← Back to Home

Terms of Service

Effective June 10, 2026

These Terms of Service ("Terms") govern your use of PennyHelm Cloud, the hosted personal finance application available at pennyhelm.com, along with the website and related services (together, the "Service"). PennyHelm ("we," "us," or "our") provides the Service. By creating an account or using the Service, you agree to these Terms. If you do not agree, do not use the Service.

1. What PennyHelm Is

PennyHelm is a tool that helps you organize your own financial information, including bills, accounts, debts, income, budgets, savings goals, and related records. It helps you see what you have entered and computes informational summaries and projections from it. PennyHelm is a record-keeping and planning tool only. It is not a bank, lender, broker, tax preparer, or financial advisor.

2. Cloud Service and Self-Hosting

PennyHelm comes in two forms, and it matters which one you are using.

3. Eligibility

You must be at least 18 years old to use the Service. By using the Service you confirm that you are 18 or older and that the information you provide is accurate.

4. Your Account

5. Subscriptions, Free Trial, and Billing

PennyHelm Cloud is offered on a subscription basis. Current pricing is $7.99 per month, or $6.49 per month billed annually at $77.88 per year. Pricing shown at signup applies to your subscription.

6. Cancellation and Refunds

You may cancel at any time from your account settings. When you cancel, your subscription stays active until the end of the period you have already paid for, and it does not renew after that.

Because a 30-day free trial is provided before any charge, subscription fees are generally non-refundable, except where a refund is required by applicable law. We may choose to grant a refund at our discretion.

7. Not Financial Advice

This section is important. PennyHelm does not provide financial, investment, tax, legal, or accounting advice, and nothing in the Service is a recommendation to take or avoid any financial action.

8. Accuracy of Information and Bank Connections

You are responsible for the accuracy of the information you enter. If you connect a bank account, that connection is provided through Plaid, and balances are retrieved from your financial institution through Plaid. Connecting a bank means you authorize that retrieval.

Balances and other data obtained through Plaid may be delayed, incomplete, or inaccurate, and PennyHelm is not the system of record for your accounts. Always verify important figures directly with your financial institution. Use of bank connection features is also subject to Plaid's End User Privacy Policy.

9. Acceptable Use

You agree not to:

10. Open-Source License and Intellectual Property

The PennyHelm software is open source and licensed under AGPLv3. Your rights to use, modify, and distribute the software come from that license. AGPLv3 is a copyleft license, which means we retain copyright in the software while granting you broad rights under the license terms.

The PennyHelm name, logo, and brand are not granted to you by the AGPL license. You may state that your project is built on or derived from PennyHelm, but you may not use the PennyHelm name or logo in a way that suggests official endorsement, or to misrepresent an unofficial instance as PennyHelm Cloud.

11. Third-Party Services

The Service relies on third parties including Google Firebase (authentication, database, and hosting), Plaid (bank connections), Stripe (payments), and an email provider (account and invite emails). Your use of the Service may be subject to those providers' terms, and we are not responsible for their acts or omissions.

12. Disclaimer of Warranties

The Service is provided "as is" and "as available," without warranties of any kind, whether express or implied, including any implied warranties of merchantability, fitness for a particular purpose, and non-infringement. We do not warrant that the Service will be uninterrupted, error-free, or secure, or that any data or calculation it produces is accurate. This mirrors the no-warranty terms of the AGPLv3 license that covers the underlying software.

13. Limitation of Liability

To the maximum extent permitted by law, PennyHelm and its operator will not be liable for any indirect, incidental, special, consequential, or punitive damages, or for any loss of profits, data, or financial opportunity, arising from your use of or inability to use the Service. To the maximum extent permitted by law, our total liability for any claim relating to the Service will not exceed the greater of the amount you paid us in the twelve months before the claim, or twenty US dollars.

14. Termination

You may stop using the Service and delete your account at any time. We may suspend or terminate your access if you violate these Terms, if required to protect the Service or other users, or if we discontinue the Service. You can export your data from Settings, and we encourage you to keep your own backups.

15. Changes to the Service and These Terms

We may update, change, or discontinue parts of the Service over time. We may also update these Terms. If we make material changes, we will update the effective date at the top of this page, and where appropriate we will provide additional notice. Continuing to use the Service after changes take effect means you accept the updated Terms.

16. Governing Law

These Terms are governed by the laws of the State of California and the United States, without regard to conflict-of-law rules. You agree that any dispute relating to these Terms or the Service will be brought in the state or federal courts located in California, and you consent to their personal jurisdiction, except where applicable consumer-protection law gives you the right to bring a claim elsewhere.

17. Contact

If you have questions about these Terms, please reach us through the project repository: