Terms of Service

Last updated: 28 July 2026

These Terms of Service (the "Terms") govern your access to and use of the eterial.ai platform, including the Inference API and Eterial Chat (together, the "Services").

The Services are provided by TalkingMachines OÜ, a private limited company registered in Estonia under registry code 17503863, VAT number EE102985162, with its registered address at Roosikrantsi 8c, Tallinn 10119, Estonia ("Eterial", "we", "us"). eterial.ai is a product operated by TalkingMachines OÜ; the two are the same legal entity.

By creating an account, purchasing credits, or using the Services, you agree to these Terms. If you do not agree, do not use the Services.

If you are entering into these Terms on behalf of a company or other legal entity, you confirm that you have authority to bind that entity, and "you" refers to that entity.

1. Definitions

Account — the account you create to access the Services.

Consumer — a natural person acting for purposes outside their trade, business, craft or profession.

Credits — a prepaid balance, denominated in US dollars, held against your Account and used to pay for Services as they are consumed.

Documentation — our technical documentation at eterial.ai/docs, which describes how the Services operate, including routing, failover and cost calculation.

Input — any prompt, text, file, image, or other content you submit to the Services.

Output — any content the Services generate in response to your Input.

Model — a machine-learning model made available through the Services, whether operated by us or by a third party.

Compute Provider — a third party whose computing capacity is used to process requests, including decentralised compute networks, routing intermediaries, and established cloud providers.

2. The Services

2.1 What we provide

Eterial operates an inference platform with two surfaces:

• Inference API — an OpenAI-compatible HTTP API for programmatic access to Models.
• Eterial Chat — a hosted assistant interface for interacting with Models directly.

We aggregate computing capacity from multiple sources and route each request to available capacity, with failover between sources.

2.2 How requests are processed

You acknowledge and agree that:

• Your requests may be processed by third-party Compute Providers, which may be located outside the European Economic Area.
• We apply automated redaction that attempts to detect certain categories of sensitive data in Inputs and replace them with placeholders before onward transmission. This redaction is best-effort and automated. We do not warrant that it will detect or remove all sensitive data, and it does not make your Input anonymous. You remain responsible for what you submit.
• Which Compute Provider or Model version serves a given request may vary between requests. We do not guarantee that identical Inputs will produce identical Outputs.

How routing, redaction and failover work in practice is described in the Documentation. Details of the third parties involved and how personal data is handled are set out in our Privacy Policy.

2.3 Models are third-party technology

Most Models made available through the Services are developed by third parties and are subject to their own licences and use restrictions. Where a Model licence imposes additional terms — including attribution requirements or use restrictions — those terms apply to your use of that Model in addition to these Terms. We identify the applicable licence for each Model in the Documentation. Where a Model licence conflicts with these Terms in respect of that Model, the Model licence prevails.

2.4 No guarantee of availability of a particular Model

We may add, change, deprecate, or remove Models at any time, including where a third party ceases to make a Model available to us. We will use reasonable efforts to give advance notice of the removal of a Model that you are actively using.

3. Eligibility and Accounts

3.1 Age

You must be at least 18 years old to use the Services. The Services are not directed at children, and we do not knowingly permit their use by anyone under 18.

3.2 Account security

You are responsible for maintaining the confidentiality of your Account credentials and API keys, and for all activity that occurs under your Account. Notify us at info@eterial.ai without undue delay if you believe your credentials have been compromised. We are not liable for losses arising from unauthorised use of your Account that results from your failure to keep credentials secure.

3.3 Accuracy of information

You agree to provide accurate account and billing information and to keep it current. If you are a business claiming a VAT exemption, you are responsible for the validity of the VAT identification number you provide.

3.4 Sanctions and export control

You confirm that you are not located in, and are not ordinarily resident in, a jurisdiction subject to comprehensive EU sanctions, and that you are not a person or entity designated on any applicable EU, UN, UK or US sanctions list. You will not make the Services available to any such person or in any such jurisdiction.

4. Acceptable Use

Your use of the Services is subject to our Acceptable Use Policy, which forms part of these Terms. We may update the Acceptable Use Policy at any time to address new categories of misuse; material changes take effect as set out in clause 15.

You are responsible for your Inputs, for your Outputs, and for how you or your end users apply them.

5. Credits, Pricing and Payment

5.1 Prepaid balance and our fee

The Services are prepaid and usage-based. There is no subscription and no ongoing commitment. The minimum top-up is USD 10.

When you top up, you enter the amount of Credits you wish to receive. We charge you that amount plus a platform fee of 15%, plus VAT where applicable. Both the Credits you will receive and the total amount you will be charged are shown to you before you confirm payment.

Credits are a prepaid balance denominated in US dollars. They are not electronic money, not a stored-value instrument, not a security, and carry no interest.

Your balance cannot go below zero. We do not extend credit and we will never invoice you for usage beyond the Credits you hold. When your balance is exhausted, requests are refused until you top up. You cannot incur a debt to us through use of the Services.

5.2 Currency and conversion

The Services are priced and charged in US dollars (USD). Your Credit balance is held in USD and all usage is charged in USD.

If your payment method is denominated in another currency, your payment provider may convert the amount and apply its own exchange rate and fees. Where our payment processor offers you a local-currency presentment option, the exchange rate applied is theirs. We are not responsible for conversion rates or fees charged by your bank or card issuer, and we do not compensate for exchange-rate movements.

Where a refund is due, it is made in USD to the original payment method. The amount you receive in your local currency may differ from the amount you originally paid. Cryptocurrency top-ups are non-refundable — see clause 5.9.

5.3 How usage is charged

Credits are drawn down as you use the Services, based on our acquisition cost of the computing capacity used to serve each request. That cost is variable and depends on which Compute Provider serves the request. The routing and cost calculation method is described in the Documentation.

You acknowledge that:

• You are not buying a fixed quantity of tokens. You are buying a US dollar balance that is drawn down at a variable cost.
• The amount of usage a given balance buys will change over time, and may change materially, including for reasons outside our control.
• We do not guarantee any price per token, price stability, or maximum price.

Every API response includes the actual cost charged for that request, and Eterial Chat displays your remaining balance. We do not apply a cost retrospectively to requests already served.

5.4 Failed and re-routed requests

If a request is started with one Compute Provider and cannot be completed there, we may re-route it to another Compute Provider.

You are charged once per request — for the attempt that produced your result. Where we incur the cost of an unsuccessful attempt before re-routing, that cost is borne by us and is not passed on to you. If a request produces no result at all, you are not charged for it.

Every charge is itemised in your usage history, which you can inspect at any time from your Account. If you believe you have been charged for a request that returned no result, write to info@eterial.ai and we will correct it.

Our records are authoritative. Our measurement of usage and of the charges applied to your Account is conclusive in the absence of manifest error. Any query about a charge must be raised within 60 days of the charge appearing in your usage history.

5.5 Expiry of Credits

Credits expire 12 months after the date of the purchase that created them. Each purchase is tracked separately, and Credits are consumed on a first-purchased, first-used basis. We will send you an email reminder at least 30 days before any Credits are due to expire. Expired Credits are removed from your balance and are not refundable or reinstatable.

5.6 Refunds

Except as set out in clause 5.7, purchases of Credits are final and non-refundable, including unused Credits and Credits that expire under clause 5.5. The platform fee is non-refundable once Credits have been issued, except where the whole purchase is refunded under clause 5.7.

Promotional Credits — Credits we grant free of charge, including trial and design-partner credits — carry no monetary value, are never refundable or exchangeable for cash, may be given a shorter expiry than clause 5.5, and may be withdrawn by us at any time.

We may, at our discretion, refund or issue replacement Credits where Credits were consumed as a result of a demonstrable fault on our side (for example, duplicate charging or billing error). This is not an admission of liability and does not create an entitlement in other cases.

5.7 Consumer right of withdrawal

If you are a Consumer resident in the European Union, you have a right to withdraw from this contract within 14 days without giving a reason.

The Services are a digital service supplied over time, not a one-off delivery of digital content. At checkout you will be asked to (a) expressly request that we begin supplying the Services before the withdrawal period ends, and (b) acknowledge that you will lose your right of withdrawal once the Services have been fully supplied.

If you withdraw after we have begun supplying at your request, you pay for what you have actually used. That is, an amount proportionate to the Credits consumed up to the moment you notify us. We will refund the remainder of your balance to your original payment method within 14 days of receiving your notice.

To withdraw, send us any clear statement of that decision — by email to info@eterial.ai, or using the model form in Annex A. The 14 days run from the day the contract is concluded.

Cryptocurrency top-ups are non-refundable under clause 5.9. Where you are a Consumer and mandatory law nonetheless entitles you to a refund, we will make it by a method of our choosing.

5.8 Taxes

VAT is applied at top-up, on the total of the Credits purchased and the platform fee. Credits themselves, and all usage costs drawn from them, are net of VAT.

Amounts shown on our pricing page are exclusive of VAT. The VAT-inclusive total is always displayed to you at checkout before you confirm payment. Where VAT is due in a currency other than USD, it is calculated using the exchange rate applied by our payment processor at the time of the transaction.

• EU Consumers are charged VAT at the rate of their country of residence.
• EU businesses that supply a valid VAT identification number are invoiced without Estonian VAT under the reverse-charge mechanism.
• Customers outside the EU are generally invoiced without EU VAT and are responsible for any taxes due in their own jurisdiction.

You are responsible for any withholding taxes, duties or levies imposed on the transaction other than taxes on our income.

5.9 Payment processing

Card and bank payments are processed by Stripe. We do not store your full payment card details. Your use of the payment flow is also subject to Stripe's terms.

Cryptocurrency payments are processed by NOWPayments. The minimum cryptocurrency top-up is 25 USDT on the TRC-20 network. We may change the assets, networks and minimums we accept at any time, without notice.

Cryptocurrency top-ups are offered on the following terms, which apply in addition to the rest of this clause 5:

• You are solely responsible for sending the correct asset, on the correct network, to the address displayed, within the validity window of the quote. Funds sent in a different asset, on a different network, to a different address, after the quote expires, or below the stated minimum may be permanently and irrecoverably lost. We have no obligation to recover, replace, credit or compensate for such funds, and no liability in respect of them.
• Credits are applied only after the transaction is confirmed on the relevant network, and are calculated on the amount actually received by us, net of network and processor fees. Confirmation times, network fees and exchange rates are set by third parties and are outside our control.
• Cryptocurrency payments are irreversible. There is no chargeback, reversal or dispute mechanism.
• We do not hold, exchange, transfer or safeguard cryptocurrency for you. We do not provide any custody, exchange, brokerage or virtual asset service. The processor converts your payment and we receive fiat currency.
• Cryptocurrency is volatile. You bear all exchange-rate risk, before, during and after payment.

Cryptocurrency top-ups are non-refundable. The withdrawal procedure in clause 5.7 does not apply to them, and no refund is available under clause 5.6. We may, entirely at our own discretion and without obligation, agree to a refund on request by email to info@eterial.ai; where we do, we set the method, asset, network and amount, and our decision is final. This does not affect any right of a Consumer that cannot be excluded by agreement under applicable law, or any refund we make under clauses 9.3, 10.3 or 15.

Compliance checks. We may request information to verify your identity or the source of funds where required to comply with anti-money-laundering, sanctions or other legal obligations. We may decline, delay or return a payment, suspend your Account, or withhold any discretionary refund until those checks are complete to our satisfaction.

5.10 Chargebacks

If you initiate a chargeback or payment reversal in respect of a payment that is properly due, we may suspend your Account and set off the disputed amount against your Credit balance. We ask that you contact us at info@eterial.ai before disputing a charge.

6. Your Content and Intellectual Property

6.1 Your Inputs

You retain all rights you hold in your Inputs. You grant us a worldwide, non-exclusive, royalty-free licence to host, process, transmit and modify your Inputs solely to the extent necessary to provide, secure and support the Services, including transmission to Compute Providers. This licence ends when the relevant processing ends.

You represent that you have the rights necessary to submit your Inputs and that doing so does not infringe the rights of any third party or breach any law.

6.2 Outputs

As between you and us, and to the extent permitted by the applicable Model licence, we assign to you all rights we may hold in Outputs generated for you. You are responsible for evaluating Outputs before relying on or publishing them.

You acknowledge that:

• Outputs are generated statistically and may be inaccurate, incomplete, offensive, or misleading.
• Similar or identical Outputs may be generated for other users. Outputs are not unique to you.
• We make no representation that Outputs are original, non-infringing, or free of third-party rights, and we do not indemnify you against claims arising from your use of Outputs.

6.3 Our intellectual property

We retain all rights in the Services, including the platform, routing system, documentation, website, and the eterial and TalkingMachines names and marks. Nothing in these Terms transfers any of those rights to you.

6.4 Use of your data

We do not use your Inputs or Outputs to train models, and we do not sell them.

Requests are served by third-party Compute Providers, whose own data handling is described in our Privacy Policy. We select Compute Providers on the basis of their published data policies and configure our integrations to disable prompt logging and training where that option is offered to us. We cannot audit a Compute Provider's internal practices, and we do not warrant their compliance with their own policies.

6.5 Feedback

If you send us suggestions or feedback about the Services, we may use them without restriction and without obligation to you.

7. AI-Specific Terms

7.1 No professional advice

The Services are general-purpose tools. Outputs do not constitute legal, medical, financial, tax, or other professional advice, and must not be presented as such. Do not use the Services as a substitute for a qualified professional.

7.2 Disclosure that you are interacting with AI

Eterial Chat is an AI system. You are interacting with software, not a human. We meet our own transparency obligations in respect of Eterial Chat under Regulation (EU) 2024/1689 (the AI Act).

Where you use the Inference API to build your own product, you place that system on the market and you are responsible for the transparency obligations that attach to it — including informing your end users that they are interacting with an AI system, and any marking of AI-generated content that applies to your system.

7.3 Prohibited and high-risk uses

You must not use the Services for any practice prohibited under Article 5 of the AI Act. If you intend to use the Services as part of a system that qualifies as high-risk under the AI Act, you are responsible for your own compliance obligations as a provider or deployer of that system. We do not provide the Services as a high-risk AI system and do not supply the conformity documentation required for such deployments.

7.4 Human oversight

Where Outputs materially affect individuals, you must apply meaningful human review before acting on them.

8. Data Protection

Our processing of personal data is described in the Privacy Policy.

Where you use the Inference API to submit Inputs that contain personal data for which you are the controller, we act as your processor. In that case our Data Processing Agreement applies automatically and is incorporated into these Terms by reference, from the moment you first submit such data. No separate signature is required.

A copy of the Data Processing Agreement, including the current list of sub-processors, is provided on request to info@eterial.ai.

Where you use Eterial Chat as an individual, we act as controller in respect of your account and conversation data, as described in the Privacy Policy.

9. Availability, Support and Changes

9.1 No service level commitment

The Services are provided on a best-effort basis. We do not commit to any uptime, latency, throughput or availability level, and we do not offer service credits for unavailability. We may impose rate limits and may throttle or queue requests to protect platform stability.

If we introduce a service level agreement for particular plans in future, it will be set out in a separate document and will apply only to customers who have expressly agreed to it.

9.2 Support

Support is provided by email at info@eterial.ai on a reasonable-efforts basis during Estonian business days. We do not commit to a response time.

9.3 Changes to the Services

We may modify, add to, or discontinue features of the Services. Where we discontinue a Service entirely, we will give at least 30 days' notice and will refund the unused Credit balance of any Account in good standing, regardless of the payment method originally used.

9.4 Maintenance

We may suspend access for planned or emergency maintenance. We will use reasonable efforts to give advance notice of planned maintenance.

10. Suspension and Termination

10.1 Suspension by us

We may suspend or limit your access to the Services, in whole or in part and with or without prior notice where the circumstances require, if:

• you breach these Terms or the Acceptable Use Policy;
• your use threatens the security, integrity or availability of the Services or of a Compute Provider;
• suspension is required by law, by a competent authority, or by a Compute Provider or Model licensor;
• we reasonably suspect fraud, sanctions breach, or unauthorised access.

Where we suspend your Account under this clause, we will tell you why unless prohibited from doing so, and we will restore access once the cause is resolved.

10.2 Termination by you

You may stop using the Services and close your Account at any time from your account settings or by writing to info@eterial.ai.

10.3 Termination by us

We may terminate these Terms and close your Account:

• on 30 days' notice for convenience — in which case we will refund your unused Credit balance, regardless of the payment method originally used;
• immediately, for material breach of these Terms or the Acceptable Use Policy — in which case we will refund your unused Credit balance less any loss, cost or liability we incur as a result of the breach. Where the breach is fraudulent or unlawful, or where refund is prohibited by law or by a sanctions or anti-money-laundering obligation, we may withhold the balance in full.

10.4 Effect of termination

On termination, your right to use the Services ends. We will delete or anonymise your data in accordance with the retention periods set out in the Privacy Policy. Clauses 6, 8, 11, 12, 13, 14 and 17 survive termination.

11. Disclaimers

To the fullest extent permitted by applicable law, the Services are provided "as is" and "as available", and we disclaim all warranties, whether express, implied or statutory, including implied warranties of merchantability, fitness for a particular purpose, non-infringement, accuracy, and uninterrupted or error-free operation.

We do not warrant that the Services will meet your requirements, that Outputs will be accurate or suitable for any purpose, or that defects will be corrected.

Nothing in this clause limits the statutory rights of a Consumer, including rights under Directive (EU) 2019/770 on contracts for the supply of digital content and the Estonian Law of Obligations Act.

12. Limitation of Liability

12.1 Excluded losses

To the fullest extent permitted by law, we are not liable for any indirect or consequential loss, loss of profit, loss of revenue, loss of business, loss of anticipated savings, loss of goodwill, or loss or corruption of data, however arising.

12.2 Cap

Our total aggregate liability arising out of or in connection with these Terms and the Services, whether in contract, tort (including negligence), or otherwise, is limited to the greater of (a) the total platform fees you paid us in the twelve months preceding the event giving rise to the claim, and (b) USD 500.

For the avoidance of doubt, "platform fees" means the fee charged under clause 5.1 and does not include Credits, which are a prepaid balance held for your use and drawn down at the cost of the computing capacity you consume.

12.3 Reliance on Outputs

We are not liable for any loss arising from your reliance on Outputs, or from any decision made on the basis of Outputs, including where you failed to apply human review.

12.4 What is never excluded

Nothing in these Terms excludes or limits our liability for death or personal injury caused by our negligence, for fraud or fraudulent misrepresentation, or for any other liability that cannot lawfully be excluded or limited. If you are a Consumer, the limitations in this clause apply only to the extent permitted under the mandatory consumer protection law of your country of residence.

13. Indemnity

This clause 13 does not apply to Consumers.

If you use the Services as a business, you will indemnify and hold us harmless against any claim, demand, loss, damage, liability, cost or expense (including reasonable legal fees) brought by a third party and arising out of:

• your Inputs, or your use or distribution of Outputs;
• your breach of these Terms, the Acceptable Use Policy, or any applicable Model licence;
• your breach of applicable law, including data protection, consumer protection, and the AI Act.

We will notify you of any claim without undue delay and cooperate reasonably at your expense. You may assume control of the defence with counsel reasonably acceptable to us, and we may participate with our own counsel at our expense. You may not settle any claim in a way that admits fault on our part, imposes any obligation on us, or fails to release us unconditionally, without our prior written consent.

14. Confidentiality

Each party will keep confidential any non-public information disclosed by the other in connection with the Services, and use it only for the purpose of these Terms. This does not apply to information that is public through no fault of the receiving party, independently developed, or required to be disclosed by law. This clause survives for three years after termination.

15. Changes to These Terms

We may amend these Terms. We will publish the amended version with an updated "Last updated" date.

For changes that materially affect your rights or obligations, we will give at least 30 days' notice by email to the address on your Account before they take effect. If you do not accept a material change, you may terminate your Account before the effective date and we will refund your unused Credit balance, regardless of the payment method originally used. Continued use after the effective date constitutes acceptance.

Changes required by law, or changes to the Acceptable Use Policy needed to address an immediate risk of harm, may take effect immediately.

16. Notices

We will send notices to the email address associated with your Account. It is your responsibility to keep that address current. You may send notices to us at info@eterial.ai and, for formal legal notices, to our registered address in clause 19.

17. Governing Law and Disputes

These Terms are governed by the laws of Estonia, excluding its conflict-of-laws rules and the UN Convention on Contracts for the International Sale of Goods.

Businesses: the courts of Estonia, with Harju County Court as the court of first instance, have exclusive jurisdiction.

Consumers: you benefit from any mandatory provisions of the law of your country of residence that cannot be derogated from by agreement, and you may bring proceedings in the courts of your country of residence.

We would prefer to resolve any dispute directly. Please write to info@eterial.ai first.

If you are a Consumer resident in Estonia and we cannot resolve a complaint, you may refer the matter to the Consumer Disputes Committee (Tarbijavaidluste komisjon) at the Consumer Protection and Technical Regulatory Authority, Endla 10a, Tallinn 10142, Estonia — ttja.ee.

If you are a Consumer resident elsewhere in the European Union, you may contact the European Consumer Centre in your country for assistance with a cross-border complaint.

Participation in alternative dispute resolution proceedings is voluntary. We are not obliged to participate and do not undertake to do so.

18. General

Assignment. You may not assign these Terms without our prior written consent. We may assign them to an affiliate or in connection with a merger, reorganisation or sale of assets, on notice to you.

Force majeure. Neither party is liable for failure to perform caused by events beyond its reasonable control, including failure of a Compute Provider, network or power outage, or act of a public authority. This does not apply to payment obligations.

Severability. If any provision is held unenforceable, it is modified to the minimum extent necessary or severed, and the remainder stays in force.

No waiver. Failure to enforce a provision is not a waiver of it.

Entire agreement. These Terms, together with the Acceptable Use Policy, Privacy Policy and — where applicable — the Data Processing Agreement, constitute the entire agreement between us regarding the Services and supersede any prior understandings.

Documentation is informational. The Documentation, our website, benchmarks, blog posts and other materials are provided for information only. They do not form part of these Terms, are not warranties or representations, and may be changed at any time. Where they conflict with these Terms, these Terms prevail.

Language. These Terms are drawn up in English. Any translation is provided for convenience only; in case of conflict, the English version prevails.

No partnership. Nothing in these Terms creates a partnership, agency, or employment relationship.

Annex A — Model withdrawal form

Complete and return this form only if you wish to withdraw from the contract. Consumers in the European Union only.

To: TalkingMachines OÜ, Roosikrantsi 8c, Tallinn 10119, Estonia — info@eterial.ai

I hereby give notice that I withdraw from my contract for the supply of the following service:

Account email: ______________________________

Date of purchase: ____________________________

Amount purchased: ___________________________

Name of consumer: ___________________________

Address of consumer: ________________________

Signature (only if this form is sent on paper): ______________________

Date: ______________________

You do not have to use this form. Any clear statement of your decision to withdraw, sent to info@eterial.ai, is sufficient.

19. Contact and Company Details

TalkingMachines OÜ Roosikrantsi 8c, Tallinn 10119, Estonia Registry code: 17503863 VAT number: EE102985162 Email: info@eterial.ai — for all enquiries, including privacy, security and legal notices.