CrawlerToll

Terms of Service

Last updated and effective 9 October 2026 · Charthouse Ltd, company 12795844, England and Wales · hello@crawlertoll.com

The short version

This summary is here to help you read the terms. It is not part of them; where it differs, the terms below win.

1. Who we are and what these terms cover

1.1 CrawlerToll is provided by Charthouse Ltd, a company registered in England and Wales under number 12795844, registered office 71-75 Shelton Street, Covent Garden, London WC2H 9JQ, United Kingdom ("we", "us"). You can reach us at hello@crawlertoll.com.

1.2 These terms apply when you use any of the following (together, the "Services"):

  1. The CrawlerToll WordPress plugin (the "Plugin"), in its free version from WordPress.org or its Pro version.
  2. CrawlerToll Pro ("Pro"), the paid subscription that unlocks additional Plugin features, updates and support.
  3. The unlock service at registry.crawlertoll.com (the "Unlock Service"), which holds content keys and releases them after payment.
  4. The website crawlertoll.com and its documentation.

1.3 By installing the Plugin, connecting a site to the Unlock Service, starting a Pro trial or buying Pro, you accept these terms on behalf of yourself and any organisation you act for. If you do not accept them, do not use the Services.

1.4 Our Privacy Policy explains what personal data we handle and how. It forms part of these terms.

2. Who may use the Services

2.1 The Services are for publishers and other businesses selling access to their own content. You confirm that you use them for a trade, business, craft or profession, and that you are at least 18.

2.2 If you are a consumer in the United Kingdom or the European Union, nothing in these terms removes rights you have by law that cannot be removed by contract.

2.3 You may not use the Services if you are subject to sanctions administered by the United Kingdom, the European Union, the United Nations or the United States, or if you are located in a country subject to comprehensive sanctions.

3. How CrawlerToll works, and what we never do

3.1 The Plugin recognises declared AI crawlers, applies the licensing policy you set, and can seal posts you mark as premium. A sealed post's body is encrypted on your server; the key to decrypt it is stored with the Unlock Service and released to a reader or agent after a payment or a free unlock you allowed.

3.2 We never receive, hold or transmit money paid for your content.

  1. Card payments are created and captured on your own Stripe account, under your agreement with Stripe. We never hold your Stripe secret key.
  2. USDC payments are authorised by the payer's wallet and settled on-chain to the wallet address you set, through an independent third-party facilitator. We hold no facilitator key and never control those funds.
  3. We take no commission, fee or share of any payment for your content.

3.3 We are not the seller, merchant of record, payment service provider, marketplace or agent for any sale between you and your readers or their AI agents. We are not a party to those sales and have no obligations under them.

4. Your responsibilities as the seller

4.1 Because you sell access to your content directly, you are responsible for:

  1. Prices and terms of sale. The prices, access periods and terms you offer, and honouring them.
  2. Taxes. Charging, collecting, reporting and paying any VAT, sales tax or other tax due on your sales, and issuing any invoices or receipts the law requires.
  3. Consumer law. Complying with the consumer protection rules that apply to your readers. This includes information you must give before a sale and any right to cancel. The Plugin can ask EU and UK readers for consent to immediate access and acknowledgement that they lose their right of withdrawal, and records when they gave it. Whether to use that feature, and whether it is enough for your situation, is your decision.
  4. Refunds, disputes and chargebacks. Card refunds and disputes are handled in your Stripe account under Stripe's rules. USDC payments are final on-chain; any refund is a new transfer from you. After a refund you can revoke the reader's access pass with Pro.
  5. Your content. Having the rights to publish and sell everything you seal, and ensuring it is lawful.
  6. Your accounts and keys. Keeping your Stripe account, Stripe keys, wallet and WordPress site secure. A payment made to the wallet address or Stripe account configured in your Plugin is a payment to you, even if someone else changed that setting on your site.
  7. Your site's claim. Connecting only sites you own or are authorised to manage to the Unlock Service.

4.2 You must not describe CrawlerToll or us as the seller of your content, the recipient of payments, or responsible for your readers' purchases.

4.3 Information we publish about law, tax or compliance, including in the Plugin and documentation, is general guidance. It is not legal or tax advice.

5. The Unlock Service

5.1 What it does. When you seal a post, the Plugin enrols your site with the Unlock Service and registers the post. The Unlock Service then stores, for each sealed post: its content key, its content identifier (your site's host name and post number), its prices and access rules, and the wallet address you set. It releases the content key after it has verified a USDC payment, after your site confirms a card payment, or for a free unlock you configured. It records a receipt for each unlock and issues access passes so a reader who paid can return, including on another device.

5.2 What it never receives. The text of your articles, card numbers, your Stripe keys or any wallet's private keys.

5.3 How we use your content keys. We use them only to release access as your settings allow, to keep the service secure, and where the law requires. We do not decrypt your content for any other purpose.

5.4 Your site's credential. Enrolment gives your site a secret token that authorises changes for that site. It is stored in your WordPress database. Keep it confidential. If you believe it has been exposed, contact us and we will reset it.

5.5 Availability. We run the Unlock Service with reasonable care and aim to keep it available, but we do not promise it will be uninterrupted or error-free, and we give no uptime commitment unless we agree one in writing. We may carry out maintenance, which we will try to schedule at quiet times.

5.6 When it is unavailable, sealed posts stay sealed. This is deliberate: your content is never released without payment. Previews and the rest of your site keep working. If a reader completes a card payment on your Stripe account but the key cannot be released, the Plugin reports an error to the reader and the payment appears in your Stripe account; you decide whether to refund it or to grant access once the service is back.

5.7 Fair use. The Unlock Service applies rate limits to protect it for everyone. Do not try to get around them, overload the service, probe it for security weaknesses without our written permission, or access it other than through the Plugin or its documented interfaces. If you find a vulnerability, report it to hello@crawlertoll.com and we will not take action against good-faith research that follows this paragraph.

5.8 Email unlocks. Unlocking by email is not switched on today. If we switch it on and you enable it, the Unlock Service sends the one-time access link to the reader's address through our email provider and keeps only a hash of the address. Your WordPress site stores the address and the reader's consent, and you are responsible for them.

5.9 Stopping and deletion. You can stop using the Unlock Service at any time by unsealing your posts or deactivating the Plugin. To have your content keys, access rules and receipts deleted, email hello@crawlertoll.com from an address shown on your site or its WordPress admin account. We will delete them within 30 days, except records we must keep by law. After deletion, access your readers already bought stops working.

5.10 Suspension. We may suspend the Unlock Service for a site, without notice where necessary, if we reasonably believe it is being used unlawfully, in breach of section 8, in a way that threatens the security or stability of the service, or if the law or a competent authority requires it. We will tell you why unless we are not allowed to, and restore access once the issue is resolved.

6. CrawlerToll Pro

6.1 Who sells it. Pro is sold through Freemius, which acts as reseller and merchant of record. Freemius takes your payment, charges any applicable sales tax or VAT, issues your invoices and manages your subscription under its own buyer terms. These terms govern your use of Pro itself.

6.2 Price, trial and renewal. Current prices are shown on crawlertoll.com/pro and at checkout. Pro starts with a 14-day free trial; no card is required to start it. When the trial ends, Pro features stop unless you buy a subscription. Subscriptions renew automatically for the same period until cancelled.

6.3 Cancelling. You can cancel at any time from your Freemius customer account or the Account page in the Plugin. Cancelling stops the next renewal; you keep Pro until the end of the period you paid for.

6.4 Refunds. If you are not satisfied, ask for a refund within 14 days of your first paid charge (the first payment after your free trial) and we will refund it in full. Renewal payments are not refundable unless the law requires otherwise. Consumers keep any statutory rights.

6.5 Licence. Your subscription entitles the number of sites your plan states to Pro features, updates and support while it is active.

6.6 When Pro ends. Pro-only options, such as access tiers, bundles, metered free reads, dashboards and revoking passes, stop applying. The free features keep working, and sealed posts stay sealed and on sale at your standard price.

6.7 Price changes. We may change Pro prices for future periods. We will tell you at least 30 days before a change affects your renewal, and you can cancel before it does.

6.8 Support. We provide support by email at hello@crawlertoll.com on working days. We aim to reply within two working days but do not guarantee response times.

7. The Plugin and its GPL licence

7.1 The Plugin, free and Pro, is licensed under the GNU General Public License, version 2 or later. Nothing in these terms limits your rights under that licence to use, study, change or share the code.

7.2 What a Pro subscription buys is our service: Pro updates and support. Access to the Unlock Service is not included in the GPL licence; it is provided under these terms.

7.3 The Plugin is provided as is, as section 13 explains.

8. Acceptable use

8.1 You must not use the Services to sell, seal or distribute:

  1. Content that is illegal where you or your readers are, including child sexual abuse material, terrorist content, or content that infringes someone else's rights.
  2. Malware, or content designed to deceive readers into paying for something other than what is offered.
  3. Access you are not entitled to sell, such as another publisher's content.

8.2 You must not use the Services to launder money, evade sanctions, commit fraud, or process payments for anything other than access to your own content.

8.3 You must not suggest that we endorse, sponsor or review your content.

9. What crawler recognition can and cannot do

9.1 The Plugin recognises AI crawlers that identify themselves through their user agent, using a list we maintain. It cannot identify automated traffic that disguises itself as a person. That is why sealing exists: a sealed post's body is encrypted for every visitor who has not paid.

9.2 We do not promise that any AI company, crawler or agent will respect your policy, pay your prices or stop accessing parts of your site you leave unsealed. Previews you choose to show remain visible to everyone.

9.3 We update the list of recognised crawlers from time to time. We do not promise that it is complete.

10. Third-party services

10.1 The Services depend on or connect to services we do not control, including Stripe, USDC and the Base network, x402 payment facilitators, Freemius, Cloudflare (which hosts the Unlock Service), our email provider, and WordPress.org. Their own terms govern your use of them.

10.2 We are not responsible for their availability, actions or charges, including a facilitator failing to settle a payment or Stripe holding your funds. Where a third-party change stops a feature from working, we will try to adapt the Services within a reasonable time but cannot guarantee we can.

11. Intellectual property

11.1 Your content stays yours. You give us a limited, non-exclusive licence to handle the information the Services need about your content, such as content identifiers, prices, keys, crawl records and receipts, only to provide the Services to you.

11.2 Our service stays ours. Apart from the Plugin's GPL licence, we own the Services, the Unlock Service software and the CrawlerToll name and marks. You may say that your site uses CrawlerToll.

11.3 Feedback. If you send us suggestions, we may use them without obligation to you.

12. Security and incidents

12.1 We protect content keys and the other data in the Unlock Service with appropriate technical and organisational measures, including encryption in transit and access limited to what operating the service needs.

12.2 If we become aware of a security incident that exposes your content keys or data about your site, we will tell you without undue delay, explain what happened, and help you re-seal affected content.

13. What we do not promise

13.1 Except as these terms expressly say, the Services are provided as is and as available. To the extent the law allows, we exclude all implied terms, conditions and warranties, including of satisfactory quality and fitness for a particular purpose.

13.2 We do not promise any level of revenue, that AI companies or readers will pay, or that your use of the Services complies with the laws that apply to you.

14. Our liability

14.1 Nothing in these terms limits liability for death or personal injury caused by negligence, for fraud or fraudulent misrepresentation, or for anything else the law does not allow us to limit.

14.2 Subject to 14.1, we are not liable for loss of profits, revenue, sales, business, goodwill or data, or for any indirect or consequential loss, however caused. This includes revenue from unlocks that could not happen while the Unlock Service was unavailable.

14.3 Subject to 14.1, our total liability to you for all claims in any 12-month period is limited to the greater of the fees you paid us for Pro in that period and £100.

15. Your indemnity

15.1 You will compensate us for reasonable losses and costs, including legal fees, arising from claims by third parties about content you sealed or sold, your sales to readers, your taxes, or your breach of section 4 or section 8. We will tell you promptly about any such claim and let you take part in defending it.

16. Ending these terms

16.1 You can stop using the Services at any time. Cancelling Pro works as section 6.3 describes.

16.2 We may end your access to the Services if you seriously or repeatedly breach these terms and, where the breach can be fixed, you have not fixed it within 14 days of our notice. We may end the Services for everyone with at least 90 days' notice; if we do, we will refund any Pro fees paid for the period after they end, and keep releasing keys already sold for as long as that notice runs.

16.3 Sections 4, 11, 13, 14, 15, 18 and 19 continue after these terms end.

17. Changes to the Services and these terms

17.1 We improve the Services continually and may change or remove features. We will give at least 30 days' notice of a change that materially reduces what Pro includes.

17.2 We may update these terms. For a material change we will give at least 30 days' notice by email or in the Plugin before it takes effect. If you do not agree, stop using the Services before then and, for Pro, you can cancel and receive a pro-rata refund of the unused period.

18. Governing law and disputes

18.1 These terms and any dispute about them are governed by the law of England and Wales.

18.2 The courts of England and Wales have exclusive jurisdiction, except that a consumer may also bring proceedings in the courts where they live.

18.3 Before starting proceedings, please contact us at hello@crawlertoll.com so we can try to resolve the issue.

19. General

19.1 These terms, the Privacy Policy and, for Pro, the Freemius buyer terms are the whole agreement between you and us about the Services.

19.2 We may transfer our rights and obligations under these terms to another organisation that takes over the Services, and will tell you if we do. You may transfer yours only with our written consent.

19.3 If a court finds part of these terms invalid, the rest continues to apply.

19.4 If we do not enforce a right straight away, we can still enforce it later.

19.5 Neither of us is responsible for delays or failures caused by events outside our reasonable control.

19.6 Nobody other than you and us has any right to enforce these terms.

20. Contact

Charthouse Ltd, 71-75 Shelton Street, Covent Garden, London WC2H 9JQ, United Kingdom. Company number 12795844. Email hello@crawlertoll.com.