Free Terms of Service Generator

Every website, mobile app, and SaaS product needs terms of service. A terms of service agreement (also called terms and conditions or terms of use) is the legal contract between you and the people who use your product. It defines what users can and cannot do, what you are and are not responsible for, and what happens when things go wrong. Without one, you are exposed to lawsuits, chargebacks, intellectual property theft, and regulatory fines with almost no legal recourse.

PolicyForge lets you generate a complete terms of service document in minutes. Answer a few questions about your business type, payment model, and user interactions, and receive a professionally structured, legally comprehensive ToS tailored to your product. No lawyer fees. No copy-pasting generic templates that miss critical clauses.

Why You Need Terms of Service

Terms of service are not just boilerplate. They are the single most important legal document protecting your online business. Here is what a proper ToS agreement does for you:

• Limits your liability. If your service goes down, if a user loses data, or if a third-party integration fails, a well-written liability limitation clause caps the amount a user can claim from you — often to the amount they paid in the last 12 months.
• Protects your intellectual property. Your code, branding, content, and designs are your assets. A ToS makes clear that users receive a limited license to use your product, not ownership of any part of it.
• Defines acceptable behavior. Without an acceptable use policy, you have no grounds to ban users who abuse your platform, scrape your data, or harass other users.
• Enables account termination. You need the contractual right to suspend or terminate accounts. Without it, removing a bad actor can expose you to breach of contract claims.
• Satisfies platform requirements. Apple's App Store, Google Play, Stripe, PayPal, and virtually every payment processor and app marketplace require you to have published terms of service before you can list or accept payments.
• Reduces chargeback disputes. Clear refund and payment terms give you evidence to dispute chargebacks with payment processors. Without documented terms, you almost always lose the dispute.

Key Clauses Every Terms of Service Should Include

A terms of service document is only as strong as the clauses it contains. Here are the essential sections every ToS needs, whether you run a blog, an ecommerce store, a SaaS platform, or a mobile app.

1. Acceptance of Terms

This clause establishes that by using your service, visitors agree to be bound by your terms. It should specify that continued use constitutes acceptance, define who is eligible to use the service (e.g., minimum age requirements), and state that users who do not agree must stop using the product immediately. For SaaS products, this is often reinforced through a clickwrap agreement during signup.

2. Limitation of Liability

The limitation of liability clause is arguably the most important section of your entire ToS. It caps the maximum damages a user can recover from you, typically to the amount the user paid in the preceding 12 months. It disclaims liability for indirect, incidental, consequential, and punitive damages. Without this clause, a single user dispute could theoretically result in unlimited financial exposure for your business.

3. Acceptable Use Policy

An acceptable use policy (AUP) defines what users may and may not do on your platform. Common prohibitions include: reverse engineering your software, scraping or automated data collection, uploading malicious code, impersonating others, distributing spam, and using the service for illegal activity. This clause gives you the contractual basis to ban users and remove content that violates your rules.

4. Termination and Suspension

This section gives you the right to suspend or terminate user accounts for violations of your terms, at your discretion, with or without notice. It should also address what happens to user data after termination — whether you delete it immediately, retain it for a grace period, or allow data export. For subscription services, define how termination affects billing and whether partial refunds are available.

5. Intellectual Property Rights

Your ToS must address two sides of intellectual property: what you own and what users own. You retain all rights to your software, trademarks, designs, and content. Users retain ownership of any content they upload but grant you a license to host, display, and process that content as needed to provide the service. For user-generated content platforms, this license is critical — without it, you technically cannot display the content users upload.

6. Dispute Resolution and Governing Law

Dispute resolution clauses determine how conflicts are handled. Many businesses include a mandatory arbitration clause that requires disputes to be resolved through binding arbitration rather than court litigation, along with a class action waiver preventing users from joining together in a lawsuit. The governing law clause specifies which jurisdiction's laws apply, which is particularly important for international SaaS companies serving users across multiple countries.

7. Payment Terms and Refund Policy

For any paid product, your ToS should define billing cycles, auto-renewal terms, how price changes are communicated, and your refund policy. Be specific: state whether refunds are prorated, whether there is a money-back guarantee period, and what happens if a payment fails. Clear payment terms are your primary defense against chargeback disputes.

Essential Terms of Service Clauses Checklist

Use this checklist to audit your existing terms of service or ensure your new ToS covers all critical areas. PolicyForge's ToS generator includes all of these automatically.

Terms of Service vs. Privacy Policy: What Is the Difference?

These two documents serve fundamentally different purposes, and you need both. A terms of service is a contract between you and your users that governs how the product may be used. A privacy policy is a legal disclosure required by data protection laws (GDPR, CCPA, PIPEDA) that explains what personal data you collect, how you use it, and what rights users have over that data.

Most businesses need both documents. PolicyForge generates both — create your privacy policy here and generate your terms of service here. You can also use our compliance checker to audit an existing website's legal policies.

Common Terms of Service Mistakes to Avoid

A poorly written ToS can be worse than having none at all because it gives you a false sense of security. Here are the most common mistakes businesses make:

• Copying another company's ToS word-for-word. Their terms were written for their business model, jurisdiction, and risk profile. A SaaS ToS applied to a marketplace will have gaping holes around seller liability, dispute mediation, and payment splitting.
• Using overly broad or vague language. Courts routinely strike down clauses that are unconscionably one-sided or too vague to enforce. "We can do anything we want at any time" will not hold up. Specific, reasonable terms are far more enforceable than sweeping ones.
• Forgetting to include a limitation of liability. This is the most expensive omission. Without a liability cap, a single incident could expose your business to claims far exceeding your total revenue.
• No process for notifying users of changes. If you update your terms without a clear notification mechanism (email notice, in-app banner, 30-day advance notice), courts may find that users never agreed to the updated terms.
• Missing refund and cancellation terms. Vague or absent refund policies are the number one cause of chargeback losses. Payment processors side with the customer when refund terms are unclear.
• Not addressing user-generated content. If users can post, upload, or create anything on your platform, you need a content license clause. Without it, you may not have the legal right to display, moderate, or remove their content.

How to Make Your Terms of Service Legally Enforceable

Writing terms of service is only half the battle. You also need to make sure they are legally enforceable. Courts evaluate several factors when determining whether a user actually agreed to your terms:

• Use clickwrap, not browsewrap. A clickwrap agreement requires users to actively check a box or click "I agree" before using your service. Browsewrap (a passive link at the bottom of the page) is much harder to enforce because you cannot prove the user saw or agreed to the terms.
• Keep terms accessible. Your ToS should always be one click away from any page on your site. Link to it in your footer, during signup, and at checkout. If users cannot easily find or read your terms, a court may rule they were not reasonably presented.
• Version and date your terms. Maintain a clear "Last Updated" date at the top and keep an archive of previous versions. If a dispute arises, you need to prove which version was in effect at the relevant time.
• Notify users of material changes. Send email notifications or display an in-app banner when you make significant changes. Give users a reasonable period (14 to 30 days) to review the updates before they take effect. State that continued use after the notice period constitutes acceptance of the new terms.
• Keep clauses reasonable. Courts have the power to void unconscionable terms. A clause that says users waive all rights to any legal recourse under any circumstances is likely to be struck down. Reasonable, specific limitations are far more likely to be upheld.

When Should You Update Your Terms of Service?

Your terms of service are not a set-and-forget document. You should review and update them whenever your business changes in a way that affects the user relationship. Specific triggers include:

• You launch a new feature that changes how users interact with your product (e.g., adding user-generated content, a marketplace, or an API).
• You change your pricing model, billing cycle, or refund policy.
• You expand to new jurisdictions or begin serving users in regions with different legal requirements (EU, California, Brazil, Canada).
• New regulations take effect that impact your industry (e.g., the Digital Services Act in the EU, updated FTC guidelines in the US).
• You add third-party integrations or data processors that affect how user data is handled.
• You experience a legal dispute that reveals a gap in your current terms.
• At a minimum, review your ToS annually even if nothing has changed, to ensure it still reflects your current operations.

When you do update, use PolicyForge's terms of service generator to produce an updated document quickly, then have it reviewed by legal counsel for your specific jurisdiction.