settlement fails (for example your card was declined or expired), the pledge goes into a settle-up state. We will retry the charge, and you can pay it manually from the settle-up screen. While a settlement is unpaid we may restrict the app, including creating new monkeys and pledges and, at our discretion, access to your existing monkeys, until it is paid or resolved.

If you are unable to pay, the settle-up screen has an "I can't pay it" option. Tell us why and we will review the request on the same honor-system basis as a refund. While your request is under review the restrictions above are lifted and the charge is listed as forgiven in your Transaction History. If we decline the request, the charge is due again and the restrictions return until it is paid. We may suspend accounts that leave settlements unpaid without a request.

4.11 Limits and changes

We may set minimum or maximum pledge amounts, refuse a pledge, or turn pledges off entirely at any time. Turning pledges off does not change the rules of a window that is already open. If we must end an open window ourselves, we will settle it for what it had accrued at that moment and no more.

5. Crews and tribes

5.1 Shared monkeys

A shared monkey ("crew" or "Tribe Extreme") is kept by up to six people. Every member checks in, and the monkey's day succeeds only if every member carries it. Any member's miss or slip counts against the whole crew.

5.2 Paid crews

5.3 The caretaker

After a fall, and after a survived window's pause, the monkey's owner (the "caretaker") decides what comes next for the whole crew. If the caretaker re-ups on money, every other member is re-invited and must place a fresh pledge to keep their seat. If the caretaker goes free, the crew stays intact as a free monkey.

5.4 Leaving

You may leave a crew at any time. Leaving a paid crew during a window is priced exactly like ending early (Section 4.7): your accrued losses plus one unit for every remaining day are charged immediately. The other members are notified that you left.

5.5 Crew notifications

Members of a crew or tribe are notified of one another's check-ins, nudges, departures, revivals, re-invites, and when a shared or tribe monkey dies. Notifications are delivered as push messages to devices that allow them and are not guaranteed to arrive or to arrive in time.

5.6 Invites

Invite links are personal to the crew, expire 12 hours after they are created, and stop working once the crew is full. A seat offered to you after a revival or re-up stays open for as long as that seat stands. Sharing an invite means the recipient will see the monkey's name, habit, and, on a paid crew, the buy-in.

5.7 Tribes

A tribe is a group of separate monkeys whose keepers can see one another's progress, including each member's committed, defended, and lost amounts on any paid monkey in the tribe. Joining a tribe is consent to that visibility.

5.8 Other members are not us

Crew and tribe members are other users, not our employees or agents. We do not screen, supervise, or vouch for them, and we are not responsible for what they do, including a slip or missed check-in that costs you part of your pledge. Section 15 covers claims about other users.

6. Your content

You own what you write in the app: habit names, notes, reflections, proof labels, and the rest. You give us a worldwide, non-exclusive, royalty-free license, which we may transfer to a successor Operator and sublicense to our service providers, to host, store, copy, process, and display that content to run and improve the Service, including showing it to the members of your crews and tribes as described in these Terms and the Privacy Policy. This license ends when the content is deleted from the Service, except for copies we must keep under the Privacy Policy.

You are solely responsible for your content and represent that you have the right to share it. Do not post anything unlawful, abusive, or that you do not have the right to share. We do not have to monitor content, but we may remove any of it at any time. Names and slip status you enter are visible to the other people keeping a monkey with you.

If you send us ideas, suggestions, or feedback, we may use them for any purpose without paying you or crediting you.

7. Acceptable use

Do not attempt to manipulate judging, time zones, or device clocks to avoid a loss. Do not access another person's account or data, probe or attack the Service, scrape it, reverse engineer it, or use it for anything unlawful. Do not use the Service to harass, shame, threaten, or expose another user. Do not misstate your age or where you live, or use a VPN or similar tool to get around Section 2. We may suspend or close accounts that do any of these things.

8. Deleting monkeys and closing your account

You can delete or leave monkeys in the app. Deleting or leaving a monkey with an open pledge ends the pledge early under Section 4.7, and the app tells you the amount before you confirm. A monkey whose settlement is unpaid stays until it is settled or resolved. You can delete your account from Settings once you have no open pledge and no pending charge. Deleting your account leaves every monkey you keep with others, exactly as if you had left it, and deletes the rest. Settlement and pledge records are retained as described in the Privacy Policy.

We may suspend or close your account, or end your access to all or part of the Service, at any time, for any reason or no reason, with or without notice. If we do, any open pledge is settled for what it had accrued at that moment and no more (Section 4.11), and any amount that was already due stays due.

9. Changes to the Service and to these Terms

We can change, suspend, or discontinue any part of the Service at any time. We can also change these Terms; when we do, we will post the new version with a new effective date and, for material changes, tell you in the app or by email. We may require you to accept updated Terms to keep using the Service. Continued use after the effective date is acceptance. A change to the pledge rules applies only to pledges placed after the change, and a change to Section 17 does not apply to a dispute you notified us of before the change.

10. Health, safety, and your own risk

Backmonkey is not a healthcare provider, and nothing in the Service creates a doctor–patient, therapist–client, or any other professional relationship. The Service does not diagnose, treat, or monitor any condition. We have no duty to monitor your health, safety, or behavior, or that of any other user, and we do not review what you log.

Stopping some substances suddenly, including alcohol, benzodiazepines, and opioids, can cause dangerous or life-threatening withdrawal. Talk to a doctor before you stop.

The Service is not an emergency service. If you are in crisis or thinking about harming yourself, call or text 988 in the United States, or call 911.

You use the Service voluntarily and at your own risk. That includes pledges, crews and tribes, and any breathing, movement, cold-water, or other exercise, technique, or activity the Service suggests. You assume every risk of that use, including relapse, withdrawal, emotional distress, embarrassment from what crew and tribe members can see, and financial loss from pledges. Stop any activity that feels unsafe for you.

What you log can reveal information about your health and habits. How we collect, use, and share it is described in the Privacy Policy. Where the law requires your separate consent to collect or share that information, we ask for it separately in the app; accepting these Terms is not that consent.

11. Our intellectual property

Subject to these Terms, we give you a limited, personal, revocable, non-exclusive, non-transferable, non-sublicensable license to install and use the app on Apple devices you own or control, as the Usage Rules in Apple's Media Services Terms allow, for your personal, non-commercial use. We and our licensors own the Service and everything in it other than your content, including its code, design, art, characters (including the monkeys), sounds, names, and logos. Except as the law allows despite this restriction, you may not copy, modify, distribute, sell, rent, or create derivative works from any part of the Service. We reserve every right not expressly granted here.

12. Third-party services

The Service relies on third parties, including Apple, our payment processor Stripe, our hosting and database providers, and the push-notification services on your device. Your use of their services is governed by their own terms. We do not control them and are not responsible for their acts, omissions, outages, or security, including a payment, notification, or sign-in that fails because of them.

13. Disclaimers

THE SERVICE IS PROVIDED "AS IS" AND "AS AVAILABLE", WITH ALL FAULTS AND WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND. TO THE FULLEST EXTENT THE LAW ALLOWS, THE BACKMONKEY PARTIES DISCLAIM ALL WARRANTIES, EXPRESS, IMPLIED, OR STATUTORY, INCLUDING WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE, TITLE, NON-INFRINGEMENT, ACCURACY, AND QUIET ENJOYMENT, AND ANY WARRANTY ARISING FROM A COURSE OF DEALING OR USAGE OF TRADE. WE DO NOT WARRANT THAT THE SERVICE WILL MEET YOUR NEEDS OR HELP YOU CHANGE ANY HABIT, OR THAT THE SERVICE, ITS JUDGMENTS, ITS NOTIFICATIONS, OR ANY THIRD-PARTY SERVICE WILL BE UNINTERRUPTED, TIMELY, SECURE, ACCURATE, OR ERROR-FREE. YOU ARE RESPONSIBLE FOR CHECKING IN ON TIME. NO ADVICE OR INFORMATION YOU GET FROM US OR THROUGH THE SERVICE CREATES ANY WARRANTY.

14. Limitation of liability

TO THE FULLEST EXTENT THE LAW ALLOWS:

These limits do not reduce a refund owed to you under Section 4.9 for a charge made in error, and they do not limit any liability that cannot lawfully be limited. Where the law does not allow a limit in full, our liability is limited to the smallest amount the law allows.

15. Release for disputes with other users

Your dealings with other users, including crew and tribe members whose check-ins, misses, slips, departures, or content affect you or your pledge, are solely between you and them. To the fullest extent the law allows, you release the Backmonkey Parties from every claim, demand, and loss, known and unknown, arising from or connected with any other user's conduct or any dispute between you and another user. If you are a California resident, you waive California Civil Code § 1542, which says: "A general release does not extend to claims that the creditor or releasing party does not know or suspect to exist in his or her favor at the time of executing the release and that, if known by him or her, would have materially affected his or her settlement with the debtor or released party."

16. Indemnity

You will defend, indemnify, and hold harmless the Backmonkey Parties from and against every claim, demand, action, damage, loss, liability, fine, penalty, cost, and expense, including reasonable attorneys' fees, arising from or relating to: your use or misuse of the Service; your content; your breach of these Terms or of any representation in them, including about your age or where you live; your violation of any law or of any third party's rights; any dispute between you and another user; any payment dispute you bring that we successfully contest; and our costs of collecting any amount you owe. We may take exclusive control of the defense of any matter you must indemnify, at your expense, and you will cooperate with us. You may not settle any such matter without our prior written consent.

17. Governing law and disputes

17.1 Talk to us first

Before bringing any claim, you must email support@trybackmonkey.com with your name, the email on your account, a description of the dispute, and the relief you want, and give us 30 days to resolve it informally. Any deadline in Section 17.5 is paused during those 30 days.

17.2 Law and courts

These Terms and any dispute relating to the Service are governed by the laws of the Commonwealth of Virginia, without regard to conflict-of-law rules. Any dispute will be brought only in the state courts located in Fairfax County, Virginia, or the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia, Alexandria Division, and you consent to their personal jurisdiction and venue. Either side may instead bring an individual claim in a small-claims court where it qualifies.

17.3 Jury trial waiver

TO THE FULLEST EXTENT THE LAW ALLOWS, YOU AND WE EACH WAIVE THE RIGHT TO A TRIAL BY JURY IN ANY DISPUTE RELATING TO THE SERVICE OR THESE TERMS.

17.4 Individual claims only

TO THE FULLEST EXTENT THE LAW ALLOWS, YOU MAY BRING CLAIMS AGAINST US ONLY IN YOUR INDIVIDUAL CAPACITY, AND NOT AS A PLAINTIFF OR CLASS MEMBER IN ANY CLASS, COLLECTIVE, CONSOLIDATED, OR REPRESENTATIVE PROCEEDING.

17.5 One-year limit

Any claim relating to the Service or these Terms must be filed within one year after it arises, or it is permanently barred, to the fullest extent the law allows.

18. Apple

These Terms are between you and us, not Apple. As between us and Apple:

Apple is not responsible for pledges or settlements. Pledges are payments for a real-world service delivered through our own payment processor and are not in-app purchases.

19. The Operator, transfers, and continuity

19.1 Transfer to a new Operator

We may assign or transfer these Terms, the Service, your account, and all related rights, records, and data, in whole or in part, at any time, without notice to you or your consent, to any entity formed or controlled by the current Operator or to any successor to the Service. From the transfer onward, the new Operator holds all of our rights and obligations under these Terms, and you release the prior Operator, including Sebastian Larsen personally, from every obligation under these Terms that arises after the transfer. Your pledges, your authorization under Section 4.2, and your records carry over unchanged, and settlements after the transfer may be charged in the new Operator's name.

19.2 No personal recourse

To the fullest extent the law allows, you agree to look only to the Operator and the assets of the Service to satisfy any claim, and not to the personal assets of any individual Backmonkey Party. You will not bring any claim against any contractor, collaborator, or contributor individually.

19.3 If the Operator cannot continue

If the Service ends because its operator dies or becomes unable to run it, every open pledge ends at once with no further charges, and you waive any claim against the operator's estate arising from the Service ending.

20. General

21. Contact

Backmonkey is operated by Sebastian Larsen.

support@trybackmonkey.com

You can also reach us from Settings in the app.

Our accessibility commitment, known gaps, and how to reach us if something in the Service is hard to use are at trybackmonkey.com/accessibility.