Terms of Service

Effective: 4 September 2026  ·  Last updated: 3 October 2026

These terms are an agreement between you and PathForward Financial (“PathForward”, “we”, “us”) covering your use of our website and application. By creating an account or using the service, you agree to them. If you do not agree, do not use the service.

1. What PathForward is — and what it is not

PathForward is software for organizing your own money. It helps you build a budget, track debts and savings, plan payoff strategies, and see your net worth over time.

2. Your account

• You must be at least 18 and able to enter a binding contract.
• Provide accurate information and keep your password secure. You are responsible for what happens under your account.
• One account per person. Do not share credentials — use household sharing if you want another person to have access.
• Tell us promptly at pathforward.financial.2026@gmail.com if you suspect unauthorised use.

3. Subscriptions and payment

• A free tier is available. Pro costs $9.99 a month or $89.99 a year, billed in advance through Stripe.
• New accounts may try Pro free for 14 days without entering a card. Nothing is charged when a trial ends; Pro features simply pause unless you subscribe.
• Your subscription renews automatically, for the same period and at the price you chose, and charges the debit card or bank account you used until you cancel. Pro is paid by debit card or bank account, never a credit card: if a credit card is used, we refund the payment in full and end the subscription. Before you subscribe, we show these renewal terms and ask you to agree to them, and afterwards we email you a copy to keep.
• We email yearly members about 30 days before each renewal, and monthly members once a year, about 30 days before their subscription’s anniversary, with the price, the date and how to cancel.
• If you pay monthly, you may switch to yearly billing from Settings → Billing. Before you confirm, we show the amount charged that day: the yearly price, less a credit for the unused part of your current month (and less any account credit). Your yearly period starts on the day you switch.
• Founding members. The first 1,000 paying members keep the price they subscribed at ($9.99 a month or $89.99 a year) for as long as their subscription stays active. The price lock ends if the subscription is canceled and the paid period runs out.
• Cancel any time from Settings → Billing, online, without calling or writing to us. Cancellation stops future charges; access continues to the end of the period you have already paid for.
• Payments are generally non-refundable except where required by law, though we may issue refunds at our discretion.
• If a payment fails, we may retry it. Continued failure may result in Pro access being suspended.
• We may change pricing with at least 30 days’ notice before it affects your next renewal, subject to the founding-member price lock above.

Referrals: give a month, get a month

• Members may share a personal invite link. The link shows the sender’s first name to anyone who opens it.
• A new PathForward account created through an invite link gets 30 days of Pro free, with no card, instead of the usual 14. Only new accounts that have never had a paid subscription or belonged to a household qualify, and each person may use one invite.
• When that friend makes their first payment for Pro, the member who invited them earns one free month: a $9.99 credit on their next PathForward bill (or on the bill of the household they belong to), or 30 more days of Pro if they are not paying for a subscription.
• A member can earn up to 12 free months in a calendar year. Credits have no cash value, cannot be transferred or exchanged, and apply only to PathForward charges.
• Share your link with people you know. Do not spam, pay for advertising that uses our name, or create accounts to earn rewards; we may withhold or reverse rewards obtained that way.
• We may change or end the referral program at any time. Rewards already earned will be honored.

4. Connecting a bank account

Bank connections are optional and provided through Plaid Inc. By connecting an account you authorize us to retrieve account balances and transaction history through Plaid on your behalf.

• You must own the accounts you connect, or be authorized to access them.
• Your bank credentials are entered directly with Plaid. We never see or store them.
• You may disconnect at any time; we then revoke our access with Plaid.
• Your use of Plaid is also governed by Plaid’s own end-user policies.
• We cannot guarantee that transaction data is complete, current, or correctly categorized. Your bank remains the authoritative record.

5. Household sharing

You may invite another person into your budget. Understand clearly what this does: the person you invite can read and change your financial data, including income, expenses, debts, savings, and any synced bank transactions. You are responsible for who you invite. Either party may end the arrangement at any time.

• Only share accounts you have the right to share. If a bank account you connect is held jointly, make sure the other account holder agrees before you invite anyone into a budget that shows it.
• The person who created the budget can remove a member at any time in Settings, and a member can leave at any time. Access ends at once.
• If members disagree about a shared budget or who should see it, we cannot decide between them. We act on the account holder’s choices in the app, or on a court order.

6. Acceptable use

You agree not to:

• Use the service unlawfully, or to launder money or commit fraud.
• Access another person’s account or data without permission.
• Probe, scan, or attempt to breach our security, or circumvent any access control or usage limit.
• Scrape, resell, or redistribute the service or its content.
• Upload malware, or content that is unlawful or infringing.
• Reverse engineer the service except where that right cannot lawfully be excluded.
• Impersonate anyone, or connect a financial account you have no right to access.

We may suspend or terminate accounts that violate this section.

7. Your content and our software

Your data stays yours. You keep all rights to the financial information you enter. You grant us only the limited license needed to store, process, and display it back to you and to anyone you have invited.

We may use fully anonymised, aggregated statistics — for example, how many users are on each plan — to operate and improve the service. Such data can never identify you.

The application, its design, and its content are ours and are protected by intellectual property law. These terms grant you a personal, non-exclusive, non-transferable, revocable right to use the service; they transfer no ownership.

8. Disclaimer of warranties

The service is provided “as is” and “as available”, without warranties of any kind, express or implied, including merchantability, fitness for a particular purpose, and non-infringement.

We do not warrant that the service will be uninterrupted, error-free, or secure; that calculations, projections, or estimates will prove accurate; that data retrieved from your bank will be complete or timely; or that using the service will improve your financial position.

Every financial decision you make is your own. Verify important figures against your bank, your statements, and a qualified professional.

9. Limitation of liability

To the maximum extent permitted by law, PathForward and its owner are not liable for indirect, incidental, special, consequential, or punitive damages; for lost profits, lost savings, or lost data; for financial losses arising from decisions you made using the service; or for the acts or failures of Plaid, Stripe, Google, or your bank.

Our total liability for any claim relating to the service is limited to the greater of $100 or the amount you paid us in the twelve months before the claim arose.

Some jurisdictions do not allow certain exclusions, so parts of this section may not apply to you.

10. Indemnity

You agree to indemnify PathForward against claims arising from your misuse of the service, your violation of these terms or of any law, or your infringement of a third party’s rights.

11. Ending the agreement

You may stop using the service and delete your account at any time from Settings → Account. We may suspend or terminate your access if you breach these terms, if required by law, or if we discontinue the service — in which case we will give reasonable notice and an opportunity to export your data.

On termination your right to use the service ends immediately. Sections 7 through 10 survive.

12. Changes

We may update these terms. Material changes will be notified in the application or by email at least 30 days before taking effect. Continuing to use the service afterwards means you accept the revised terms.

Changes on 16 October 2026. Section 3 now says Pro is paid by debit card or bank account, never a credit card, and that a payment made with a credit card is refunded in full and the subscription ended. This describes how the service works, so it applies now.

Changes on 3 October 2026. Section 3 now describes the renewal terms we show and ask you to agree to before checkout, the copy we email you afterwards, and our renewal reminders about 30 days ahead; canceling online is stated plainly. Section 5 adds guidance for shared budgets. These changes describe how the service works or add protections for you, so they apply now.

13. Governing law

These terms are governed by the laws of the State of Colorado, United States, without regard to conflict-of-law rules. Disputes will be resolved in the state or federal courts located in Adams County, Colorado, and you consent to their jurisdiction.

14. General

• If a provision is found unenforceable, the rest remains in force.
• Our failure to enforce a provision is not a waiver of it.
• You may not assign these terms; we may assign them in connection with a merger or sale.
• These terms, together with the Privacy Policy and Financial Disclaimer, are the entire agreement between us.

15. Contact

pathforward.financial.2026@gmail.com