Terms of Service

Overview

Thanks for using Cognito Forms!

Please read these Terms carefully. By using Cognito Forms or signing up for an account, you’re agreeing to these Terms. This is a legal agreement. We’ll start with the basics, including a few definitions that should help you understand this agreement.

• Cognito Forms (“Cognito Forms” or the “Service”) is an online form building service offered through the URL www.cognitoforms.com (we’ll refer to it as the “Website”).
• Cognito Forms allows you to build and publish online forms (your “Forms”), and manage form submissions (your “Entry” or “Entries”).
• Cognito Forms is owned and operated by Cognito, LLC, a South Carolina limited liability corporation (“Cognito Forms,” “we,” or “us”).
• Cognito Forms has employees (“our Team”).
• As a customer of the Service or a representative of an organization that’s a customer of the Service, you’re a “User” according to this agreement (or “you”).

These Terms of Use (“Terms,” including our Privacy Policy) define the terms and conditions under which you’re allowed to use Cognito Forms, and how we’ll treat your account while you’re a User. If you have any questions about our terms, feel free to contact us.

Account

Eligibility

You represent and warrant (legally promise) that:

1. you are at least 18 years of age or the applicable age of majority in your geographic area;
2. you possess the legal right and ability to enter into this Agreement and open an Account on your behalf or the organization you represent;
3. you agree to the Terms; and
4. you provided a valid email address and any other information required by us during the registration process;
5. you won’t use Cognito Forms in a way that violates any laws or regulations.

Cognito Forms may refuse service, close accounts of any users, and change eligibility requirements at any time.

Term

The Term begins when you sign up for Cognito Forms and continues as long as you use the Service and/or maintain an Account. During signup, you must explicitly consent to these terms and our Privacy Policy by clicking the agreement checkbox and entering and submitting your name and email address.

Closing Your Account

You or Cognito Forms may terminate this Agreement at any time and for any reason by giving Notice to the other party. We may suspend our Service to you at any time, with or without cause. If we terminate your account without cause, we’ll refund a prorated portion of your monthly prepayment. We won’t refund or reimburse you if there’s cause, like a violation of these Terms.

If you have a free Individual Account and don’t log in for 6 or more months, we may treat your Account as “inactive” and permanently delete the Account and all the data associated with it.

Once terminated, we will make reasonable commercial efforts to permanently delete your account and all the data associated with it, including your Forms and Entries from our Website. While this information may be temporarily retained in residual backups, we cannot recover your data once you have closed your account.

You are solely responsible for properly closing your Account. There are two ways within Cognito Forms to remove your account:

1. If you are the sole Owner of an organization, you can delete the organization from the Organization Settings page, which will delete the organization, all organization data, and cancel any monthly paid subscriptions.
2. You can delete your user account at any time at the bottom of the My Account page, which will also automatically delete any organizations for which you are the sole Owner.

Changes

We may change any of the Terms by posting revised Terms of Service on our Website and/or by sending an email to the last email address you gave us. Unless you terminate your account within ten (10) days, the new Terms will be effective immediately and apply to any continued or new use of Cognito Forms. We may change the Website, the Service, or any features of the Service at any time.

Username and Password

You’re responsible for keeping your account username and password confidential. You’re also responsible for any account that you have access to, whether or not you authorized the use. You’ll immediately notify us of any unauthorized use of your accounts. We’re not responsible for any losses due to stolen or hacked passwords.

We don’t have access to your current password, and for security reasons, we cannot change your password. You can change your password at any time under account settings. If you have forgotten your password, you can use the “forgot password” option on the login page to reset your password. If you have forgotten the email address you used to sign up, we will do our best to help, but cannot change the email address of an account or otherwise change access to an account or organization data.

Account Disputes

We don’t know the inner workings of your organization or the nature of your personal relationships, and we don’t arbitrate disputes over who owns an account. You won’t request access to or information about an account that’s not yours, and you’ll resolve any account-related disputes directly with the other party. We decide who owns an organization account based on the Users assigned the role of Owner for the organization.

Payment

Monthly Plans

Our charges for monthly plans are posted on the pricing page of our Website and may be changed from time to time.

When you sign up mid-month, you pay for the prorated remainder of the initial month. All subsequent monthly plan invoices are for the full calendar month.

You can upgrade or downgrade your subscription at any time for any reason. When downgrading, a prorated amount for the time remaining in the current month will be credited back to your account. These credits will be automatically applied to future subscription payments. For example, if you are on a $24 a month plan and downgrade to $10 plan halfway through the month, you will receive a $12 credit on your account, which will then apply to subscription payments in subsequent months until the credit is exhausted.

You may only maintain one free Individual plan organization at a time.

Prepaid Plans

You can also prepay to use Cognito Forms. When you do so, we’ll keep track of your prepayment credit and apply it automatically to your monthly plan invoices. Depending on the amount you prepay, you may receive discounts. This is explained on the pricing page of our Website. Prepayment credit does not expire, but if your account is inactive for more than 12 months, it may be deleted. Prepayments cannot be refunded.

Add-Ons

Some features are offered as add-ons to your Cognito Forms account. If you add on a feature that has a charge, such as additional users or custom document templates, then you’ll be billed that additional amount with each billing cycle for as long as the add-on is active.

Credit Cards

As long as you’re a User or have an outstanding balance with us, you’ll provide us with valid credit card information and authorize us to deduct the monthly charges against that credit card. Anyone using a credit card represents and warrants that they are authorized to use that credit card, and that any and all charges may be billed to that credit card and won’t be rejected.

If we’re unable to process your credit card order, we’ll try to contact you by email. If we still cannot process your order, we’ll automatically downgrade your organization to the Individual plan, which will reduce your usage of Cognito Forms, but will not delete your account, forms or entries. You will then need to upgrade with a valid credit card to restore access to paid features.

Trials

When you sign up to use Cognito Forms, you may have the option to trial one of our paid plans free of charge. These trials are designed to allow you to determine if Cognito Forms is a good fit for your organization before paying for usage, without restricting what features are available to you.

During the trial period, some features may be altered slightly, at our discretion, to help with fraud prevention and other measures. Also, some features, like HIPAA BAA support, are not available to organizations on a trial plan.

At the end of the trial period, organizations will be automatically converted to the corresponding paid monthly plan, and the credit card on file will be charged. We will send an email to the organization Owners and billing contact prior to the end of the trial to remind you that this will occur. You can cancel the trial at any time for any reason by going to organization settings and clicking “End Trial”, which will switch the organization to the free Individual plan.

Refunds

We’ll give you a refund for a prepaid month if we stop providing our Service to you for a reason that’s not laid out in these Terms. You won’t be entitled to a refund from us under any other circumstances.

Plan Limits

Cognito Forms provides generous free usage for customers on the Individual plan and offers paid plans for larger organizations. Each plan has specific limits for the number of new entries created per month, the total amount of storage allowed for organization data and uploaded files, the number of users that can use Cognito Forms for an organization, and the number of live custom document templates. These limits are clearly identified on our pricing page. When these limits are exceeded, either through normal usage of the Cognito Forms or from downgrading, the following will occur:

• Entries – When the number of new entries created for an organization for a given month exceeds the limits for the current plan, these additional entries will be “locked”. Cognito Forms will not prevent entries from being created and will not affect form submissions. These “locked” entries can be “unlocked” within 30 days by upgrading to a plan that provides a sufficient number of monthly entries.
• Storage – When an organization exceeds the total amount of storage allowed for their current plan, downloading of uploaded files will be blocked and uploaded files will not be included in email notifications and confirmations. Cognito Forms will not prevent new entries from being created or files uploaded. The ability to download uploaded files will be restored when the total storage for data and files drops below plan limits, either by deleting entries or by upgrading to a plan providing sufficient storage.
• Users – When an organization has more users than included in the current plan, two things may occur. For organizations on the Individual plan, which is free, additional users will be able to log in but will not be able to manage forms or entries. Since organizations on the Individual plan cannot invite users, this will only happen after downgrading from a paid plan. For organizations on a paid plan, users above the plan user limits will be automatically billed monthly at the additional user rate. The number of users for billing purposes is the number of active users (not including pending invitations) at the end of each month. Users can be removed from an organization at any time to reduce or avoid additional user fees.
• Document Template – When an organization has more live custom document templates than included in the current plan, these templates will be automatically billed monthly at the additional custom document template rate. The number of templates for billing purposes is the number of live custom document templates at the end of each month and/or templates made live in the prior month. The billing mode for templates can be changed to “test” at any time to reduce or avoid custom document template fees.

Pricing Changes

We may change our fees at any time by posting a new pricing structure to our Website and/or sending you a notification by email.

Rights

Our Rights

You will respect our proprietary rights in the Website and the software used to provide Cognito Forms. Proprietary rights include patents, trademarks, service marks, trade secrets, and copyrights.

You may not:

1. Market, distribute, sublicense, publicly display, sell, assign, pledge, lease, rent, time share, transfer or in any way encumber, commercially exploit, or otherwise make available to any third party the Website or Services, except as specifically allowed through a referral, affiliate, reseller or white label agreement approved by Cognito Forms;
2. Reverse compile, reverse engineer, reverse assemble, or otherwise attempt, directly or indirectly, to obtain or create source code for the Website or Services for any reason;
3. Modify or create derivative works of the Website or Services;
4. Interfere with or disrupt the integrity or performance of the Website or Services;
5. Attempt to gain unauthorized access to the Website or Services or their related systems or networks; or
6. Remove any copyright, trademark, or other notices or legends from the Website or Services.

Your Rights

Subject to the terms of this Agreement, we grant to you a non-exclusive, revocable, non-transferable, limited license, without right of sublicense, to access and use the Website and Services solely with supported browsers through the internet for your own purposes.

You represent and warrant (legally promise) that you either own or have permission to use all of the Content uploaded to the Website, including your Forms and Entries. You are responsible for this information, and for activity that occurs under your Account.

We claim no intellectual property rights over the Content you provide to the Website. Your profile, Forms, Entries and materials uploaded remain yours. However, when you share form templates, share entries, or otherwise provide access to this Content by others through your use of the Website, you agree to allow others to view and share any Content you add.

Privacy Policy

We may use and disclose your information according to our Privacy Policy. Our Privacy Policy will be treated as part of these Terms.

Right to Review Forms

We may view, copy, and internally distribute Content from your Forms and account to create algorithms and programs (“Tools”) that help us spot problem accounts. We use these Tools to find Users who violate these Terms or laws so we can terminate these accounts and protect our legitimate users and the Internet community. We also use these Tools to reproduce issues with a particular Form and/or provide knowledgeable support for our Users.

We are not required to review your forms. However, if during a review of your forms we determine that you are violating this Agreement, we have the right to suspend or terminate your account, remove any violating Content, and/or prosecute violations to the fullest extent of the law. In these situations, we may or may not notify you that your account access has been revoked.

Rules and Abuse

Acceptable Use

You may not use the Service for unlawful, unauthorized, fraudulent or malicious purposes. More specifically, your usage must adhere to our Acceptable Use Policy. Our Acceptable Use Policy will be treated as part of these Terms.

Reporting Abuse

If you think anyone is violating any of these Terms, please notify us immediately. If you received a link to a Form you feel is spam, a phishing scam, violates copyright, or is abusive in nature, please click the report abuse link below the form, if available, or fill out our report abuse form.

Bandwidth Abuse & Throttling

You may only use our bandwidth for the creation, collection, and management of your Forms and Entries in Cognito Forms. We provide image and data hosting only for your Forms and Entries, so you may not host images or other types of files on our servers for anything else (like a website or file streaming). We may throttle your use of our Website or Service at our discretion, such as when your usage significantly exceeds that of our other Users.

Compliance with Laws

You are solely responsible for any and all data used and submitted in connection with the Services, and Cognito Forms has no responsibility in connection thereto. Your data collection responsibilities include, but are not limited to, the following:

1. You will comply with all data protection and privacy laws and rules applicable to the countries where you’re collecting information through Cognito Forms, and are responsible for appropriate use and protection of sensitive information, such as personal information or identifiers.
2. You will obtain and maintain explicit consent from your customers to your access, use, or disclosure of this data and to Cognito Forms, for providing the tools for you to perform the actions described herein. You must obtain any authorizations from your customers required to enable Cognito Forms to provide the Services. When obtaining this consent, you will disclose, in a written privacy policy, how you plan to use any of the data collected and will comply with this policy.
3. You will defend, indemnify, and hold harmless Cognito Forms from any claim, suit or proceeding brought against Cognito Forms by a user of your forms in connection with any acts or omissions with regards to data collected by your forms.
4. You’re solely responsible for determining whether our Services are suitable for you to use in light of any regulations like COPPA, HIPAA, GLB, EU Data Privacy Laws, or other laws.
5. You are expressly prohibited from collecting and storing credit card information in Cognito Forms, except as supported by Cognito Forms for processing online payments using secure third-party payment processors such as Stripe, PayPal and Square. When used properly, Cognito Forms servers and client scripts never process, store or transmit credit card information.

If you’re collecting personal information about anyone in the European Economic Area (EEA), the United Kingdom, or Switzerland, you must sign our Data Processing Addendum to be compliant with the General Data Protection Regulations.

If you’re collecting personal information for California residents, you must comply with the California Consumer Protection Act. We recommend signing our Data Processing Addendum if you use Cognito Forms (as a service provider) to collect personal information from California residents.

Liability

Limitation of Liability

To the maximum extent permitted by law, you assume full responsibility for any loss that results from your use of the Website and the Service, including any downloads from the Website. We and our Team won’t be liable for any indirect, punitive, special, or consequential damages under any circumstances, including interruptions to your use of the Website or Service even if they’re based on negligence or we’ve been informed of the possibility of those damages. Our total liability for all claims made about the Service in any month will be no more than what you paid us for the Service the month before.

No Warranties

To the maximum extent permitted by law, we provide the material on the Website and the Service as is. That means we don’t provide warranties of any kind, either express or implied, including but not limited to warranties of merchantability and fitness for a particular purpose or warranties regarding security, reliability, timeliness or performance of the Website or Services. Since people use Cognito Forms for a variety of reasons, we can’t guarantee that it will meet your specific needs.

Indemnity

You agree to indemnify and hold us and our Team harmless from any losses, including attorney fees that result from any claims you make that aren’t allowed under these Terms due to a “Limitation of Liability” or other provision (indemnity is an agreement to compensate someone for a loss). You also agree to indemnify and hold us harmless from any losses, including attorney fees, that result from third-party claims that you or someone using your password did something that, if true, would violate any of these Terms.

Attorney Fees

If we file an action against you claiming you breached these Terms and we prevail, we’re entitled to recover reasonable attorney fees and any damages or other relief we may be awarded.

Equitable Relief

If you violate these Terms then we may seek injunctive relief (meaning we may request a court order to stop you) or other equitable relief.

Subpoena Fees

If we have to provide information in response to a subpoena related to your account, then we may charge you for our costs. These fees may include attorney and employee time spent retrieving the records, preparing documents, and participating in a deposition.

Disclaimers

We and our Team aren’t responsible for the behavior of any linked websites, or other Users. If you decide to access any of the third-party sites linked to the Cognito Site, you do so entirely at your own risk.

Fine Print

Assignments

You may not assign any of your rights under this agreement to anyone else. We may assign our rights to any other individual or entity at our discretion.

Choice of Law

We’re in South Carolina and our local laws apply. The State of South Carolina’s laws, except for conflict of laws rules, will apply to any dispute related to these Terms or the Service.

Force Majeure

We won’t be held liable for any delays or failure in performance of any part of the Service, from any cause beyond our control. This includes, but is not limited to, acts of God, changes to law or regulations, embargoes, war, terrorist acts, riots, fires, earthquakes, nuclear accidents, apocalypse, floods, strikes, power blackouts, volcanic action, unusually severe weather conditions, and acts of hackers or third-party internet service providers.

Survivability

Even if this Agreement is terminated, the following sections will continue to apply: Our Rights, Your Rights, Compliance with Laws, Limitation of Liability, No Warranties, Indemnity, Choice of Law, Severability, and Entire Agreement.

Interpretation

The headers and sidebar text are provided only to make this agreement easier to read and understand. The fact that we wrote these Terms won’t affect the way this Agreement is interpreted.

Amendments and Waiver

Amendments or changes to these Terms won’t be effective until we post revised Terms on the Website. If we don’t immediately take action on a violation of these Terms, we’re not giving up any rights under the Terms, and we may still take action at some point.

No Changes in Terms at Request of User

Because we have so many Users, we can’t change these Terms for any one User or group.

Further Actions

You’ll provide all documents and take any actions necessary to meet your obligations under these Terms.

Notification of Security Breach

In the event of a security breach that may affect you or your organization’s Content, we’ll notify you of the breach and provide a description of what happened. If the breach compromises personal information you have collected, you will promptly notify all affected parties.

Notices

Any Notice to you will be effective when we send it to the last email address you gave us or post on our Website. Any Notice to us will be effective when delivered to: Cognito Forms, 1310 Gadsden St, Suite 100, Columbia, SC 29201, or any addresses as we may later post on the Website.

Entire Agreement

These Terms, our Privacy Policy, Acceptable Use Policy and any additional terms you’ve agreed to by turning on specific features (“Additional Terms”) make up the entire agreement and supersede all prior agreements, representations, and understandings. Any Additional Terms will be considered incorporated into these Terms when you activate the feature.

Where there’s a conflict between these Terms and the Additional Terms, the Additional Terms will control.

Congratulations! You’ve reached the end. Thanks for taking the time to learn about Cognito Forms’ policies.

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Modified on May 7, 2024