Terms of service for creators

1. Who we are

The Cerchia service (cerchia.app) is provided by Alberto Di Gioacchino, a freelance professional with VAT number (partita IVA) 02332500442, based at Via Raffaele Tombolini 50, 63822 Porto San Giorgio (FM), Italy ("Cerchia", "we"). You can write to us at ciao@cerchia.app.

These terms are an agreement between Cerchia and you, the creator ("you"). You declare that you use Cerchia for your own business, for professional or entrepreneurial purposes, and not as a consumer.

Your Italian VAT and tax status, and every obligation that comes with it, remain your own responsibility.

2. The service

Cerchia is an access layer and a fan hub: it gives you a checkout page, a Telegram bot that lets paying fans into your group and removes those who stop paying, an area where fans manage and cancel their subscriptions, and reports for you.

Cerchia is not a marketplace and is not the seller of your content. It is not the merchant of record for payments. It does not collect, hold or pay out money: payments go directly from the fan to your account with the payment provider.

With Verifica, Cerchia also lets into your group the fans who already support you on Twitch, Patreon or YouTube, after verifying their membership (section 5).

The Telegram group stays yours: content, rules and moderation are your responsibility. Cerchia is not a community or course app.

3. You are the seller

The contract for access to your group and your content is made directly between you and the fan. Cerchia is not a party to that contract.

You are responsible, towards fans, for everything that concerns the sale. In particular:

• setting the prices and billing period of subscriptions and stating them clearly;
• applying and paying the VAT and other taxes due, according to your tax status;
• issuing receipts or invoices to fans when required (Cerchia does not issue them on your behalf);
• complying with consumer protection law, including information about the right of withdrawal and other pre-contractual information;
• deciding on and handling refunds and answering fans about content, payments and invoices;
• [TO BE DEFINED: any standard texts or clauses for fans that Cerchia will make available on the checkout page].

4. Payment providers

Fans' payments are processed by Stripe, through your own Stripe account connected to Cerchia with Stripe Connect (direct charges into your account), and, when available, by Satispay, through your own Satispay Business account. To use them you accept their terms and you enter into them directly with them.

Cerchia is not a party to your contract with Stripe or Satispay and is not responsible for what they do, for blocks or limits on your account, for chargebacks or disputes.

Payment processing fees are charged to you by Stripe or Satispay, under your contract with them, and are in addition to Cerchia's fees.

5. Verifica

With Verifica, fans who already support you on Twitch, Patreon or YouTube join your Telegram group by proving their membership, without paying again. Payments stay between the fan and the platform: Cerchia doesn't handle or touch them.

To turn it on you connect your Twitch or YouTube channel or your Patreon page through the platform's official sign-in. You authorise us to read, read-only, the ID and name of the channel or page, your membership tiers, and whether a fan who verifies is your subscriber or member and at what tier; for YouTube, also the list of your members-only videos, which we use for the check. We store your tokens encrypted and use them only for Verifica. You only connect channels or pages that are yours or that you are authorised to manage.

You decide which tier unlocks which group and how many grace days to give when a membership ends. We check every day who is still a member: whoever no longer is stays in the group for the grace period, gets a warning from the bot and is then removed.

If a check can't be done on your side (for example you revoked access or, on YouTube, there is no members-only video with comments on), we pause checks and removals until you fix the connection: during that time nobody is removed from the group.

By using Verifica you also accept the terms of the platform you connect. For YouTube, by connecting your channel you agree to the YouTube Terms of Service (https://www.youtube.com/t/terms); the data we receive from Google is processed under the privacy notice at cerchia.app/privacy and the Google Privacy Policy (https://policies.google.com/privacy).

Verifica depends on the Twitch, Patreon and YouTube APIs: if a platform changes its rules or limits access, verification on that platform may stop working. If that happens we will tell you as soon as possible.

6. Plans and fees

Cerchia charges you the fees below, depending on the plan you choose. Fans do not pay any fee to Cerchia: they pay the price you set.

We may change prices and fees with at least 30 days' notice sent by email. If you do not agree, you can close the service before the change applies. You can change plan at any time: [TO BE DEFINED: from when a plan change applies and how monthly fees are calculated when you change mid-month].

• Start: 8% on each payment received from fans;
• Pro: 29 euros per month plus 3% on each payment;
• Business: 79 euros per month plus 1% on each payment;
• Verifica: 19 euros per month for up to 200 verified members. Verifica checks that members pay on YouTube, Twitch or Patreon and manages access to the group; no payments go through Cerchia.
• [TO BE DEFINED: what happens above 200 verified members with Verifica; whether the amounts above are exclusive or inclusive of VAT].

7. Billing

For Stripe payments, Cerchia's percentage fee is retained automatically by Stripe at the time of payment, as an application fee. Cerchia sends you an invoice every month with the breakdown of the fees.

[TO BE DEFINED: how the percentage fee on Satispay payments and the fixed monthly fees of the Pro, Business and Verifica plans are paid].

[TO BE DEFINED: VAT treatment of Cerchia's fees].

[TO BE DEFINED: payment terms for Cerchia's invoices and consequences of non-payment].

8. Founding creators

If you have been admitted as a founding creator, you are entitled to the conditions below. They apply once per creator and are not transferable. Joining the waitlist carries no commitment.

• 0% Cerchia commission for the first 3 months (only Stripe and Satispay costs remain). The 3 months start from [TO BE DEFINED: start date, for example the first payment received or activation];
• free migration of the group: we move the members from PayPal, bank transfers or other platforms;
• a 20-minute setup call to set up the group, payments and exit rules;
• we ask you what you need before building new features, and you try them first;
• [TO BE DEFINED: whether the monthly fee of paid plans is due during the 3 commission-free months].

9. Acceptable use

You may use Cerchia only to sell access to groups that comply with the law and these rules. In case of a serious breach we may suspend the service, even without notice, and we will explain why as soon as possible. Groups that are not allowed:

• groups offering financial or investment advice, or trading signals, without the authorisations required by law (for example CONSOB or OCF);
• groups spreading illegal content;
• groups containing content that sexualises minors;
• groups containing adult content: [TO BE DEFINED: allowed or not, and under what conditions];
• groups offering gambling or betting tips without the required authorisations;
• groups inciting hatred or violence;
• groups infringing intellectual property rights or distributing pirated material;
• groups promoting scams, pyramid schemes or similar;
• groups sending spam.

10. Creator obligations

You undertake to:

• give us accurate and up-to-date information;
• keep the Cerchia bot as an administrator of the group with the needed permissions: without them, it cannot let members in or remove them;
• set and enforce the rules of your group;
• comply with the terms of Telegram, your payment providers and, if you use Verifica, the platforms you connect;
• answer the fans who write to you.

11. Personal data

To deliver the service Cerchia processes the data of your group's fans (for example email, Telegram account and subscription status; with Verifica, their Twitch, Patreon or YouTube account IDs and membership tier).

[TO BE DEFINED: privacy roles. Cerchia as data processor (art. 28 GDPR) on behalf of the creator, with a data processing agreement, or independent controller].

To learn how we process personal data, read the privacy notice at cerchia.app/privacy.

12. Availability and changes to the service

We do our best to keep Cerchia running, but we do not guarantee service levels (no SLA). The service depends on external providers such as Telegram, Stripe, Satispay, Twitch, Patreon, YouTube and the hosting service: if they have a problem, Cerchia may have one too.

We may improve, change or remove features. If a change significantly disadvantages you, we will tell you by email with reasonable notice.

13. Liability

To the extent permitted by law, Cerchia's total liability to you is limited to the fees you paid us in the 12 months before the event. This limit does not apply in case of wilful misconduct or gross negligence, as provided by art. 1229 of the Italian Civil Code, nor in any other case where the law does not allow liability to be limited.

Cerchia is not liable for the content of your group, for malfunctions or outages of Telegram, Stripe, Satispay, Twitch, Patreon, YouTube or other providers, or for disputes between you and your fans.

14. Duration and termination

There is no minimum term. You can stop using Cerchia at any time. We can end the service towards you with 30 days' notice by email, or immediately in case of a serious breach of these terms.

When the relationship ends, fans' subscriptions stay on your Stripe account, because they are yours. The bot, however, stops managing access to the group: from then on, letting members in and removing them is your responsibility.

[TO BE DEFINED: data export on termination (which data, in what format and within what time)].

15. Changes to these terms

We may update these terms. We will tell you by email; for unfavourable changes the notice is at least 30 days. If you do not agree, you can close the service before the change applies; if you keep using it afterwards, you accept it.

16. Governing law and jurisdiction

These terms are governed by Italian law. For any dispute between Cerchia and you, as a professional, the court of Fermo has exclusive jurisdiction.

17. Contacts

For questions about these terms write to ciao@cerchia.app. Cerchia: Alberto Di Gioacchino, VAT number (partita IVA) 02332500442, Via Raffaele Tombolini 50, 63822 Porto San Giorgio (FM), Italy.