Terms of Service
1. About Romintel
Romintel is a market intelligence platform for independent romance and romantasy authors, operated by Romintel (Pty) Ltd, a company incorporated in South Africa ("Romintel", "we", "us", or "our").
These Terms of Service ("Terms") govern your access to and use of romintel.com and any associated services, including our free market intelligence reports, paid subscription tiers, newsletters, and analytics dashboards (collectively, the "Service").
2. Eligibility
You must be at least 18 years old to use the Service. By using Romintel, you confirm that you meet this requirement. If you are using the Service on behalf of a business entity, you confirm that you have authority to bind that entity to these Terms.
3. Account Registration
Certain features of the Service (Stage 2 and Stage 3) require you to create an account. When you register, you agree to:
- Provide accurate, current, and complete information.
- Maintain the security of your login credentials.
- Notify us immediately of any unauthorised access to your account.
- Take responsibility for all activity that occurs under your account.
We reserve the right to suspend or terminate accounts that contain false information or that we reasonably believe have been compromised.
4. Subscriptions and Payments
Free tier (Stage 1)
The free tier of Romintel is available to all registered users at no cost. We reserve the right to modify or discontinue free features at any time with reasonable notice.
Paid subscriptions (Stage 2 and Stage 3)
Paid plans are billed monthly or annually as selected at checkout. By subscribing, you authorise us (or our payment processor) to charge your payment method on a recurring basis until you cancel.
- Cancellation: You may cancel at any time from your account settings. Cancellation takes effect at the end of the current billing period; you will retain access until then.
- Refunds: We do not offer refunds for partial billing periods except where required by applicable law.
- Price changes: We will give you at least 30 days' notice before changing subscription prices. Continued use after the effective date constitutes acceptance of the new price.
- Founding member rates: Founding member pricing, where offered, is locked for the duration of a continuous subscription. If you cancel and resubscribe, the rate may change.
5. Acceptable Use
You agree not to:
- Scrape, crawl, or otherwise extract data from the Service by automated means without our prior written consent.
- Reproduce, resell, or redistribute Romintel's data or reports for commercial purposes without written authorisation.
- Reverse-engineer, decompile, or attempt to access the source code of the Service.
- Use the Service to transmit spam, malware, or other harmful content.
- Impersonate any person or entity or misrepresent your affiliation.
- Interfere with or disrupt the integrity or performance of the Service.
- Circumvent any access controls or attempt to gain unauthorised access to any part of the Service.
- Use the Service in violation of any applicable law or regulation.
Violation of this section may result in immediate account suspension or termination without refund.
6. Intellectual Property
All content on the Romintel platform — including data, analysis, reports, interface design, logos, and trademarks — is owned by Romintel (Pty) Ltd or its licensors and is protected by applicable intellectual property laws.
Your subscription grants you a limited, non-exclusive, non-transferable licence to access and use the Service for your own personal or internal business purposes. You may not reproduce or distribute Romintel content without our express written consent.
Data aggregated from third-party sources (Amazon, Reddit, Goodreads, etc.) is processed under fair use and research principles. Romintel does not claim ownership of underlying third-party data.
7. User Content
If you submit content to the Service (e.g., feedback, support requests, or analytics data via connected accounts), you grant Romintel a non-exclusive, royalty-free licence to use that content solely for the purpose of providing and improving the Service. We will not share your personal analytics data with third parties except as set out in our Privacy Policy.
8. Third-Party Integrations
Certain paid features allow you to connect third-party accounts (e.g., Facebook Ads, Google Ads, email platforms). We also use MailerLite to manage email subscriptions and marketing communications; by subscribing, your email address and engagement data are processed by MailerLite in accordance with their privacy policy. By connecting any third-party account, you grant Romintel permission to access relevant data from that account for the purpose of generating your analytics dashboard. You remain responsible for compliance with the terms of those third-party platforms. We are not responsible for any changes, errors, or data loss arising from third-party services.
9. Disclaimers
The Service is provided "as is" and "as available." We make no warranties, express or implied, regarding the accuracy, completeness, reliability, or fitness for a particular purpose of any data or analysis. Market data is based on publicly available information and historical trends; past trends do not guarantee future outcomes.
10. Limitation of Liability
To the maximum extent permitted by applicable law, Romintel (Pty) Ltd and its directors, employees, and contractors shall not be liable for any indirect, incidental, special, consequential, or punitive damages, including but not limited to loss of profits, data, or goodwill, arising from your use of or inability to use the Service.
Our total aggregate liability to you for any claim arising from these Terms or the Service shall not exceed the greater of (a) the amount you paid us in the 12 months preceding the claim, or (b) R 500.00 ZAR.
Some jurisdictions do not allow the exclusion of certain warranties or limitations of liability. In those jurisdictions, our liability is limited to the fullest extent permitted by law.
11. Indemnification
You agree to indemnify, defend, and hold harmless Romintel (Pty) Ltd and its affiliates from any claims, losses, damages, liabilities, costs, and expenses (including reasonable legal fees) arising from: (a) your use of the Service; (b) your violation of these Terms; or (c) your infringement of any third-party rights.
12. Termination
Either party may terminate these Terms at any time. You may do so by cancelling your account. We may suspend or terminate your access at any time if we believe you have violated these Terms, with or without notice.
Upon termination, your right to access the Service ceases. Provisions that by their nature should survive termination (including Sections 6, 9, 10, 11, and 14) shall survive.
13. Modifications to the Service and Terms
We reserve the right to modify, suspend, or discontinue any part of the Service at any time. We will provide reasonable notice of material changes to the Service.
We may update these Terms from time to time. We will notify you of material changes by updating the "Last updated" date and, where appropriate, by email. Your continued use of the Service after changes take effect constitutes acceptance of the revised Terms.
14. Governing Law and Disputes
These Terms are governed by the laws of the Republic of South Africa, without regard to conflict of law principles. Any disputes arising from these Terms or your use of the Service shall be subject to the exclusive jurisdiction of the courts of Johannesburg, South Africa.
If you are a consumer in the EU or UK, you may also have the right to bring proceedings in the courts of your country of residence, and nothing in these Terms limits that right.
15. Entire Agreement
These Terms, together with our Privacy Policy, constitute the entire agreement between you and Romintel regarding the Service and supersede any prior agreements.
16. Contact
If you have questions about these Terms, please contact us:
Romintel (Pty) Ltd
Johannesburg, South Africa
hanna@romintel.com