Terms of Service

1. Acceptance of Terms

By accessing or using ClearStaq's services, you agree to be bound by these Terms of Service ("Terms"). If you do not agree to these Terms, do not use our services. These Terms constitute a legally binding agreement between you (and, if applicable, the organization you represent) and ClearStaq ("we," "our," or "us").

If you are accepting these Terms on behalf of an organization, you represent and warrant that you have the authority to bind that organization. References to "you" or "your" include both the individual user and any organization on whose behalf you act.

ClearStaq provides AI-powered financial document analysis tools, including bank statement parsing, tax return parsing, fraud detection, and income verification. These services process sensitive financial information and are intended exclusively for business use by authorized financial professionals, lenders, merchant cash advance (MCA) brokers, CPAs, and accounting firms.

2. Description of Service

ClearStaq provides the following AI-powered financial document analysis services through our web application and API:

• Bank Statement Parsing: Automated extraction of transactions, balances, account details, and financial summaries from PDF bank statements
• Fraud Detection: AI-driven analysis across 27+ fraud signals to identify potential document tampering, inconsistencies, and anomalies
• Income Verification: Automated income calculation, deposit categorization, and revenue pattern analysis
• Tax Return Parsing: Structured extraction of financial data from tax return documents
• Financial Analysis: Cash flow analytics, NSF tracking, negative balance detection, and financial health scoring
• Integrations: API access, webhooks, and native integrations with third-party platforms including Salesforce, Zapier, HubSpot, and QuickBooks

We reserve the right to modify, update, or discontinue any feature or aspect of our services at any time. We will provide at least thirty (30) days' notice for material changes that affect your use of the service, except where changes are required for security, legal compliance, or to prevent fraud.

3. Account Registration & Team Accounts

Individual Accounts

To use ClearStaq, you must create an account and provide accurate, complete, and current information. You are responsible for:

• Maintaining the confidentiality of your account credentials, including passwords and API keys
• All activities that occur under your account, whether authorized by you or not
• Notifying us immediately at [email protected] of any unauthorized use or security breach
• Ensuring your use complies with all applicable federal, state, and local laws and regulations

Team & Organization Accounts

ClearStaq supports multi-user team accounts with role-based access controls. If you create or administer a team account:

• Admin Responsibility: The team administrator is responsible for managing team members, assigning roles, and overseeing all activity within the team workspace
• User Management: Admins must promptly remove access for team members who leave the organization or no longer require access
• Shared Credits: All team members share the organization's credit allocation. The admin is responsible for monitoring credit usage across the team
• Data Visibility: Team members may have access to parsed results, fraud reports, and document analyses uploaded by other team members, depending on role-based permissions configured by the admin
• Binding Authority: The team admin represents and warrants that they have the authority to bind the organization to these Terms and are responsible for ensuring all team members comply

4. Document Authorization & Third-Party Data

ClearStaq processes sensitive financial documents, including bank statements and tax returns, that may contain personal financial information belonging to third parties. By using our services, you represent and warrant that:

• You have obtained all necessary authorizations, consents, and permissions from the account holder(s) or document owner(s) to upload and process their financial documents through ClearStaq
• Your collection and submission of such documents complies with all applicable privacy and data protection laws, including but not limited to the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act (GLBA), the Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA), and the California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA)
• You have a lawful business purpose for processing the financial documents you submit
• You will not upload documents obtained through fraudulent, deceptive, or unauthorized means
• You will maintain appropriate records of authorization from document owners for a minimum of five (5) years or as required by applicable law, whichever is longer

ClearStaq acts as a data processor on your behalf. You are the data controller and bear primary responsibility for ensuring lawful collection and processing of third-party financial information. Failure to maintain proper authorization constitutes a material breach of these Terms.

5. Acceptable Use

You agree not to:

• Use the service for any illegal purpose or in violation of any applicable law or regulation
• Upload documents you do not have proper authorization to process (see Section 4)
• Attempt to reverse engineer, decompile, disassemble, or derive the source code of our software, algorithms, or AI models
• Interfere with, disrupt, or place an unreasonable burden on the service or its infrastructure
• Share account credentials or API keys with unauthorized parties
• Use the service to build, train, or improve any competing product or service
• Scrape, crawl, or use automated means to access the service outside of our documented API
• White-label, rebrand, resell, or sublicense the service or any output without prior written agreement from ClearStaq
• Use fraud detection scores or parsed data as the sole basis for credit decisions, consumer lending determinations, or other regulated financial decisions without independent verification
• Upload documents containing malware, viruses, or malicious code
• Misrepresent your identity, affiliation, or authorization to process documents

6. Credits & Billing

Credit-Based Model

ClearStaq operates on a credit-based billing model. Each document analysis consumes credits from your account balance: one credit for each month of statements analyzed for each bank account, and two on StaqCore when fast results are requested. Analyzing a document again consumes credits again.

Subscription Plans

An analysis plan is required to use the service. We offer the following analysis plans, each with a monthly credit allocation and included storage:

• StaqCore: 150 credits and 5 GB per month for $99/month, or $74/month billed yearly
• StaqPro: 500 credits and 15 GB per month for $249/month, or $187/month billed yearly
• StaqScale: 2,000 credits and 50 GB per month for $699/month, or $524/month billed yearly
• Enterprise: credits, limits and prices as set out in your order form

Deal-flow Add-on

The optional Deal-flow add-on requires an active analysis plan and is billed on the same subscription: Deal-flow at $399/month ($299/month billed yearly), with 10,000 emails and 25,000 API requests included per month; Deal-flow Plus at $799/month ($599/month billed yearly), with 30,000 emails and 100,000 API requests included per month.

Usage Beyond Your Plan

On a paid plan, document analyses continue after your credit balance is used, and each additional credit is charged at your plan's per-credit rate. Storage above your plan's included amount is charged at $2 per GB per month, in whole GB, from the day it is exceeded until a full month passes below the included amount. Emails sent on your behalf above the add-on's included amount are charged at $3 per 1,000, and API requests at $1 per 10,000. Usage charges are billed in arrears on your next invoice; if they reach $500 within a billing period, we may invoice them immediately. By subscribing, you authorize ClearStaq to charge your payment method for these usage charges.

Credit Validity

Credits are valid for twelve (12) months from the date they are added to your account and are used in order of expiry. Credits have no cash value and are not refundable or transferable.

Plan Changes

An upgrade to a higher plan, or from monthly to annual billing, takes effect immediately: a new billing period starts on the day of the upgrade and the new plan is charged in full for that period. The unused part of the previous plan is not refunded or credited; the credits already in your account remain available until they expire, and the new plan's credits are added. When you upgrade from an annual plan, the monthly credits not yet granted for the rest of its term are added to your account. An add-on that continues is charged only for the days beyond the period already paid. Adding or raising the add-on takes effect immediately and is charged for the rest of the billing period. Downgrades, and lowering or removing the add-on, take effect at the end of the billing period already paid, with no refund.

Payment & Billing

Paid subscriptions are billed in advance, monthly or yearly, through our payment processor, Stripe. All fees are stated in U.S. dollars and are non-refundable except as required by applicable law. If a payment fails, we may pause new document analyses until the outstanding invoice is paid. You are responsible for all applicable taxes, levies, and duties. We may update pricing with at least thirty (30) days' prior written notice. Continued use after a price change constitutes acceptance of the new pricing.

7. Former Free Tier (StaqFree)

ClearStaq no longer offers a free tier or free trial. Accounts created on the former free tier ("StaqFree") keep the credits already in their balance, subject to the following terms:

• No new free credits are added; to analyze more documents, the account must choose a paid plan
• StaqFree accounts are subject to the same acceptable use policies, data handling standards, and terms as paid accounts
• Certain features may be limited or unavailable on StaqFree accounts
• StaqFree accounts that remain inactive for more than ninety (90) consecutive days may be suspended or deleted at our discretion, with prior notice to the registered email address

8. API & Integration Usage

API Access

API access is available on all paid subscription tiers and is subject to rate limits and usage quotas based on your plan. You agree to:

• Keep API keys confidential and rotate them periodically. Treat API keys as sensitive credentials equivalent to passwords
• Not exceed your allocated rate limits. Persistent rate limit violations may result in temporary or permanent suspension of API access
• Implement proper error handling, retry logic with exponential backoff, and timeout management in your API integrations
• Not use the API to build, train, or operate a competing product or service
• Monitor your API usage and credit consumption programmatically via our usage endpoints

Webhooks

ClearStaq offers webhook notifications for asynchronous processing events. You are responsible for maintaining a secure, publicly accessible endpoint to receive webhook payloads and for validating webhook signatures to ensure authenticity.

Third-Party Integrations

ClearStaq integrates with third-party platforms including Salesforce, Zapier, HubSpot, and QuickBooks. When using these integrations:

• You are solely responsible for securing your integration configurations, API credentials, and data flows between ClearStaq and third-party platforms
• ClearStaq is not responsible for the security practices, data handling, or availability of third-party platforms
• You must comply with the terms of service of any third-party platform you connect to ClearStaq
• Data transmitted to third-party platforms via integrations is subject to those platforms' privacy policies once it leaves ClearStaq's infrastructure

9. Data Accuracy & Disclaimers

While we strive for the highest levels of accuracy in our document parsing and analysis:

• AI-powered extraction may contain errors, especially with low-quality scans, unusual document formats, or heavily redacted statements
• Fraud detection scores indicate potential risk signals and anomalies. They are not definitive conclusions of fraud. A high fraud score does not mean a document is fraudulent; a low score does not guarantee authenticity
• Income verification calculations are based on AI interpretation of transaction data and may not capture all nuances of a business's financial situation
• You are solely responsible for independently verifying all parsed data, fraud scores, and financial analyses before making lending decisions, extending credit, or taking any action based on ClearStaq output
• ClearStaq shall not be liable for any decisions made based on our output, including but not limited to funding decisions, credit approvals, or investment actions

10. Regulatory Disclosures

FCRA Disclaimer

ClearStaq is not a consumer reporting agency as defined by the Fair Credit Reporting Act (15 U.S.C. § 1681 et seq.), and the output of our services does not constitute a "consumer report" as defined by the FCRA. You may not use ClearStaq's output as a factor in determining any consumer's eligibility for credit, insurance, employment, or any other purpose regulated under the FCRA. ClearStaq's fraud scores, parsed data, and analyses are tools for internal business decision support and must not be used as a substitute for FCRA-compliant consumer reports.

GLBA Compliance

ClearStaq processes Nonpublic Personal Information ("NPI") as defined by the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act (GLBA). We maintain administrative, technical, and physical safeguards designed to protect the security, confidentiality, and integrity of NPI in accordance with GLBA requirements. If you are a financial institution subject to GLBA, you acknowledge that ClearStaq acts as a service provider processing NPI on your behalf, and you remain responsible for providing required privacy notices to your customers.

State Privacy Laws

ClearStaq acknowledges its obligations under applicable state privacy and data protection laws, including the California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA), as amended by the California Privacy Rights Act (CPRA), and similar state-level regulations. For details on how we handle personal information under these laws, please refer to our Privacy Policy.

11. Intellectual Property

Our Property

ClearStaq and its licensors retain all rights, title, and interest in and to the service, including all software, AI models, algorithms, machine learning systems, documentation, user interfaces, trade secrets, trademarks, and proprietary technology. Nothing in these Terms transfers any intellectual property rights to you.

Your Data

ClearStaq never claims ownership of your uploaded documents or the data extracted from them. You retain all rights, title, and interest in and to the financial documents you upload and the structured data produced from them. You grant ClearStaq a limited, non-exclusive, revocable license to process your documents solely for the purpose of providing the service to you.

White-Label & Resale Restrictions

You may not white-label, rebrand, resell, sublicense, or redistribute ClearStaq's service, output, or any component thereof without a separate written agreement from ClearStaq. Unauthorized resale or white-labeling constitutes a material breach of these Terms and may result in immediate termination and legal action.

12. AI & Machine Learning

ClearStaq uses artificial intelligence and machine learning models to power its document parsing, fraud detection, and financial analysis services. In the interest of transparency:

• No Raw Data Training: We do not use your raw documents, parsed results, or identifiable customer data to train or improve our AI models
• Aggregated Patterns: We may use aggregated, anonymized, and de-identified statistical patterns (such as document format frequency, common parsing challenges, or generalized fraud signal distributions) to improve model accuracy and service quality. This aggregated data cannot be reverse-engineered to identify any specific customer, document, or individual
• Model Updates: Our AI models are periodically updated to improve accuracy and detection capabilities. We will notify you of material changes that significantly affect how your data is processed
• Human Review: In limited cases, ClearStaq employees may review anonymized processing outputs for quality assurance. This review never involves access to original uploaded documents or identifiable customer data

13. Data Processing & Security

We process documents in compliance with our Privacy Policy. Our data processing pipeline is designed to minimize data exposure:

• Encryption: All data is encrypted at rest using AES-256 and in transit using TLS 1.3
• Document Lifecycle: Original uploaded files (PDFs and images) are kept until your account is deleted, or for the period your organization selects in Settings → Profile → Document retention (30 days to 7 years), then permanently deleted from storage
• Access Controls: Strict role-based access controls ensure that only authorized personnel and systems can access processing infrastructure

By using our service, you represent that you have all necessary rights and authorizations to submit documents for processing, as described in Section 4.

14. Service Level Agreement

Uptime Commitment

ClearStaq targets 99.9% monthly uptime for our core parsing and analysis services, measured as the percentage of time the service is available and operational during a calendar month, excluding scheduled maintenance windows.

Scheduled Maintenance

We will provide at least forty-eight (48) hours' advance notice for scheduled maintenance that may affect service availability. Scheduled maintenance windows are excluded from uptime calculations.

Support Response Times

Support response times are targets, not guarantees. "Business hours" means Monday through Friday, 9:00 AM to 6:00 PM Eastern Time, excluding U.S. federal holidays.

15. Limitation of Liability

THE SERVICE IS PROVIDED "AS IS" AND "AS AVAILABLE" WITHOUT WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, WHETHER EXPRESS, IMPLIED, OR STATUTORY, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE, ACCURACY, AND NON-INFRINGEMENT.

TO THE MAXIMUM EXTENT PERMITTED BY LAW, CLEARSTAQ AND ITS OFFICERS, DIRECTORS, EMPLOYEES, AND AFFILIATES SHALL NOT BE LIABLE FOR ANY INDIRECT, INCIDENTAL, SPECIAL, CONSEQUENTIAL, OR PUNITIVE DAMAGES, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO:

• Loss of profits, revenue, or business opportunities
• Losses arising from lending decisions, funding decisions, or credit determinations made based on ClearStaq output
• Damages resulting from inaccurate parsing, undetected fraud, or errors in financial analysis
• Losses arising from service interruptions, downtime, or data loss
• Damages resulting from unauthorized access to your account caused by your failure to secure credentials

OUR TOTAL AGGREGATE LIABILITY SHALL NOT EXCEED THE AMOUNT YOU PAID TO CLEARSTAQ IN THE TWELVE (12) MONTHS IMMEDIATELY PRECEDING THE EVENT GIVING RISE TO THE CLAIM. FOR FREE TIER USERS, OUR TOTAL LIABILITY SHALL NOT EXCEED ONE HUNDRED DOLLARS ($100).

16. Indemnification

You agree to indemnify, defend, and hold harmless ClearStaq and its respective officers, directors, employees, agents, and affiliates from and against any and all claims, damages, losses, liabilities, costs, and expenses (including reasonable attorneys' fees) arising from or related to:

• Unauthorized Document Processing: Your uploading or processing of financial documents without proper authorization from the document owner or account holder
• Regulatory Violations: Your failure to comply with GLBA, FCRA, CCPA, or any other applicable law or regulation in connection with your use of the service
• Misuse of Output: Your use of ClearStaq's output in a manner that violates applicable law, including using fraud scores or parsed data as FCRA consumer reports
• Integration Failures: Security breaches or data loss resulting from your API integrations, webhook implementations, or third-party platform configurations
• Third-Party Claims: Any claim by a third party (including account holders whose documents you processed) arising from your use of the service
• Terms Violations: Your violation of any provision of these Terms

17. Termination

By You: You may cancel your subscription and terminate your account at any time through your account settings or by contacting us. Cancellation takes effect at the end of your current billing cycle. No refunds are provided for partial billing periods.

By Us: We may suspend or terminate your access immediately, without prior notice, if:

• You violate these Terms, including uploading documents without authorization
• We reasonably believe your account is being used for fraudulent or illegal purposes
• Your payment method fails and is not resolved within ten (10) business days
• Required by law or regulatory order

Effect of Termination: Upon termination, your right to use the service ceases immediately. We will retain parsed results and account data for ninety (90) days after termination, during which you may request an export. After this period, we will delete your data in accordance with our Privacy Policy retention schedule. Credits are non-refundable and any unused credits are forfeited upon termination.

18. Governing Law & Dispute Resolution

These Terms are governed by and construed in accordance with the laws of the State of Delaware, without regard to conflict of law principles. Any dispute arising out of or relating to these Terms or the service shall be resolved exclusively in the state or federal courts located in the State of Delaware, and you consent to the personal jurisdiction of such courts.

Before initiating any formal legal proceeding, both parties agree to attempt to resolve disputes through good-faith negotiation for a period of at least thirty (30) days following written notice of the dispute.

19. Changes to Terms

We may update these Terms from time to time to reflect changes in our services, legal requirements, or business practices. We will notify you of material changes by email to the address associated with your account and by posting a prominent notice on the service at least thirty (30) days before the changes take effect.

Your continued use of the service after the effective date of updated Terms constitutes acceptance of the new Terms. If you do not agree to the updated Terms, you must stop using the service and may terminate your account in accordance with Section 17.

20. Contact

Questions about these Terms? Contact us: