ModerateHQ - Terms of Service
Last updated: 2 July 2026 Effective date: 2 July 2026
These Terms of Service ("Terms") govern your access to and use of the ModerateHQ content-moderation API, dashboard, and related services (together, the "Service") provided by MODERATEHQ LIMITED, a company incorporated in New Zealand (NZBN 9429053731234) ("ModerateHQ", "we", "us", "our").
By creating an account, generating an API key, or otherwise using the Service, you ("Customer", "you") agree to these Terms. If you are entering into these Terms on behalf of an organisation, you confirm you have authority to bind that organisation, and "you" means that organisation.
You must be using the Service for business purposes (in trade). The Service is not offered to consumers (see clause 17).
1. Definitions
- "Submitted Content" - any text, image URL, audio URL, user identifiers, conversation history, context, or other data you (or your end users, via you) send to the Service for moderation.
- "End User" - an individual who uses your product or platform and whose content you submit to the Service.
- "Verdict" - the moderation output we return (e.g.
verdict,confidence,categories,explanation). - "Credits" - prepaid units of usage, where 1 credit = 1 successful moderation request.
- "Documentation" - our published API reference and integration guides.
2. The Service
2.1 The Service evaluates Submitted Content against platform rules and the policy you select or define, and returns a Verdict. The Service is an automated, AI-assisted decision-support tool. See clause 9 (Nature of moderation) - this is the most important clause in these Terms.
2.2 We may update, improve, or change the Service, including models, prompts, policies, and Verdict behaviour, at any time. We will not make changes that materially reduce core functionality for paid Customers without reasonable notice where practicable.
2.3 Features described as "Enterprise" (custom policies, dedicated endpoints, webhooks, human review, SLAs, data-residency options) are available only under a separate written order or agreement.
3. Accounts and API keys
3.1 You must provide accurate registration information and keep it current. You must be at least 16 years old to create an account or use the Service. Dashboard access is authenticated via our identity provider (Auth0).
3.2 API keys authenticate machine access. You are responsible for keeping API keys secret and for all activity under your account and keys, whether or not authorised by you, except to the extent the activity results from our breach of these Terms. Notify us immediately at security@moderatehq.com if you suspect a key is compromised. We may rotate or revoke keys where we reasonably believe they are compromised or being misused.
3.3 You must not share, resell, or sublicense access to the Service except as expressly permitted in writing.
4. Acceptable use
4.1 You must not, and must not permit any End User or third party to:
(a) use the Service in breach of any applicable law, including New Zealand law and the laws applicable to you and your End Users; (b) submit content you do not have the lawful right to submit, collect, or disclose to us and our subprocessors; (c) use the Service to build, train, or benchmark a competing moderation product, or to reverse-engineer our models, prompts, or platform rules; (d) attempt to probe, scan, circumvent, or defeat rate limits, quotas, authentication, or security controls; (e) submit content to deliberately generate, solicit, or store illegal material (for example, child sexual abuse material), other than the minimum incidental to your legitimate, lawful moderation of your own platform; or (f) use the Service in a way that imposes an unreasonable load on, or risks the integrity of, our infrastructure.
4.2 Legal basis for Submitted Content. You represent and warrant that you have all necessary rights, consents, and a lawful basis (including under the Privacy Act 2020 and any other applicable privacy law) to submit Submitted Content to us and to have it processed by us and our subprocessors, including disclosure overseas (see the Privacy Policy).
4.3 We may suspend access immediately, without liability, to address a material breach of this clause 4, a security risk, a legal requirement, or non-payment (see clause 13).
4.4 Illegal material. We may (but are not obliged to) preserve Submitted Content and related account information, and disclose it to law enforcement or other appropriate authorities in New Zealand or elsewhere, where we reasonably believe it contains or evidences illegal material (for example, child sexual abuse material) or where we are required to do so by law. This may include cooperating with reports made by our model provider under its own safety obligations. We will notify you of any such preservation or report unless the law prohibits it or we reasonably believe notice would compromise an investigation or put a person at risk.
5. Tiers, Credits, billing, and payment
5.1 Trial. Trial access is free, capped (currently 10 requests/day, 2 requests/second, and 200 requests in total over the life of the trial), and provided "as is" with no warranties and no SLA. We may change or withdraw the Trial tier at any time.
5.2 Self-serve (prepaid Credits). You purchase Credits in advance via our payment processor (Stripe). Each successful moderation request consumes 1 Credit. When your balance reaches zero, requests are rejected (HTTP 402) until you top up. Failed requests that return no Verdict (e.g. 5xx/503) are not charged.
5.3 Pricing. Current pricing and credit-pack contents are as displayed in the dashboard or Documentation at the time of purchase. We may change pricing prospectively; changes do not affect Credits already purchased.
5.4 Payment and taxes. Payments are processed by Stripe under Stripe's terms; we do not store full card details. Prices are stated in United States dollars and are exclusive of GST and any other applicable taxes. You are responsible for all applicable taxes other than taxes on our income. If and when we are required to charge New Zealand GST, it will be added and itemised at the prevailing rate.
5.5 Refunds and expiry. Except where required by law, Credits are non-refundable, and consumed Credits are never refundable. We are not obliged to refund Credits on termination for your breach. Credits remain valid while your account is active. If your account is inactive (no sign-in and no API request) for a prolonged period of at least twelve (12) months, we may expire any remaining Credits; any activity resets this period. We will email a reminder to your account address at least 20 days before Credits are due to expire. Expired Credits are non-refundable and cannot be reinstated.
5.6 Enterprise billing is governed by the applicable order form (committed spend, invoicing terms, etc.).
6. Your responsibilities for moderation decisions
6.1 You remain the moderator of record for your platform. A Verdict is a recommendation. You decide what action (if any) to take on your platform, and you are solely responsible for those actions, including any decision to allow, warn, remove, ban, or report content or users.
6.2 You control fail-open vs fail-closed. Where the Service is unavailable or returns an error, we do not synthesise a Verdict. You are responsible for your fallback behaviour (allowing or blocking content when no Verdict is available) and its consequences.
6.3 You are responsible for providing your End Users with any required notices, appeals processes, and lawful handling of their content and personal information.
7. Service availability
7.1 We aim for high availability but, except under a written Enterprise SLA, the Service is provided without any uptime, latency, or availability commitment. The Service depends on third parties (including our model provider) whose availability we do not control.
7.2 We may perform maintenance and may impose, change, or enforce rate limits and quotas - including any limits published in the dashboard or Documentation - to protect the Service or as part of our normal operation of it. Where a change would materially reduce the limits available to paid Customers, we will give reasonable notice where practicable.
8. Third-party services and subprocessors
8.1 The Service relies on subprocessors including, currently, Anthropic (moderation model - processing occurs overseas, including in the United States), Auth0/Okta (dashboard identity), Stripe (billing), Zoho (transactional email), and our hosting and database providers (Neon, Railway, and Vercel). Submitting content means you authorise disclosure to these subprocessors as described in the Privacy Policy. A current subprocessor list is available at moderatehq.com/subprocessors.
8.2 Your use of any third-party integration you connect (e.g. a webhook destination you register) is your responsibility.
9. Nature of moderation - important limitations
9.1 The Service is probabilistic and will make mistakes. It uses large language models. It will sometimes miss content that violates a policy (false negatives) and sometimes flag or block content that does not (false positives). We do not warrant that the Service will detect all prohibited, harmful, or illegal content, or that any Verdict is accurate, complete, or fit for any particular purpose.
9.2 A Verdict is not legal advice and is not a determination of legality. It does not relieve you of your own legal and regulatory obligations (including any obligations to detect, remove, report, or preserve illegal content).
9.3 You must apply appropriate human oversight proportionate to the risk of the decisions you automate. The Service is decision support, not a replacement for your judgment.
9.4 The platform rules we always enforce exist to protect us and to meet baseline legal/ethical obligations; they are not a feature, are not configurable, and do not guarantee detection of any category of content.
10. Intellectual property
10.1 As between the parties, we own all rights in the Service, the models/prompts/platform rules we operate, the Documentation, and all improvements. We grant you a non-exclusive, non-transferable, revocable right to access and use the Service during your subscription, solely for your internal business use, subject to these Terms.
10.2 Your data. You retain all rights in Submitted Content. You grant us a worldwide, non-exclusive licence to host, process, transmit, and display Submitted Content and to disclose it to subprocessors solely to provide, secure, and support the Service, and to create de-identified/aggregated data as set out in clause 10.3.
10.3 Service improvement. We may use de-identified and aggregated usage data (data that does not identify you or any individual) to operate, secure, analyse, and improve the Service. We may also test model, prompt, and policy changes against requests previously processed for you (within your retention window) to check that Verdict quality does not regress; if you turn content storage off, no stored content is available for this. We do not sell Submitted Content. We do not use Submitted Content to train AI models, and under our model provider's commercial terms (Anthropic) API inputs and outputs are not used to train its models.
10.4 Feedback you give us about the Service may be used by us without restriction or obligation.
11. Confidentiality
Each party may receive the other's non-public information. The receiving party will protect it with reasonable care, use it only to perform under these Terms, and not disclose it except to personnel and contractors who need it and are bound by similar obligations, or as required by law. This does not apply to information that is public, independently developed, or rightfully received from a third party.
12. Privacy and data protection
12.1 Our handling of personal information is described in the Privacy Policy at moderatehq.com/privacy, which forms part of these Terms.
12.2 Roles. For Submitted Content, you determine the purposes and means of processing and we act on your behalf as your agent/processor (information we hold as your agent is treated as held by you under section 11 of the Privacy Act 2020). For account-holder and website-visitor information, we act as the agency responsible.
12.3 You are responsible for ensuring your collection and submission of End User personal information complies with the Privacy Act 2020 and any other applicable law, including providing required notices and, where necessary, obtaining consent - particularly for disclosure to overseas subprocessors.
12.4 Enterprise Customers may request a Data Processing Addendum; if executed, it prevails over this clause 12 to the extent of any conflict.
13. Suspension and termination
13.1 You may stop using the Service and close your account at any time. Unused, non-expired Credits are handled under clause 5.5.
13.2 We may suspend or terminate access immediately for material breach (including clauses 4 or 5), legal/security reasons, or if your account is inactive for an extended period after notice.
13.3 On termination: your right to use the Service ends; clauses that by nature survive (including 4.2, 4.4, 6, 9, 10, 11, 14, 15, 16, 17, 19) survive. We will handle residual Submitted Content per the Privacy Policy's retention practices.
14. Warranties and disclaimers
14.1 Each party warrants it has authority to enter into these Terms.
14.2 Except as expressly stated, and to the maximum extent permitted by law, the Service is provided "AS IS" and "AS AVAILABLE", and we disclaim all other warranties, express or implied, including merchantability, fitness for a particular purpose, non-infringement, accuracy, and any warranty arising from course of dealing or trade usage. See clause 9.
15. Limitation of liability
15.1 Nothing in these Terms limits or excludes liability that cannot lawfully be limited or excluded, including liability for fraud or fraudulent misrepresentation.
15.2 To the maximum extent permitted by law, neither party is liable for any indirect, incidental, special, consequential, or punitive loss, or for loss of profits, revenue, data, goodwill, or anticipated savings, however arising.
15.3 Without limiting clause 15.2, and to the maximum extent permitted by law, our total aggregate liability arising out of or in connection with the Service and these Terms is limited to the greater of (a) the total fees you paid to us for the Service in the 3 months immediately before the event giving rise to the liability, and (b) NZ$100.
15.4 You acknowledge the limitations in clauses 9, 14, and 15 are a reasonable allocation of risk reflected in the price of the Service.
16. Indemnity
You will indemnify us against all losses, liabilities, costs, and expenses (including reasonable legal costs) arising from: (a) Submitted Content; (b) your or your End Users' use of the Service; (c) your breach of clause 4 (Acceptable use) or clause 12.3; or (d) your infringement of any third-party right - except, in each case, to the extent the loss arises from our breach of these Terms or our negligence. We will notify you of any claim, let you control the defence (with our consent to any settlement affecting us), and reasonably cooperate.
17. New Zealand consumer law
17.1 You acknowledge you acquire the Service for the purposes of a business and that it is fair and reasonable for the parties to be bound by this clause. Accordingly, to the maximum extent permitted by law, the Consumer Guarantees Act 1993 and sections 9, 12A, 13, and 14(1) of the Fair Trading Act 1986 do not apply, and the parties contract out of them under section 43(2) of the Consumer Guarantees Act 1993 and section 5D of the Fair Trading Act 1986 respectively.
17.2 If, despite clause 17.1, any consumer guarantee applies and cannot be excluded, our liability for breach is limited (where permitted) to re-supplying the Service or paying the cost of re-supply.
18. Changes to these Terms
We may update these Terms. For material changes we will give reasonable notice (e.g. by email or dashboard notice). Continued use after the effective date of changes constitutes acceptance. If you do not accept, stop using the Service; unused non-expired Credits are handled under clause 5.5.
19. General
19.1 Governing law and jurisdiction. These Terms are governed by the laws of New Zealand, and the parties submit to the exclusive jurisdiction of the New Zealand courts.
19.2 Force majeure. Neither party is liable for failure or delay caused by events beyond its reasonable control.
19.3 Assignment. You may not assign these Terms without our consent. We may assign to an affiliate or in connection with a merger, acquisition, or sale of assets.
19.4 Entire agreement; severability; waiver. These Terms (with the Privacy Policy and any order form) are the entire agreement and supersede prior discussions. If any provision is unenforceable, the rest remain in effect. A failure to enforce is not a waiver.
19.5 Notices. We may give notice by email or via the dashboard. You may contact us at support@moderatehq.com.
19.6 Relationship. The parties are independent contractors; nothing creates a partnership, agency (other than the data-processing agency in clause 12.2), or employment relationship.