Legal

Terms of service

Last updated: October 2, 2026

1. Who we are, and who these Terms cover

Proto is provided by Proto (letproto.com). In these Terms, "we", "us" and "our" mean the people who run Proto. "Proto" means the Proto service, however you use it: the AI assistant you message, its web pages, and anything else we provide as part of it.

These Terms are an agreement between us and the company that uses Proto for its team (the "Customer" or "your company"), and each person who uses Proto (a "User" or "you"). If you accept these Terms for a company, you confirm that you're allowed to agree for it.

Your company accepts these Terms when a person allowed to act for it agrees at checkout, signs, pays for a plan, or otherwise agrees in writing. You accept them by using Proto after you've been told about them. The arbitration agreement in section 16 applies to you after you've been given a link to these Terms that mentions it and you keep using Proto. A separate written agreement signed with us wins where it differs from these Terms.

"Customer Data" means everything your company and its Users put into Proto or let Proto read, such as messages, voice, meeting transcripts, notes and content in connected apps.

2. Who can use Proto, and admins

• Business use only, by people 18 or older. Proto is for work teams, not consumers. Each person joins through their company's Proto.
• Keep your account secure. Proto recognizes you by the number or account you message from, so anyone who can message from it can use your Proto. Tell your admin or us promptly if a device or account may have been lost or misused.
• Admins can add and remove people, choose features, manage plans and billing, and see usage. They can't use Proto to read another person's private messages, or turn a person's messages back on after that person has opted out.
• Your company is responsible for having the right to add people and share their details with us, telling its team about Proto, these Terms and our Privacy Policy, removing people promptly when they leave, and what its admins and Users do in Proto.

3. Connected services

Each User chooses which apps and accounts to connect, such as Google, Microsoft, Notion or Slack. By connecting one, you authorize us to access it and act in it for you as these Terms describe. Connect only accounts you have the right to connect. Connected services have their own terms, which apply to your use of them, and we aren't responsible for them, their outages or their changes. You can disconnect an app at any time in its own settings, or ask your admin or us. Your connected apps hold information about other people, and you and your company are responsible for having the rights, and giving any notices, needed for Proto to handle it for you.

4. What Proto does for you

Proto is an AI assistant. It reads what you share with it and what is in your connected apps, and helps with work such as answering questions, drafting, reminders, notes and coordinating with your teammates' Protos.

Proto is designed to ask for your approval before taking certain actions that reach other people or change things in your apps, such as sending an email. When you approve, you are instructing us to take that action for you. You're responsible for what you approve or ask Proto to do, including who it goes to and what it says. Review what Proto proposes before you approve it, and don't rely on any one safeguard.

5. Messaging with Proto

• Proto is an AI, not a person.
• Consent. By messaging Proto, or by accepting your company's invitation, you agree to receive messages from Proto about your work and your account, such as replies, reminders, summaries, alerts, and account and billing messages. Consent is not a condition of buying anything. Proto doesn't send marketing messages. Message frequency varies.
• Delivery. Proto messages over iMessage, and may use SMS or RCS. Message and data rates may apply. Carriers and Apple aren't responsible for delayed or undelivered messages.
• To stop, message STOP (or UNSUBSCRIBE, CANCEL, END or QUIT) on its own in your chat with Proto, or say so in plain words. Message START to turn messages back on. After you opt out, Proto sends nothing on its own, and no admin can turn your messages back on.
• For help, message HELP or contact us (section 17).
• Group chats. If someone adds Proto to a group chat, Proto receives the group's messages, including from people outside your company, and everyone in the group sees its replies.

6. Meetings and recording

You can ask Proto to join a video meeting, where it takes notes and may speak. The person who asks Proto to join is responsible for having the right to record and transcribe the meeting, for telling the people in it that Proto is present, and for getting any consent the law requires. Don't invite Proto to a meeting where recording or transcription isn't allowed.

7. Acceptable use

Don't use Proto to:

• break the law, or send spam or messages people didn't agree to get;
• harass, threaten or deceive anyone, or pretend to be someone you're not;
• use accounts or people's details that you don't have the right to use, or get at another person's or company's information;
• get around Proto's safeguards;
• make decisions about someone's job, credit, housing, insurance, health care or legal rights without a person checking properly;
• build a competing product, or copy, reverse-engineer, resell or overload Proto;
• break the rules of Apple, your carrier, any connected app, or the AI providers Proto uses.

Don't use Proto to store or process health information covered by HIPAA or similar laws, payment card or bank account numbers, passwords, government ID numbers, children's information, or information covered by special legal confidentiality rules, unless we've agreed otherwise in a signed writing. Proto isn't designed to meet the special rules for that kind of information, and we don't sign business associate agreements. If it appears in Proto anyway, your company is responsible for deciding whether Proto is suitable.

8. AI can be wrong

Proto uses AI models from outside providers. AI makes mistakes: it may misunderstand you, misread information, give out-of-date information, or be slow. Check Proto's drafts, summaries and answers before you rely on them. You and your company are responsible for the decisions you make with Proto's help. Proto isn't for emergencies, and doesn't give legal, medical, financial, tax or other professional advice. If you give professional services to your own clients, you remain responsible for them.

9. Your data

• Ownership. As between us and your company, your company owns its Customer Data and what Proto produces from it. We won't give your company, or anyone at it, a User's private messages or memory unless that User agrees or the law requires it.
• Our use. Your company allows us to use Customer Data to run Proto for your company and its Users, keep Proto secure, give support you ask for, bill and keep business records, follow the law, and train AI models only as described below. We share it with service providers (Privacy Policy, section 5), who may use it only to provide their service to us. We don't sell Customer Data, and we don't use it for advertising.
• Training, only if your company agrees. We don't use Customer Data to train AI models unless your company has agreed in writing, and an admin who agrees confirms they're allowed to agree for the company. If it has, each User is told first, and any User can message "don't use my chats" at any time and we stop and delete what we kept for them. Agreeing is never required to use Proto. Our Privacy Policy has the details.
• Business records. We keep usage records (counts and times, not message content) for billing, accounting, tax and business reporting. We won't name your company or use its logo publicly without your OK.
• Personal information. We handle personal information in Customer Data on your company's behalf, and help your company answer people's requests about it. Ask us if your company needs a data processing agreement.
• Your company's responsibility. Your company decides what information to bring into Proto, confirms it has every right, notice and consent needed from the people whose information is involved, and follows the laws and contracts that apply to it. If a security incident affects information about your company's clients or other people, your company is responsible for any notices the law requires, with our reasonable help.
• Security. We protect Customer Data with safeguards suited to its sensitivity. If we learn of a security breach affecting your Customer Data, we'll tell your admins without undue delay, and affected Users as the law requires. No online service is risk-free, and we can't guarantee that Customer Data will never be accessed, disclosed, changed or lost. To the extent the law allows, we aren't responsible for an incident caused by a lost or compromised device, account or credential, a connected app or its provider, your company's or its Users' own actions or settings, or events outside our reasonable control.
• Feedback. If you send us ideas or suggestions, we may use them freely, with no duty to you.

10. Fees and billing

Paid plans are billed monthly or yearly, as shown on your plan page or in writing before your admin agrees, along with prices, included usage and any usage or spending limit. Included usage and free allowances don't roll over. When included usage or a spending limit is reached, Proto may pause new work until more is available.

• Plans renew automatically until an admin cancels, and cancelling takes effect at the end of the current billing period.
• Paying. Card payments, invoices and the billing portal are handled by Stripe. Your company can also pay by another method we agree with it in writing.
• Failed payments. If a payment fails and isn't fixed after a reasonable grace period, we may pause or end the service.
• Refunds. Fees aren't refundable, except for billing errors reported within 60 days, if we end your service without cause, or where the law requires it.
• Price changes. A price change never applies to a billing period already paid for, and applies from the first billing period that starts after your admins have been told about it. If you don't agree, you can cancel before it takes effect.
• Taxes. Prices are in US dollars and don't include taxes, other than taxes on our income.

11. Early service, and availability

Proto is a new service in a pilot or beta stage. We may add, change or remove features at any time, and features may be on for some companies and not others. Proto may be slow or unavailable at times, including when a provider we rely on has problems. We don't promise any particular uptime.

12. Suspending and ending

Any User can stop messages by messaging STOP. An admin can remove Users and can cancel a paid plan. A company that wants to close its account can contact us.

We may suspend or limit Proto for a User or a company if they break these Terms, if it's needed to protect Proto, our providers or other customers, if the law requires it, or if payment is overdue past the grace period. When we reasonably can, we'll tell the affected User or admin first and give them a chance to fix the problem. We may stop providing Proto to a company with at least 30 days' notice, or right away for a serious breach of these Terms. If we end your service without cause, we'll refund fees you paid in advance for time after it ends.

When your company stops using Proto, it can ask us to delete its data, as our Privacy Policy explains. Sections that by their nature should survive the end still apply.

13. Our property, confidentiality, and other companies' services

We own Proto, including its software, design and the Proto name. While these Terms apply, your company and its Users may use Proto for your company's work. You get no other rights.

Each of us will keep the other's non-public information confidential, use it only to carry out these Terms, and share it only with people and providers who need it for that and are bound to keep it confidential. This doesn't cover information that is public, already known, independently developed, rightly received from someone else, or required by law to be shared.

Proto relies on providers we choose, which are independent companies. To the extent the law allows, we aren't responsible for their acts or omissions, outages or security incidents, except to the extent caused by our own breach of these Terms. If a provider changes or stops its service, we may need to change or stop part of Proto.

14. Disclaimers, limits on liability and indemnity

Disclaimers. Proto is provided "as is" and "as available". To the fullest extent the law allows, we give no promises or warranties of any kind, express or implied, including that Proto will be accurate, uninterrupted, error-free or fit for a particular purpose, or free of every security risk, and we don't promise that any message will be delivered, or delivered on time. Some places don't allow some of these disclaimers; there, they apply only as far as the law allows.

Limits on liability. To the fullest extent the law allows:

• Neither we nor your company is liable for indirect, incidental, special, consequential or punitive damages, or for lost profits, revenue, business, data or goodwill, or the cost of replacement services, even if warned they were possible.
• Each side's total liability for all claims about Proto or these Terms is limited to the greater of (a) the fees your company paid or owed us in the 12 months before the claim, and (b) US$100. This is one total for your company and all of its Users together. If your company hasn't paid us any fees, our total liability is limited to US$100.
• These limits apply to every claim, however it's described, including claims arising from unauthorized access to, or disclosure, change or loss of, Customer Data, and claims about our providers or your connected apps. They also protect our team, affiliates and successors. They are a basic part of the deal between us, and our prices reflect them.
• They don't apply to your company's duty to pay fees, to your company's duties under the indemnity below, to a side's gross negligence, fraud or willful misconduct, or to any liability the law doesn't allow to be limited.

Some places don't allow some of these limits. There, our liability is limited as far as the law allows.

Indemnity. Your company will defend us (including our team, affiliates and successors), and pay any resulting losses, damages, fines, settlements, costs and reasonable legal fees, against claims by others, including your company's clients, customers and employees, and regulators, that come from Customer Data or your company's connected apps (including claims that your company lacked a right, notice or consent), your Users' instructions to Proto and what they approved it to do, sensitive or regulated data brought into Proto, your company's or its Users' breach of these Terms or of the law, or your company's services to its own clients. This includes claims alleged to arise in part from our own negligence, but not to the extent caused by our gross negligence or willful misconduct.

We'll defend your company, and pay any resulting losses, costs and reasonable legal fees, against claims by others that Proto's own software infringes their intellectual property. This doesn't cover Customer Data, AI output, other companies' services, or Proto combined with something we didn't provide. We may change Proto so it doesn't infringe, or end the service and refund fees paid in advance for time after it ends. This promise is subject to the limits above.

The side asking for protection tells the other promptly, lets it control the defense and helps reasonably. Neither side will settle a claim admitting fault for the other without its OK.

15. Changes to these Terms

We may update these Terms. Updates take effect when we post them at letproto.com, and the date at the top shows the latest version. If you keep using Proto after an update, you accept it. If the law requires your consent for a specific change, we'll ask for it then. Adding, changing or removing features isn't a change to these Terms. Price changes follow section 10.

16. Governing law, disputes and the legal odds and ends

• Which law. These Terms are governed by the laws of the United States (including the Federal Arbitration Act) and of the state where we are based, without regard to conflict-of-law rules.
• Talk first. If there's a dispute, contact us first. We'll both try in good faith to settle it within 30 days before either of us starts an arbitration or a court case.
• Arbitration. If we can't settle it, any dispute about Proto or these Terms will be decided by binding arbitration with one arbitrator, run by the American Arbitration Association under its Commercial Arbitration Rules, and held in (or by video from) the county where we are based. Judgment on the award can be entered in any court that has jurisdiction.
• Exceptions. Either of us may bring an individual claim in small claims court if it qualifies, and either of us may ask a court for an injunction to stop someone misusing or infringing its intellectual property or confidential information.
• One at a time: no class actions. Claims may be brought only individually, not as a plaintiff or class member in any class, group, consolidated or representative action. The arbitrator can't combine claims of different companies or Users. If this rule is found unenforceable for a claim, that claim goes to court, not to class arbitration.
• No jury. To the extent the law allows, each of us gives up the right to a jury trial.
• Opting out of arbitration. A User can opt out of this arbitration section by emailing support@letproto.com within 30 days after first accepting a version of these Terms that includes this section, with their name, mobile number and a clear statement that they opt out. Opting out doesn't affect anything else in these Terms. If we change this section, the change applies only to disputes that arise after we post it.
• Time limit. To the extent the law allows, any claim about Proto or these Terms must be brought within one year after the person bringing it knew, or reasonably should have known, of it, or it's permanently barred.
• Courts. Any matter that goes to court under these Terms will be heard in the state or federal courts for the county where we are based, and each of us agrees to those courts.
• General terms. These Terms, and any signed agreement or plan page for your company, are the whole agreement between us about Proto. If a part doesn't hold, the rest still applies. Not enforcing a part right away doesn't waive it. Neither of us can transfer these Terms without the other's OK, except to an affiliate or successor or in a merger or sale of its business. Neither of us is responsible for delays beyond reasonable control. We're independent businesses. You may not use Proto where law, including sanctions law, forbids it.
• Notices. We send notices to your company's admins by message from Proto or by email. Send notices to us using the contact details in section 17.

17. Contact us

Proto (letproto.com)

• Help and billing: email support@letproto.com, or message HELP to your Proto number.
• Everything else: email hello@letproto.com.
• Privacy questions and requests: email support@letproto.com. See our Privacy Policy.