Terms of Service
Effective: September 22, 2026
Terms version: 2026-09-22
These Terms of Service (the "Terms") are a legal agreement between you and Little Boat LLC ("Little Boat", "we", "us", or "our") that governs your access to and use of the Beansprout Journal application, website, and related services (together, the "Service"). Please read them carefully.
1. Acceptance of the Terms
By creating an account, selecting "Agree and continue", or otherwise accessing or using the Service, you agree to these Terms, the Privacy Policy, and the Community Rules, each of which is incorporated into these Terms by reference. If you do not agree, do not use the Service.
2. Eligibility
You must be at least 18 years old and able to form a binding contract to hold an account. The Service is not directed to children, and no person under 18 may create an account or use the Service. Children may appear in a journal as the subjects of content that adult members add. By adding content about a child, you represent that you are the child's parent or legal guardian, or that you have the permission of the child's parent or legal guardian.
3. Accounts
3.1 Sign-in
You sign in with an email link, with Google, or with Apple. You are responsible for the email account and for any Google or Apple account you use to sign in, and for all activity that occurs under your Beansprout account.
3.2 Accuracy
You agree to provide accurate information and to keep it current.
3.3 Security
Notify us at support@beansproutjournal.com promptly if you believe your account has been accessed without your permission.
4. Households and Roles
4.1 Households
A "Household" is a private sharing group that a member creates. The member who creates a Household, and any member that member designates, holds the Parent role. Every other member holds the Family & Friends role. Roles determine what a member can add, edit, and delete, as described in the Service.
4.2 Invites
A Parent may invite others by sharing an invite link. Anyone who holds a valid invite link can join the Household, so share invite links only with people you intend to admit. Invite links expire after 48 hours.
4.3 Parent control
A Parent may remove a member, delete content, and delete the Household, including all of its content, for every member.
4.4 Leaving
If you leave a Household or are removed from it, the photos, videos, comments, and reactions you added to it are deleted with you.
5. User Content
5.1 Ownership
You retain all rights in the photos, videos, captions, comments, child profiles, and other material you add to the Service ("User Content"). Little Boat does not claim ownership of User Content.
5.2 License to Little Boat
To operate the Service, you grant Little Boat a worldwide, non-exclusive, royalty-free license to host, store, reproduce, and process your User Content, including resizing, transcoding, and removing embedded metadata, and to display it and make it available for download to the members of the Households you add it to. This license exists only to provide the Service. It ends when the User Content is deleted, except for copies retained for the deletion window and for the safety, legal, and backup purposes described in the Privacy Policy.
5.3 No model training
Little Boat does not use User Content to train artificial-intelligence models.
5.4 Your responsibility
You are solely responsible for your User Content. You represent that you own it or hold the rights and permissions needed to add it, including the permission of the parent or legal guardian of any child it depicts who is not your own child, and that it does not violate the law, the Community Rules, or the rights of any person. If we receive a valid removal request or copyright notice about your User Content, we may hide or remove it as described in Sections 9 and 10.
5.5 Other members' content
Content that other members add to a Household is shared with you for personal, non-commercial use within that Household. You may not distribute it outside the Household without the permission of the member who added it.
6. Acceptable Use
6.1 Community Rules
The Community Rules are part of these Terms and describe what is never allowed on the Service. There is no tolerance for objectionable content or abusive members. See the Community Rules for what is and is not allowed on Beansprout.
6.2 Further restrictions
You also agree not to: (a) access the Service by any means other than the interfaces Little Boat provides, (b) probe, scan, or test the vulnerability of the Service or circumvent any security or access control, (c) interfere with the operation of the Service, (d) use automated means to collect information from the Service, (e) use the Service for any commercial purpose, (f) impersonate any person, or (g) upload malicious code.
6.3 Reporting and enforcement
Any member may report content or a member from within the Service. Little Boat reviews reports and may hide content, delete comments, remove members, suspend accounts, and refer matters to law enforcement where the law requires, in each case at its discretion and without prior notice.
7. Beansprout Plus
7.1 Subscription
Beansprout Plus ("Plus") is an optional paid subscription that adds features to one Household. Plus is sold as an automatically renewing subscription through the Apple App Store or Google Play (each, a "Store") and is available for purchase only in the Beansprout app on iOS and Android. Plus has no free trial.
7.2 Billing and renewal
The Store charges the payment method on file with the Store at the price shown in the Store at the time of purchase. Prices may vary by country and may change, and the Store notifies you of a price change as its rules require. Your subscription renews automatically at the end of each subscription period unless you cancel it through the Store at least 24 hours before the period ends.
7.3 Cancellation and refunds
You cancel Plus in the Store's subscription settings, not in the Service. Cancellation takes effect at the end of the current period, and Plus remains active until then. Refunds are governed by the Store's policies. Little Boat does not process payments and cannot issue refunds.
7.4 Household entitlement
Plus applies to one Household, chosen by the subscriber. That Household keeps Plus for as long as the subscription renews, even if the subscriber leaves the Household or deletes their account. Deleting your account or leaving a Household does not cancel your subscription. One subscription pays for one Household at a time. The subscription belongs to the Store account that bought it, and the member who bought it is the payer. If the Household you chose is deleted, the subscription keeps renewing but pays for no Household until you choose another one in Settings. If you reinstall the app or change devices, use Restore purchases in Settings with the same Store account to reconnect your subscription.
7.5 Original files without Plus
In a Household without Plus, the full-resolution original of a photo or video uploaded on or after August 21, 2026 is kept for at least 180 days and may be removed after that, as described in the Privacy Policy. Viewable copies are not affected.
7.6 Changes to Plus
Little Boat may change the features included in Plus. If Little Boat materially reduces them during a period you have paid for, you may cancel through the Store.
7.7 When Plus ends
When Plus ends, the Household returns to the free plan. Premium backgrounds return to the standard background, the longer video limit ends, the higher-quality playback of the Household's videos ends, and full-resolution originals follow the retention described in Section 7.5 and in the Privacy Policy. Nothing you added to the journal is removed because Plus ended.
8. Intellectual Property
The Service, including its software, design, text, graphics, and trademarks, including "Beansprout" and "Beansprout Journal", is owned by Little Boat or its licensors and is protected by copyright, trademark, and other laws. Subject to these Terms, Little Boat grants you a limited, non-exclusive, non-transferable, revocable license to use the Service for personal, non-commercial purposes. You may not copy, modify, distribute, sell, lease, reverse engineer, or create derivative works of the Service, except as the law permits.
9. Copyright Complaints
9.1 Your uploads
Upload only photos and videos you made or have the right to share. Little Boat responds to copyright infringement notices under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act ("DMCA").
9.2 Sending a notice
If you believe that content on the Service infringes your copyright, send a notice to support@beansproutjournal.com that includes: (a) identification of the copyrighted work, (b) identification of the material you believe infringes it and where it is located on the Service, (c) your name, address, telephone number, and email address, (d) a statement that you have a good-faith belief that the use is not authorized by the copyright owner, its agent, or the law, (e) a statement, under penalty of perjury, that the information in the notice is accurate and that you are the copyright owner or are authorized to act for the owner, and (f) your physical or electronic signature. The Copyright page explains what a notice must contain, where to send it, how to send a counter-notice if you believe your content was removed by mistake, and when removed content is restored. You do not need a Beansprout account to send a notice.
9.3 What we do with a notice
When Little Boat receives a valid notice, it hides the content the notice identifies and sends the member who uploaded it a copy of the notice. That member may send a counter-notice as described on the Copyright page.
9.4 Repeat infringers
Little Boat suspends an account after two valid notices about its uploads within twelve months and terminates it after a third, unless a counter-notice resolves a notice in the member's favor.
10. Intimate Images Shared Without Consent
Sharing an intimate image of a person without their consent is never allowed on the Service, whether or not the person is a member. If you appear in such a photo or video on the Service, or you are authorized to act for someone who does, you can ask Little Boat to remove it, and you do not need a Beansprout account to ask. The Image removal page explains what to include. Little Boat removes the content within 48 hours of receiving a valid request and makes reasonable efforts to remove identical copies it knows of. Little Boat does not identify you to the member who uploaded it.
11. Third-Party Services
The Service relies on third-party services, including Google Cloud and Firebase for hosting, storage, and sign-in, Apple and Google for sign-in and push notifications, and the Stores and RevenueCat for subscriptions. Your use of a third-party service, including a Store purchase and sign-in through Google or Apple, is governed by that third party's terms. Little Boat is not responsible for third-party services.
12. Suspension and Termination
12.1 By you
You may stop using the Service at any time and may delete your account from Settings. Deletion is permanent and takes effect as described in the Privacy Policy.
12.2 By Little Boat
Little Boat may suspend or terminate your account, or restrict access to the Service, at any time and without prior notice if Little Boat reasonably believes you have violated these Terms or the Community Rules, if the law requires it, or to protect the Service or its members. Little Boat may discontinue the Service or any part of it, and will give notice before discontinuing the Service where practical. Grounds for termination include repeat copyright infringement under Section 9.4. A suspended member may appeal by email to support@beansproutjournal.com.
12.3 Effect
On termination, your right to use the Service ends. Sections 5, 7, 8, 9, 10, and 13 through 19 survive termination.
13. Disclaimer of Warranties
THE SERVICE IS PROVIDED "AS IS" AND "AS AVAILABLE", WITHOUT WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, WHETHER EXPRESS, IMPLIED, OR STATUTORY, INCLUDING ANY IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE, TITLE, AND NON-INFRINGEMENT. LITTLE BOAT DOES NOT WARRANT THAT THE SERVICE WILL BE UNINTERRUPTED, SECURE, OR ERROR-FREE, THAT DEFECTS WILL BE CORRECTED, OR THAT USER CONTENT WILL NOT BE LOST, ALTERED, OR EXPOSED. THE SERVICE IS NOT A BACKUP SERVICE. KEEP YOUR OWN COPIES OF THE PHOTOS AND VIDEOS YOU CARE ABOUT. SOME JURISDICTIONS DO NOT ALLOW THE EXCLUSION OF IMPLIED WARRANTIES, SO SOME OF THESE EXCLUSIONS MAY NOT APPLY TO YOU.
14. Limitation of Liability
TO THE MAXIMUM EXTENT PERMITTED BY LAW, LITTLE BOAT AND ITS MEMBERS, MANAGERS, EMPLOYEES, AND SUPPLIERS WILL NOT BE LIABLE FOR ANY INDIRECT, INCIDENTAL, SPECIAL, CONSEQUENTIAL, OR PUNITIVE DAMAGES, OR FOR ANY LOSS OF DATA, LOSS OF PROFITS, OR LOSS OF GOODWILL, ARISING OUT OF OR RELATING TO THESE TERMS OR THE SERVICE, HOWEVER CAUSED AND UNDER ANY THEORY OF LIABILITY, EVEN IF ADVISED OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH DAMAGES. TO THE MAXIMUM EXTENT PERMITTED BY LAW, THE TOTAL LIABILITY OF LITTLE BOAT FOR ALL CLAIMS ARISING OUT OF OR RELATING TO THESE TERMS OR THE SERVICE WILL NOT EXCEED THE GREATER OF THE AMOUNT YOU PAID FOR PLUS IN THE TWELVE MONTHS BEFORE THE CLAIM AROSE AND FIFTY UNITED STATES DOLLARS (US $50). NOTHING IN THESE TERMS EXCLUDES OR LIMITS LIABILITY FOR GROSS NEGLIGENCE, WILLFUL MISCONDUCT, FRAUD, OR ANY LIABILITY THAT CANNOT BE EXCLUDED OR LIMITED BY LAW.
15. Indemnification
You agree to defend, indemnify, and hold harmless Little Boat and its members, managers, employees, and agents from and against any claims, damages, losses, and expenses, including reasonable attorneys' fees, that arise out of or relate to your User Content, your use of the Service, or your violation of these Terms, the Community Rules, or the rights of any person.
16. Governing Law
These Terms, and any dispute that arises out of or relates to them or to the Service, are governed by the laws of the Commonwealth of Virginia and the federal laws of the United States, without regard to conflict-of-law rules.
17. Dispute Resolution
17.1 Informal resolution first
Before filing a claim, you agree to send a written description of the dispute to support@beansproutjournal.com and to work with Little Boat in good faith to resolve it for at least 30 days. Little Boat will do the same before filing a claim against you.
17.2 Venue
Any claim that is not resolved informally must be brought exclusively in the state or federal courts located in the Commonwealth of Virginia, and you and Little Boat consent to the personal jurisdiction of those courts. Either party may instead bring an individual claim in a small-claims court that has jurisdiction over it.
17.3 Individual claims only
To the maximum extent permitted by law, you and Little Boat agree that each may bring claims against the other only in an individual capacity, and not as a plaintiff or class member in any purported class, consolidated, or representative proceeding.
17.4 Time limit
To the extent permitted by law, any claim that arises out of or relates to these Terms or the Service must be filed within one year after it arose, or it is permanently barred.
18. Changes to the Terms
Little Boat may revise these Terms. When Little Boat makes a material change, it posts the revised Terms on this page with a new effective date and a new version, and the Service asks you to review and agree to the revised Terms before you continue using it. Your agreement is recorded with the version you accepted.
19. General Terms
19.1 Entire agreement
These Terms, the Privacy Policy, and the Community Rules are the entire agreement between you and Little Boat about the Service and supersede any prior agreement.
19.2 Severability
If any provision of these Terms is held unenforceable, that provision is enforced to the maximum extent permissible, and the remaining provisions remain in full force.
19.3 Waiver
A failure to enforce any provision is not a waiver of the right to enforce it later.
19.4 Assignment
You may not assign or transfer these Terms or your account. Little Boat may assign these Terms in connection with a merger, acquisition, or sale of assets, subject to the Privacy Policy.
19.5 Third-party beneficiaries
Except as stated in Section 19.6, these Terms create no rights for any person other than you and Little Boat.
19.6 Apple and Google
If you use the Service through an app downloaded from a Store, the Store's terms also apply to your download and use of the app, and the following terms apply. These Terms are between you and Little Boat only, and not with Apple Inc. ("Apple") or Google LLC ("Google"). Your license to the app is limited to a non-transferable license to use the app on devices that you own or control, as permitted by the usage rules of the Store. Little Boat, and not Apple or Google, is solely responsible for the app and its content, for maintenance and support of the app, and for addressing any claim by you or a third party relating to the app or your use of it, including product liability claims, claims that the app fails to conform to a legal or regulatory requirement, claims under consumer protection or similar laws, and claims that the app infringes a third party's intellectual property rights. Apple and Google have no obligation to furnish any maintenance or support for the app. If the app fails to conform to any applicable warranty, you may notify the Store, and the Store may refund the purchase price of the app to you. To the maximum extent permitted by law, the Store has no other warranty obligation with respect to the app. You represent that you are not located in a country subject to a United States government embargo or designated as a terrorist-supporting country, and that you are not on any United States government list of prohibited or restricted parties. Apple, Google, and their subsidiaries are third-party beneficiaries of these Terms and may enforce them against you. Little Boat's contact information for questions, complaints, and claims about the app is in Section 20.
19.7 Notices
Little Boat may send notices to the email address on your account. Notices to Little Boat must be sent to support@beansproutjournal.com.
20. Contact
Questions about these Terms may be sent to Little Boat LLC at support@beansproutjournal.com.