Customer paper
Terms, privacy notice, refund terms, DPA, SLA and the rest, generated from the Startup's definition, versioned on every publish, and required for launch.
Customer paper is every document a Customer agrees to or is told: terms, notices, and the contracts a larger buyer asks for. StartupBuilder generates it from the Startup's definition, versions it on every publish, and refuses launch without it.
What a Startup publishes
Paper comes in two kinds. Contracts bind both sides and become Agreements when accepted. Notices tell the reader what the Startup does and ask nothing in return, except where the law requires a choice.
| Paper | Kind | Present when |
|---|---|---|
| Terms of service | Contract | Always |
| Privacy notice | Notice | Always |
| Refund and cancellation terms | Contract | Any paid Offer |
| Acceptable use | Contract | Customers write, upload, or send anything |
| Cookie notice and choice | Notice | The Site serves a Visitor in the EU or UK |
| AI-use notice | Notice | An Agent talks to people or generates media |
| SLA, the promised outcome and uptime | Contract | Any Service Offer, or a plan that promises uptime |
| Data processing agreement | Contract | A business Customer's personal data passes through the Startup |
| Subprocessor list | Notice | Always, beside the privacy notice |
Each piece serves at a fixed path on the Site, /terms and /privacy first, as a page for people and as Markdown for agents. A buyer's agent reads the same text a buyer does.
Generated from the definition
Nobody writes paper from a blank page. Each piece is a Template of reviewed clauses, filled from records the Startup already keeps.
The Offers and their Prices set the payment, renewal, and refund clauses. Each Product's stored data and declared Purposes write the privacy notice.
Each service Offer's Outcome Contract writes the SLA. The upstreams that process personal data write the subprocessor list.
Take a meal-planning app sold to consumers by monthly Subscription. Its paper gains the renewal disclosures every Renewal needs and a cancel-online clause. Its cookie notice wakes the day it serves a reader in the EU.
A sibling selling an invoice-matching API to finance teams gets a DPA and an SLA instead. It shows no cookie banner, because its Site sets no tracking cookies.
A change to the definition changes the paper. Adding a usage-priced plan rewrites the payment clause on the next publish; nobody remembers to update the terms, because nobody has to.
Versions and acceptance
Every publish of a piece of paper is a Version. Every Version stays served at its own address forever, so any Customer can read exactly what they accepted.
Acceptance records the Version: a checkout or click-through accepts the terms at their current Version and forms the Agreement. A cookie choice records a Consent carrying the notice Version it answered. When a dispute arrives years later, the record already says which words applied.
A material change reaches every affected Customer before it takes effect, on the notice period the terms state. Customers who keep using the Product after that date accept the new Version; a Customer who objects cancels on the old terms. Notices that need a fresh choice, such as a new tracking Purpose, ask again instead.
Launch requires paper
Launch refuses a Startup whose paper is missing or stale. Publish terms runs when the Startup is created, so the paper is ready before the first Offer is. Each legal floor row that wakes later, such as Tracking or AI disclosure, adds its clause on the next publish.
An enterprise buyer that sends its own paper follows Review a contract instead. Their Agreement replaces the click-through terms for that Customer only.