Terms and Conditions Template

What Are Terms and Conditions?

A Terms and Conditions statement is a page on your website that sets the rules straight with your website visitors and customers. Your website is your online home, so it is your responsibility to set the rules. You can do it by drawing out Terms and Conditions that will explain clearly how your website can and can’t be used.

You can determine the rules regarding the content and your intellectual property, the responsibility regarding the website content, what users with member accounts can do, and so on.

Where should you put your terms and conditions on your website?

Most online businesses publish a new page specifically for their terms and conditions, we recommend you do the same. We also recommend linking to the page from the footer as this is where most people expect to find it.

Why You Need a Terms of Use Agreement

Unlike a privacy policy, having a terms and conditions agreement isn’t often ‘legally’ required, but having one is absolutely in your best interest. It protects you and your business from potential issues that may arise from the use or misuse of your product or service. By not providing a terms and conditions agreement, you are giving your users complete freedom to do as they please with your product or service, including deciding when they want to pay for it.
Without a terms and conditions agreement, you open yourself up to:

• Legal disputes
• Unpaid invoices
• Data breaches
• Intellectual property theft
• Service misuse
• Refund disputes
• Chargebacks and fraud
• Regulatory penalties
• Reputational damage
• Unmanaged expectations

If you are running a business without a terms and conditions agreement in place, creating one should at the very top of your to-do list.

What to include in your terms and conditions?

Although generating your website Terms and Conditions with GetTerms seems like a no-brainer, if you still want to learn what to write in your terms or to check out if your lawyer’s or your generator’s terms are good enough.

The content of your Terms and Conditions depends on the type of business you run. SAAS, eCommerce, blogs, and marketplaces are all different and require different approaches.

Nevertheless, all of them share the same essential elements:

Your details

The name of your company (or the website, if you have not incorporated it yet), your email address, and your physical address (if any), should be part of the Terms and Conditions.

The product or service

The terms need to describe well the product or service that you offer. You don’t have to go into granular detail, but you need to specify what your users get. A well-crafted Products/Services section will save you lots of headaches down the road.

If you collect any personal information from users to provide services, clearly state what categories of data are necessary to execute the agreement.

For ecommerce stores, that would be the personal name, email address, delivery address, and maybe the phone number. Membership websites, in most cases, require only a personal name, location, and email address. SaaS companies may require a wide range of personal information depending on the app features.

Clearly stating the personal data required for the execution of the agreement will allow you to process such data without additional consent if strict privacy laws such as the GDPR apply to your business.

Prohibited uses

It is important to have clear guidelines for users on your website to maintain a clean and safe environment. This section will outline what is not allowed on your website, and if a user violates these guidelines, you will be able to terminate their agreement with you. This could be anything from abusive behavior in your membership area, violating your intellectual property, or installing malware on your website.

Privacy

This section is unnecessary, but you can add it for clarification. It suffices only to mention that you take care of users’ privacy and refer them to the privacy policy. Remember that accepting the terms does not mean that users necessarily accept your privacy policy.

Intellectual property

This is the part where you need to list all the prohibitions related to the use of your intellectual property available on the website. It is a standard set of prohibitions.

Disclaimers, indemnification, and limitation of liability

These clauses are also standard across many websites. Their purpose is to protect you in the case of a lawsuit by limiting your liability up to a certain amount of money, which is usually low.

Termination and cancellation

It’s important to be clear about the circumstances under which you’ll terminate a user’s agreement with you. In most cases, you’ll take action if the user breaches any of the terms of the agreement or misbehaves in a way that negatively impacts your business. However, there are some cases where you may need to terminate an agreement even if the user is following all of the terms. This is especially true if the user uses your product or service to violate your terms or create a risk for you or others. If the user disputes the termination with a lawsuit, this section and the Prohibited Uses section will come in handy.

Governing law and dispute resolution

Contract parties are free to choose the governing law to apply to the contract. This is particularly important in the case of a dispute. That is why online businesses tend to choose their home state and/or home country’s law as governing law and home state or country courts to be competent for the dispute.

Remember that this is not an exhaustive list of everything your Terms and Conditions template should contain. We cover the essentials, but the Terms and Conditions you create needs to be aligned with the purpose of your website.

Are website terms and conditions a legal requirement?

No, Terms and Conditions are not legally required, but it is nice to have one.

No single law worldwide explicitly requires a website to have terms. It means that you can operate your website without any contracts in place.

However, it’s not recommended. As mentioned above, you want to set the rules for your website. Having no Terms and Conditions means there are no rules, and you have not set your expectations straight with the users.

Even worse, selling something online without terms that serve as a purchase agreement could get you into trouble. If the buyer is unhappy with the product, they may ask for a refund, return the product, and so on. In the worst-case scenario, they may initiate a lawsuit against you if they suffer damages. Well-crafted terms and conditions could be lifesaving for your business. With the right provisions on limitation of liability and governing law, you’ll shield your business from frivolous lawsuits and have peace of mind.

Terms and conditions examples

Copying other websites’ Terms and Conditions is never a good idea, but taking inspiration doesn’t hurt. Let’s have a look at a few examples to give you an idea of the possibilities.

Google

Google has one of the best legal teams in the world. Helped by their UI/UX designers, they created Google Terms and Conditions to be clear, concise and easily understandable for everyone. At the same time, it protects them from legal scrutiny from all around the world.

If you are curious about writing Terms and Conditions, diving deep into Google’s terms is a great idea.

Indie Hackers

Indie Hackers’ terms are written mainly in plain language, but some legalese terminology here and here to ensure protection for the company. They pay special attention to the rules around user-generated content and intellectual property.

500px

500px combines legalese, plain language, and UX design in its Terms and Conditions. The terms are separated into two columns: one in legalese and one in plain language.

They have separate Content Guidelines, and the terms only refer to those guidelines. They have not included the actual guidelines in the terms, which is perfectly fine.

Instagram

Instagram Terms of Use excel in plain language. It is a legal document that is nice to read.

The focus of the terms is put on prohibited uses of the platform (they call it How You Can’t Use Instagram) and the permissions you, as a user, give to them.

Juro

Juro provides lawyers with contract automation tools. Considering that their user base is made of lawyers, it is no surprise that their Terms and Conditions are heavy on legalese. They are written by lawyers exclusively for other lawyers’ eyes.

It couldn’t get more legalese than this, but for a good reason.