Terms and Conditions

1. Definitions

• "Services": the RichSMTP SMTP relay and any API, dashboard, webhooks, delivery analytics, documentation and support we provide.
• "Customer Data": everything you submit to the Services, including message content, headers, attachments, recipient addresses, contact lists, consent records and suppression data.
• "Recipient": a person to whom you send, or attempt to send, mail through the Services.
• "Mailbox Provider": an operator of receiving mail systems, such as Google, Microsoft, Yahoo or Apple, and any blocklist or anti-abuse organisation on whose data they rely.
• "Suppression List": the record, held by us for your account, of addresses that have unsubscribed, complained or hard-bounced and may not be mailed again.
• "Credits": prepaid sending units. One credit sends one email to one Recipient.
• "Policy": the Acceptable Use & Anti-Spam Policy, as amended from time to time.

2. The Services

RichSMTP provides email delivery infrastructure: authenticated SMTP relay, delivery and engagement analytics, webhook notifications, bounce and complaint processing, Suppression List management, dedicated IP addresses, and tooling for SPF, DKIM, DMARC and tracking-domain configuration.

We may modify, add to or discontinue parts of the Services. Where a change materially reduces functionality you rely on, we will give reasonable advance notice by email or in the dashboard. Changes made to protect the security of the Services, our sending reputation or Recipients may take effect immediately.

3. Eligibility, accounts and verification

• The Services are for business use. You must be old enough to form a binding contract where you live and must not be a person we have previously terminated for breach.
• You must register with accurate, current and complete details, including your legal name or business name, a working email address and, where we ask for it, your website and postal address, and keep them up to date.
• We may require verification at any time before enabling sending, raising limits, assigning a dedicated IP or lifting a hold: proof of identity, business registration, ownership of your domains and website, a sample of the mail you intend to send, your privacy notice and evidence of how your Recipients consented. We may decline or limit an account at our discretion and are not obliged to give reasons.
• One person or organisation, one account. Opening additional accounts to evade limits, warm-up, review, pricing, suspension or termination is a material breach, and every account involved may be closed.
• You are responsible for all activity under your account, authorised or not, and for keeping your SMTP credentials and API keys confidential. Credentials may not be shared with, or embedded in products distributed to, third parties. Notify us immediately at support@richsmtp.com if you suspect unauthorised access; we may rotate credentials and pause sending while we investigate.
• Accounts may not be created or operated by automated means, transferred or sold.

4. Free and trial access

Where we offer free or trial sending it is provided as-is, carries lower limits and lower priority, and may be withdrawn or changed at any time. Free access is subject to the Policy and to these Terms in full, and is enforced at least as strictly as paid access, because it is the most common vector for abuse.

5. Acceptable use and anti-spam

The Policy sets out in detail what may and may not be sent. In summary, and without limiting it:

• Consent. You may send only to Recipients who gave you express, verifiable, prior consent to receive that type of message, or with whom you have an existing customer relationship the message directly concerns. Purchased, rented, scraped, harvested, appended or third-party lists are prohibited in every circumstance.
• Honesty. Sender identity, headers, subject lines, links and landing pages must be accurate. Impersonation, spoofing, misleading subjects, hidden text and filter-evasion techniques are prohibited.
• Prohibited content. Phishing, malware, fraud and scams, pyramid and get-rich-quick schemes, unlicensed financial, pharmaceutical or gambling offers, counterfeit goods, weapons, unsolicited sexual content, harassment, hate speech, infringing material and anything unlawful are prohibited absolutely.
• Restricted categories listed in the Policy require our prior written approval, which may be refused or withdrawn.
• No address verification. The Services may not be used to verify, validate, clean or enumerate email addresses.
• No evasion. You may not attempt to bypass our screening, limits, warm-up, Suppression List, review holds or billing.
• Third parties. If you send on behalf of clients or resell access, every domain used must be verified in your account and you are fully responsible for your clients' compliance as if it were your own.

Breach of this section or the Policy is a material breach of these Terms. It may result in immediate suspension or termination without notice and without refund, and in the other consequences described in sections 7, 8 and 18.

6. Sending requirements enforced by the platform

These requirements are enforced in software, not merely expected of you. Mail that does not meet them is rejected rather than delivered:

• Domain authentication. SPF, DKIM (2048-bit keys) and DMARC must verify for your sending domain, together with a secured tracking domain, before any mail is sent from it. We re-verify from live DNS before every send and on a schedule; sending stops automatically if any record lapses. Public mailbox domains cannot be used as a From domain.
• Unsubscribe. Bulk and marketing mail must carry a working, visible unsubscribe link. We add compliant one-click List-Unsubscribe and List-Unsubscribe-Post headers; bulk mail without a tracking domain that supports them is rejected.
• Suppression. Unsubscribes, hard bounces and spam complaints are added to your Suppression List immediately and permanently and are blocked from every domain on your account. Suppression entries cannot be edited or removed at your request.
• Blocklists. Mail from a sending domain listed on a recognised public blocklist is refused until the listing clears. There is no exemption.
• Content screening. Outbound mail is screened by automated systems and may be reviewed by a person. Messages matching abuse patterns are rejected, and the account may be placed on hold pending review.
• Rate limits and warm-up. Every account, domain and IP address is subject to per-minute, per-hour and per-day limits that vary by Mailbox Provider and grow only while complaint and bounce data stay clean. Limits are not a service level and may be reduced at any time.
• Bounce handling. Messages are sent with a return path we control so that every delivery-status notification is processed by us and reflected in your account.

You remain solely responsible for complying with the law that applies to your mail, including the CAN-SPAM Act, the GDPR and UK GDPR, the ePrivacy Directive, CASL and any local equivalent, and with the published sender requirements of Mailbox Providers. Nothing we enforce reduces that responsibility.

7. Consent evidence, audits and cooperation

• You must keep, for every Recipient, a record of when, where and how consent was obtained, and produce it to us within 48 hours of a request. Failure to produce it is treated as absence of consent and grounds for suspension.
• We may audit your lists, sending practices, sign-up forms and websites at any time, and may send test messages or subscribe to your forms to verify them.
• We may share information about your account and your mail, including your identity and contact details, with Mailbox Providers, blocklist operators, anti-abuse organisations, payment providers, complainants pursuing a claim, regulators and law enforcement where we consider it necessary to investigate or stop abuse, to answer a complaint, to protect our infrastructure or reputation, or to comply with law. You consent to that disclosure.
• We retain evidence relating to enforcement, including message samples, headers, logs and account details, after the account is closed, for the period stated in the Privacy Policy.

8. Performance thresholds and enforcement

The complaint, bounce, unsubscribe, spam-trap and blocklist thresholds in section 6 of the Policy are terms of this agreement. Exceeding a review threshold places your account or domain under review; exceeding a suspension threshold pauses sending until a human reviewer lifts it, which we may make conditional on double opt-in, list reduction, lower limits or verification.

Where circumstances allow we escalate: warning, then rate limit or domain pause, then account suspension, then termination. Phishing, malware, fraud, impersonation, a spam-trap hit, a purchased list or any attempt to evade enforcement results in immediate suspension without notice and normally in termination. Terminated senders may not re-register, and we may block the persons, organisations, domains and payment instruments involved. Terminations for breach are not refunded, and queued mail is discarded.

You may appeal an enforcement decision as described in the Policy. Decisions concerning phishing, malware, fraud or purchased lists are final.

9. Fees, billing and taxes

Our pricing has three parts. The prices that apply are those shown on our website, in your dashboard or at checkout at the time you buy:

• Subscription: platform access for twelve months, charged in advance and renewing annually until cancelled.
• Credits: prepaid sending units, purchased in advance. Credits do not expire while the account is open.
• Dedicated IP add-on: charged per IP per year in advance and renewing annually until renewal is cancelled. Dedicated IP charges are non-refundable; the IP stays active until the end of the paid year. A dedicated IP remains subject to warm-up, limits, screening and every other provision of these Terms, and its reputation is your responsibility. We may withdraw a dedicated IP without refund if it is used in breach of the Policy.

Enterprise arrangements are quoted individually and governed by the agreement signed for them.

• All fees are in US dollars. Charges appear on your statement as RNS STAR, LLC.
• Sending draws down your Credits. There is no overage billing and no automatic recharge: if Credits run out, sending stops until you buy more. Credits are consumed when a message is accepted for delivery, whether or not the Recipient's server accepts it.
• If a payment fails we may retry it and may suspend the account until it succeeds. We may refuse or reverse payments that our fraud controls flag.
• You are responsible for taxes, duties and bank charges applicable to you, other than taxes on our net income.
• We may change pricing on 30 days' notice. A change never applies to a period already paid for.

10. Refunds and cancellation

Cancellation and refunds are governed by our Refund & Cancellation Policy, which forms part of these Terms and includes a 14-day refund window on your first subscription payment and on unused Credits. Outside what that policy provides, fees are non-refundable except where the law requires otherwise. No refund is due for suspension or termination for breach.

11. Customer Data and data protection

You own your Customer Data. You grant us a limited, non-exclusive licence to host, process, transmit and analyse it solely to provide the Services, to enforce the Policy and these Terms, to protect Recipients and our infrastructure, and to meet our legal obligations.

Roles. For Recipient data you submit, you are the controller and we are the processor. We process it only on your documented instructions, which the use of the Services constitutes, and we do not sell it, mine it for advertising, or use it to build our own marketing lists. For your own account and billing data, we are the controller; see the Privacy Policy.

Your obligations as controller. You warrant that you have a lawful basis, and any consent required, for every Recipient you send to; that you have given Recipients the privacy information the law requires; that you have the right to transfer that data to us; and that you will handle Recipient requests (access, deletion, objection) that we pass to you.

Sub-processors. We engage a payment processor for billing and operate our own infrastructure in the United States, Europe and Asia, together with the network and mail-delivery providers those servers depend on. The current list is in the Privacy Policy, which we update before adding a new category.

Security, assistance and deletion. We maintain the measures described in the Privacy Policy, impose confidentiality on personnel with access, assist you within reason with data-subject requests and breach notification, and delete or return Customer Data on termination in line with the retention periods published in that policy, save for Suppression List entries and enforcement evidence, which we retain. A data processing addendum incorporating the Standard Contractual Clauses is available on request from support@richsmtp.com.

12. Confidentiality

Each party may receive non-public information from the other. The receiving party will protect it with at least reasonable care, use it only for the purposes of these Terms, and disclose it only to personnel and advisers who need it and are bound to equivalent obligations. This does not apply to information that is public through no fault of the receiver, independently developed, or lawfully obtained elsewhere, and does not prevent disclosure required by law, or disclosure under section 7, provided the other party is notified where lawful and practicable.

13. Intellectual property and feedback

The Services, and all software, technology, trademarks and documentation associated with them, remain the exclusive property of RNS STAR LLC and its licensors. These Terms grant you no right in them beyond the limited, revocable right to use the Services in accordance with these Terms. You may not copy, modify, reverse-engineer, scrape or create derivative works of the Services, or use our name or marks without written permission.

If you send us suggestions or feedback, you grant us a perpetual, irrevocable, royalty-free licence to use them without obligation or attribution.

14. Service level

We target 99.9% monthly uptime for the SMTP relay and email API, measured as the proportion of time the Services accept mail for delivery in a calendar month, excluding announced maintenance. If we miss it, you may request a service credit within 30 days of the end of the affected month by emailing support@richsmtp.com:

• 99.0% to 99.9%: 10% of that month's fees
• 95.0% to 99.0%: 25% of that month's fees
• Below 95.0%: 50% of that month's fees

Credits are applied to future invoices, are not payable in cash, and are capped at 50% of the fees for the affected month. They are your sole remedy for unavailability. This service level does not cover maintenance announced at least 24 hours in advance, causes outside our reasonable control, problems with your equipment, software, DNS or connectivity, rate limiting, holds or suspension under these Terms, or refusal of mail by a Mailbox Provider.

15. Warranties and disclaimers

Each party warrants that it has the authority to enter into these Terms. Except as expressly stated, and to the fullest extent permitted by law, the Services are provided "as is" and "as available" without warranties of any kind, whether express, implied or statutory, including merchantability, fitness for a particular purpose and non-infringement.

We do not warrant that every message will reach every intended Recipient or reach an inbox rather than a spam folder. Delivery depends on Mailbox Provider policy, filtering, your list quality, your content and your domain reputation, factors we influence but do not control. We provide the infrastructure and best-effort delivery optimisation; we do not guarantee placement, and a low inbox rate caused by your list or content is not a defect in the Services.

16. Limitation of liability

To the maximum extent permitted by law, neither party is liable for indirect, incidental, special, consequential or punitive damages, or for lost profits, revenue, data, business opportunity or goodwill, however caused and regardless of whether the possibility was known.

Our total aggregate liability arising out of or relating to these Terms or the Services will not exceed the amount you paid us in the twelve months immediately before the event giving rise to the claim.

Nothing here excludes liability that cannot lawfully be excluded, including for fraud or death or personal injury caused by negligence. The exclusions in this section do not limit your liability under section 17.

17. Indemnification

You will indemnify, defend and hold harmless RNS STAR LLC and its officers, directors, employees and agents against claims, liabilities, damages, losses, fines and reasonable legal costs arising out of your use of the Services, the content of mail you send, your breach of these Terms or the Policy, your infringement of third-party rights, or your breach of any law applicable to your sending, including any claim brought by a Recipient, a Mailbox Provider or a regulator, and any cost we incur to restore the reputation of infrastructure damaged by your sending.

18. Suspension and termination

You may close your account at any time from the dashboard or by contacting support. On termination your access ends at the end of the period you have paid for, mail still queued may be discarded, and you remain responsible for fees already incurred.

We may suspend or terminate immediately and without notice if you breach these Terms or the Policy, fail to pay, fail verification, or if continuing to serve you presents a risk to our infrastructure, our sending reputation, Recipients or other customers. We may also terminate for convenience on 30 days' notice, in which case unused Credits are refunded pro rata. Terminations for cause are not refunded.

Account data, including delivery logs and analytics, is retained for 90 days after closure so you can export it, then permanently deleted, save for Suppression List entries, enforcement evidence and records we must keep by law. You may appeal any enforcement decision by replying to the enforcement email or writing to support@richsmtp.com; a person reviews every appeal.

19. Export control and sanctions

You represent that you are not located in, or ordinarily resident in, a country or territory subject to comprehensive US sanctions, that you are not on any restricted-party list, and that you will not use the Services in breach of applicable export control or sanctions law.

20. Changes to these Terms

We may update these Terms and the Policy. For material changes we will post the revised text with a new effective date and, where practicable, email the address on your account at least 30 days before they take effect. Changes that tighten the Policy's prohibited practices or content, or that are required by law or by a Mailbox Provider, may take effect immediately. Continuing to use the Services after the effective date is acceptance. If you do not accept, stop using the Services and close your account before the effective date.

21. Governing law and disputes

These Terms are governed by the laws of the State of New York, United States, without regard to conflict-of-law rules, and the state and federal courts located in New York County, New York have exclusive jurisdiction. Each party consents to that jurisdiction and venue. The UN Convention on Contracts for the International Sale of Goods does not apply.

Before starting formal proceedings, you agree to try to resolve the dispute informally by writing to support@richsmtp.com. We will engage in good faith for 30 days. Either party may then proceed. Nothing prevents either party from seeking injunctive relief to protect its intellectual property, confidential information or infrastructure.

22. General

• Entire agreement: These Terms, with the Acceptable Use & Anti-Spam Policy, the Privacy Policy and the Refund & Cancellation Policy, are the entire agreement and supersede prior discussions.
• Order of precedence: where documents conflict, the Policy prevails on sending conduct, the Refund & Cancellation Policy prevails on refunds, and these Terms prevail otherwise.
• Severability: If a provision is unenforceable it is limited to the minimum extent necessary and the rest remains in force.
• Waiver: Failure to enforce a right is not a waiver of it.
• Assignment: You may not assign these Terms without our written consent; we may assign to an affiliate or in connection with a merger or sale of assets.
• Force majeure: Neither party is liable for delay or failure caused by events beyond its reasonable control, including natural disaster, war, terrorism, labour dispute, government action, and internet, telecommunications or power failure.
• Notices: We give notice by email to the address on your account or by posting in the dashboard. You give notice to support@richsmtp.com.
• Independent contractors: Nothing creates a partnership, joint venture, agency or employment relationship.
• No third-party beneficiaries: These Terms benefit only you and us.
• Survival: Sections 7, 9, 11, 12, 13, 15, 16, 17, 18, 21 and 22 survive termination.

23. Contact

RNS STAR LLC, 99 Wall Street #112, New York, NY 10005, United States.

• All enquiries, including legal, privacy and security: support@richsmtp.com
• Report abuse: abuse@richsmtp.com
• Mailbox providers and blocklist operators: postmaster@richsmtp.com