Terms of Use

Welcome to PlatePals! These Terms are the agreement between you and PlatePals ("we", "us") for use of the PlatePals app at platepals.co. By creating an account or using the app (including as a guest), you agree to these Terms. If you don't agree, please don't use PlatePals.

Who can use PlatePals

You need to be at least 13 years old (16 in the EEA/UK) to use PlatePals. If you're using it on behalf of an organization, you confirm you're allowed to bind it to these Terms.

Your account

You're responsible for keeping your login credentials safe and for activity that happens on your account. Please give us accurate info, keep your profile up to date, and let us know at founder@platepals.co if you suspect unauthorized access.

Your content

You keep ownership of everything you create in PlatePals — recipes, photos, notes, voice recordings, tags. You grant us a limited, worldwide, royalty-free license to host, store, back up, display, and transmit your content solely so we can operate the app for you and the friends you've shared it with. This license ends when you delete the content or your account (subject to the retention window in our Privacy Policy).

You promise that your content is yours to share (or properly attributed), and that it doesn't infringe anyone's rights or break the law.

Acceptable use

Please don't:

• Post content that is illegal, hateful, harassing, sexually explicit, or that endangers others (including recipes designed to harm).
• Impersonate someone else, or pretend a recipe is yours when it isn't.
• Use invite links, handles, or friend requests to spam, scrape, or harass.
• Attempt to break, probe, overload, or reverse-engineer the service, or bypass rate limits and access controls.
• Upload malware, or use PlatePals to distribute anything harmful.
• Scrape or bulk-export other cooks' content, or use it to train machine-learning models without permission.

We may remove content or suspend accounts that break these rules. Where we can, we'll tell you why.

Friends, handles & invites

The friends feature is for cooking with people you know. Each cook can have up to 50 friends. Your @handle is public within PlatePals so other cooks can find you; your recipes are only visible after a friend request is mutually accepted or an invite link is used. Either side can remove a friendship at any time, and invite links can be revoked from your Friends page.

Guest mode

Guest mode stores everything only in your browser. If you clear your browser data, switch devices, or uninstall the app, that content is gone — we can't recover it. Guest mode also can't be used to add friends, send invites, or sync across devices.

Service availability & changes

We work hard to keep PlatePals available, but we don't guarantee it will always be uninterrupted or error-free. We may add, change, or remove features over time. If we make a material change that affects you negatively, we'll do our best to tell you in-app first.

Third-party services

We rely on third-party providers for authentication, hosting, and storage. Their handling of your data is described in our Privacy Policy.

Disclaimers

PlatePals is provided "as is" and "as available", without warranties of any kind, express or implied, to the fullest extent permitted by law. Recipes are user-submitted content — we don't verify ingredients, allergens, food-safety practices, or nutritional claims. You follow recipes at your own risk. If something seems off, use your judgment (and if the pan is smoking, close the recipe and open a window).

Limitation of liability

To the maximum extent permitted by law, PlatePals and its team are not liable for indirect, incidental, special, consequential, or punitive damages, or for any loss of data, profits, or goodwill arising from your use of the app. Our total liability for any claim relating to the service is limited to the greater of the amount you paid us in the 12 months before the claim (which for most users is $0) or USD $50.

Some jurisdictions don't allow certain limitations, so parts of this section may not apply to you. Nothing in these Terms limits liability that cannot be limited by law.

Indemnity

You agree to defend and hold PlatePals harmless from claims arising out of content you post, your use of the service, or your breach of these Terms — to the extent permitted by law.

Termination

You can delete your account anytime from Profile → Delete account. We may suspend or terminate accounts that violate these Terms or that create legal or security risk; we'll try to give you notice unless we're prevented from doing so.

Governing law

These Terms are governed by the laws applicable to you where mandatory consumer protections apply, and otherwise by generally accepted international commercial norms. Disputes should first be raised informally with us at founder@platepals.co — we'd much rather sort it out over a virtual cup of chai.

Changes to these Terms

If we make material changes, we'll update the date above and notify you inside the app. Continued use after changes take effect means you accept the updated Terms.

Contact

Questions? Email founder@platepals.co.