01 The service
What Baited is
Baited is a headless booking platform for fishing charter operators: an API and an embeddable widget that let you publish trips, take bookings, collect deposits, and manage your schedule from your own website. These Terms govern your access to and use of that software (the “Service”).
The Service is the tooling around your business. We are not a travel agency, a broker, or a tour operator. We don’t sell trips, set your prices, or take a cut of what you charge. The charter is between you and your customer; Baited is the software in the middle.
By creating an account or using the Service, you agree to these Terms. If you’re agreeing on behalf of a business, you confirm you’re authorized to bind it.
02 Accounts & eligibility
Accounts & eligibility
You must be at least 18 and able to enter a binding contract. You’re responsible for the accuracy of the information you give us, for keeping your login credentials secure, and for everything that happens under your account.
Tell us promptly if you suspect unauthorized access. You may add team members to your account; you remain responsible for their use of the Service. One account is meant for one operator business — don’t share a single account across unrelated operations.
03 Operator obligations
Your obligations as an operator
You run the charters. That means you’re responsible for the things only you can be responsible for:
- Holding the licenses, permits, vessel registrations, and insurance that your waters and jurisdiction require — including any U.S. Coast Guard credentials.
- Operating safely and lawfully, and making the call on weather, sea state, and cancellations. Baited surfaces NOAA forecasts and tides as information; the decision to sail is always yours.
- Describing your trips honestly — pricing, duration, capacity, what’s included, and your own cancellation and refund policy.
- Honoring the bookings you accept and handling your customers fairly, including refunds and reschedules under the policy you publish.
- Meeting your own tax obligations on the income you earn through the Service.
04 Payments & deposits
Payments, deposits & our fees
Baited charges a flat subscription for the software. We take $0 per-booking platform fee — no commission, no percentage of trip value, ever. Card processing is Stripe’s and is passed through at cost; we don’t mark it up.
Deposits and payments from your customers flow through your own Stripe account and settle to you on Stripe’s schedule. Baited never takes custody of those funds. Because the money is yours and the charter is yours:
- Baited is not a party to the charter or to the payment. Refunds, chargebacks, disputes, and the duty to deliver the trip are between you and your customer.
- Your use of Stripe is also governed by Stripe’s own connected-account terms, which you accept directly with Stripe.
- Subscription fees are billed in advance and are non-refundable except where the law requires otherwise. We’ll give clear notice before any price change takes effect on your plan.
05 Customer data & ownership
Your data is yours
Your bookings, customers, manifests, and trip configuration belong to you. We process them to run the Service for you — nothing more. We don’t sell your data, and we don’t use your customer lists to market our own products to them.
You can export your data while your account is active, and we’ll make it available for a reasonable window after you close it. As your service provider, we act on your instructions for the personal data you collect from your customers; you’re the one who decides why and how that data is used. Our handling of personal data is described in our Privacy Policy.
06 Acceptable use
Acceptable use
Use the Service for running a legitimate charter business. Don’t use it to:
- Break the law, or take bookings for trips you aren’t licensed or able to run.
- Defraud customers, misrepresent trips, or facilitate money laundering.
- Probe, scrape, overload, or reverse-engineer the Service, or get around its security or rate limits.
- Resell or sublicense the Service, or use it to build a competing booking platform.
- Upload malware, or content that infringes someone else’s rights.
If your use puts the Service, our other operators, or their customers at risk, we may suspend access while we sort it out.
07 Intellectual property
Intellectual property
Baited owns the Service — the software, the widget, the API, the docs, and our name and brand. We grant you a limited, non-exclusive, non-transferable right to use it while your subscription is active, including embedding the widget on sites you control.
You keep ownership of your content — your trip descriptions, photos, logos, and customer data. You grant us only the permission we need to host and display that content to run the Service for you. If you send us feedback, we may use it to improve the product without obligation to you.
08 Disclaimers & liability
Disclaimers & limitation of liability
The Service is provided “as is.” We work hard to keep it reliable and accurate, but we don’t warrant that it will be uninterrupted or error-free. Weather and tide data comes from third-party sources such as NOAA and is provided for information only — it is not a substitute for your own judgment as a captain, and we don’t guarantee its accuracy.
Because Baited is not a party to your charters, we’re not responsible for the trips themselves, for disputes between you and your customers, or for anything that happens on the water. To the fullest extent the law allows, Baited is not liable for indirect, incidental, or consequential damages, and our total liability for any claim relating to the Service is capped at the subscription fees you paid us in the twelve months before the claim arose.
Some jurisdictions don’t allow certain limitations, so parts of this section may not apply to you.
09 Termination
Termination
You can cancel your subscription at any time; founding access is month-to-month. We may suspend or terminate your access if you materially breach these Terms or use the Service in a way that harms others, and we’ll give notice and a chance to fix it where it’s reasonable to do so.
On termination, your right to use the Service ends. We’ll give you a reasonable window to export your data before it’s deleted. Sections that should outlast the agreement — payment owed, intellectual property, disclaimers, and liability — survive.
10 Changes to these terms
Changes to these terms
We may update these Terms as the Service evolves. When we make a material change, we’ll update the “last updated” date above and give you reasonable notice — by email or in the product — before it takes effect. If you keep using the Service after a change takes effect, you accept the updated Terms.
11 Governing law
Governing law
These Terms are governed by the laws of the State of California, USA, without regard to its conflict-of-laws rules. The courts located in California will have jurisdiction over any dispute, except where applicable law gives you the right to bring a claim elsewhere.
Placeholder jurisdiction — to be confirmed with counsel before launch.
12 Contact
Contact
Questions about these Terms? We’re people, not a ticket queue — reach a human at hey@baited.dev and we’ll get back to you.