Terms of Service
Welcome to Bookplate
These Terms of Service (“Terms”) are a legal agreement between you and SereneBooks LLC (“SereneBooks,” “we,” “us,” or “our”). By creating an account or using Bookplate, you agree to these Terms. If you don’t agree, please don’t use the service.
We’ve written these in plain English on purpose. If something is unclear, reach out at hello@bookplate.app — we’d rather clarify than have you confused.
1. What Bookplate Is
Bookplate is a personal home library management app. It lets you catalog your books, track your reading, import your history, share your collection with people you invite, and use AI-assistance if permitted. Features vary by plan; see Section 4 for details.
2. Your Account
You must be 13 or older to create a Bookplate account. By signing up, you confirm you meet this requirement.
You’re responsible for your account. Keep your password secure. Don’t share your login credentials. If you think your account has been compromised, let us know at hello@bookplate.app right away. We’re not liable for losses caused by unauthorized access to your account.
One account per person. Bookplate is designed for personal use. Shared libraries let multiple people access a single collection — that’s the right way to share access, not sharing a login.
Accurate information. Please provide accurate details when you sign up. We don’t need much, but what we ask for should be real.
3. Acceptable Use
Bookplate is for personal, non-commercial library management. You agree not to:
- Use Bookplate to store or share content that’s illegal, abusive, or harmful to others
- Attempt to reverse-engineer, scrape, or exploit Bookplate’s systems
- Use Bookplate in ways that could damage, overload, or disrupt the service
- Impersonate another person or misrepresent your identity
- Use automated tools (bots, scripts) to interact with the service without our written permission
We reserve the right to suspend or terminate accounts that violate these terms.
4. Plans and Features
Bookplate offers a free tier and a paid subscription.
Free tier includes core library management features for up to 100 books. If your library exceeds 100 books, you’ll be prompted to upgrade; existing entries won’t be deleted, but you won’t be able to add new books until you’re within the limit or have upgraded. This limit also applies to shared libraries.
Paid subscription ($3.99/month or $35.00/year) unlocks:
- Unlimited books
- All features included in Free tier
- Rich reading stats and insights
- E-book support
Features and pricing may change. We’ll give you at least 30 days’ notice before any price increase takes effect on an existing subscription.
5. Billing and Cancellation
Paid subscriptions are billed through Stripe. By subscribing, you authorize us to charge your payment method on a recurring basis (monthly or annually, depending on your plan).
Cancellation: You can cancel your subscription at any time from your account settings. Your paid access continues through the end of the current billing period. We don’t offer prorated refunds for partial periods, but if you contact us within 7 days of a charge and haven’t made heavy use of paid features, we’ll consider a refund on a case-by-case basis.
Failed payments: If a payment fails, we’ll notify you and retry. If payment remains unresolved, your account may be downgraded to the free tier.
6. Your Data
You own your library data. The books you catalog, your reading history, notes, and personal information belong to you. We don’t claim ownership of your content.
What we do with your data is described in our Privacy Policy. The short version: we use your data to run the service, we don’t sell it, and we never share it with third parties for advertising.
AI genre labeling: When you use the AI genre labeling feature, metadata about your books (title, author, ISBN) is sent to an AI model to generate genre suggestions. No personally identifiable information is included in these requests. You can opt out of this feature at any time in your account settings.
Data export: You can export your library data at any time in CSV format from your account settings. We believe your data should be portable.
Account deletion: If you delete your account, your data is permanently deleted from our systems within 30 days, except where we’re required to retain it for legal or financial compliance purposes.
7. Shared Libraries
With owner invitation, a library may become shared among users, resulting in a shared data experience. A few things to know:
- The person who creates the shared library is the library owner and controls who has access and what kind of access (owner or user role).
- If the library owner’s subscription lapses, shared library access for all members will be suspended until the subscription is renewed or ownership is transferred.
- We’re not responsible for disputes between users about shared library contents or access.
- You can remove yourself from a shared library at any time.
8. Intellectual Property
Bookplate — including its design, code, features, and branding — is owned by SereneBooks LLC and protected by copyright and other applicable law. These Terms don’t grant you any ownership rights in Bookplate itself.
Book metadata (titles, authors, cover images, ISBNs) is sourced from third-party databases and publishers. We make reasonable efforts to ensure accuracy but can’t guarantee it.
If you believe any content on Bookplate infringes your intellectual property rights, contact us at hello@bookplate.app.
9. Availability and Uptime
We work hard to keep Bookplate reliable, but we can’t promise it’ll be available 100% of the time. There may be downtime for maintenance, unexpected outages, or events outside our control.
Bookplate is provided “as is.” We disclaim all warranties, express or implied, including warranties of merchantability, fitness for a particular purpose, and non-infringement. We don’t guarantee that Bookplate will be error-free or that your data will never be lost — though we take backups seriously and will do everything we reasonably can to protect your data.
10. Limitation of Liability
To the fullest extent permitted by law, SereneBooks LLC’s total liability to you for any claim arising from your use of Bookplate will not exceed the amount you paid us in the 12 months preceding the claim (or $10, whichever is greater).
We’re not liable for indirect, incidental, special, or consequential damages — including lost data, lost profits, or service interruptions — even if we were advised such damages were possible.
Some jurisdictions don’t allow these limitations. If that applies to you, the above may not fully apply.
11. Indemnification
You agree to defend, indemnify, and hold harmless SereneBooks LLC and its members, employees, and contractors from any claims, damages, or expenses (including reasonable legal fees) arising from your use of Bookplate in violation of these Terms.
12. Changes to These Terms
We may update these Terms from time to time. If we make material changes, we’ll notify you by email or with a prominent notice in the app at least 14 days before the changes take effect. Your continued use of Bookplate after that point means you accept the updated Terms.
13. Governing Law and Disputes
These Terms are governed by the laws of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, without regard to its conflict-of-law principles. Any dispute arising from these Terms or your use of Bookplate will be resolved in the state or federal courts located in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and you consent to personal jurisdiction there.
If you have a dispute with us, please reach out to hello@bookplate.app first — we’d genuinely rather resolve things directly than through formal legal proceedings.
14. Termination
We may suspend or terminate your account if you violate these Terms, for non-payment, or if we decide to discontinue Bookplate. We’ll give you reasonable notice before termination where possible, except in cases of serious violations.
If Bookplate ever shuts down, we’ll give you at least 30 days to export your data before it’s deleted.
15. Miscellaneous
Entire agreement. These Terms, together with our Privacy Policy, constitute the entire agreement between you and SereneBooks LLC regarding Bookplate.
Severability. If any provision of these Terms is found unenforceable, the remaining provisions stay in effect.
No waiver. If we don’t enforce a provision of these Terms at a given time, that doesn’t waive our right to enforce it later.
Contact. Questions about these Terms? Email us at hello@bookplate.app.