Terms of Service

1.Who this agreement is with

BetterFriend is built and run by Rik Bergevoet in the Netherlands. Where these terms say "we" or "us", that's who they mean. "You" is the person who holds the account.

You can reach us at support@betterfriend.site for anything about these terms, the app, a complaint or a claim, and at privacy@betterfriend.site for anything about your data. A real person reads both.

These terms and the Privacy Policy together make up the whole agreement between us. The privacy policy is the one that governs how your information is handled; if the two ever seem to disagree on that subject, the privacy policy wins.

You accept these terms by creating a BetterFriend account, and by carrying on using the app. If you don't agree with them, don't create an account, and if you already have one, delete it in Settings and nothing more is owed either way.

2.Who can use BetterFriend

• Ages of4 years and older. The app has no links to social media, contains advertisements or other features that are harmful for young children.
• An account is for one person. It's a private notebook; sharing a login defeats the point and breaks the encryption model.
• Give us an email address that reaches you. It's how we send password resets and how we'd warn you about a change that matters. If you throw away your email and can't reach it anymore, you will also lose your access to BetterFriend.
• Your login is yours to protect. If you think someone else has got into your account, change your password and email support@betterfriend.site.

3.What BetterFriend is, and what it isn't

BetterFriend is a private notebook about the people in your life, with reminders to actually reach out to them. There is much more to it and also actively developed.

Four things it deliberately isn't, because assuming otherwise is how people get let down:

• It isn't a backup service for what you write. Your people are stored on your account and come back on a new phone. Your notes are encrypted with a key only your device holds; read clause 7 before you rely on them being anywhere.
• It isn't an alarm system. Nudges are best-effort reminders. Don't use them for medication, legal deadlines, or anything where a reminder failing to arrive does real harm.
• It isn't advice. Nothing in the app is medical, psychological or legal guidance, including the suggested questions and prompts. It's a nudge from a notebook, not a professional.
• It doesn't contact anyone for you. BetterFriend never messages, emails or notifies the people you add. Nudges go to you and only you, and nobody in your list is told they're in it. We just help you become a BetterFriend

4.What you put in it stays yours

The names, notes, photos and dates you put into BetterFriend are yours. We don't claim ownership of any of it, and we never will.

To actually run the app we need a narrow permission from you: to store your content, move it between your device and our servers, and show it back to you on the devices you sign in on. That's the entire licence, it exists only so the app can work, and it ends when you delete the content or your account. We don't publish it, pass it on, sell it, or use it to train anything. The Privacy Policy sets out the detail.

What you record about other people is your responsibility. Write about others the way you'd want someone writing about you, and don't record anything you'd be ashamed of them reading.

If someone asks to be taken out of your BetterFriend, the fastest fix is yours: open them in the app and delete them. Everything about that person goes immediately, photo included. More on that in the privacy policy.

5.The rules

There are only a few, and none of them will surprise you. Don't use BetterFriend to:

• ✗Break the law, or store anything that's illegal to hold.
• ✗Harass, stalk, threaten or build a file on someone to harm them. This is a tool for being a BetterFriend. Used the other way round it isn't welcome here.
• ✗Attack the service. Breaking in, probing, overloading, scraping, or pulling the app apart to get at other people's data. Honest security research is welcome; email support@betterfriend.site first and we'll work with you.
• ✗Automate it. Scripted sign-ups, loading data in bulk through anything other than the app, or reselling or renting access to it.
• ✗Dodge the limits by running several accounts to get round the number of people a plan allows.
• ✗Pretend to be someone else, including us.

If you break these, we can suspend or close your account; clause 12 sets out how that works.

6.Nudges and notifications

A nudge has to travel from our server, through Apple's push service, to your phone. Any of these reasons can mean a late nudge or drop it entirely: your own setting (notifications off), Focus, low power and no signal. We can't guarantee that any particular nudge is delivered, or delivered on time. Please treat them as helpful, not as something to depend on.

You can turn notifications off at any time in iOS Settings, and change how often the app nudges you inside the app itself.

One thing worth knowing: a nudge about someone you haven't spoken to in a while quotes your last note about them, so a line you wrote can appear on your lock screen. It travels encrypted and is unlocked on your device at the last moment, so nobody in between can read it, but anyone holding your phone could. If you'd rather not have this, set Settings → Notifications → BetterFriend → Show Previews to When Unlocked or Never.

7.Encryption, and the one thing we can't undo

Everything you write in BetterFriend: the facts you save about someone, the notes from conversations you've logged, your follow-up prompts is encrypted on your phone before it reaches us, with a key that lives in your device's Keychain and nowhere else. We hold the scrambled version and we have no way in.

The app makes you read and accept this before you can add anyone. We're repeating it here because it's the single thing about BetterFriend most likely to disappoint someone who skimmed.

8.What it costs today

Nothing. There is nothing to buy inside BetterFriend, no card to enter, no trial counting down and no ads. Every account gets the whole app, including the features that will go paid later, with room for up to 500 people.

Features carrying a Pro tag are marking what a paid plan will cover eventually. Right now they're yours for free, and the tag is there so nothing is a surprise later. When paid plans do arrive, a free account will be limited to 10 people, and we'll say so clearly and in advance rather than switching something off one morning.

9.If we introduce paid plans

We haven't yet. When we do, these are the terms, and we'd rather have you read them before there's any money involved:

• Nothing is charged unless you actively buy it. No account gets upgraded, migrated or billed because a plan launched.
• Everything is bought through Apple's In-App Purchase. Apple takes the payment and charges your App Store account. We never see or hold your card details.
• The price, the plan length and what's included are shown on the purchase screen before you confirm, in your own currency.
• Subscriptions renew automatically. A plan renews for the same period unless you cancel at least 24 hours before the current period ends. Apple charges the renewal within the 24 hours before the period ends.
• You cancel through Apple, not through us: iOS Settings → your name → Subscriptions. Cancelling stops the next renewal, and you keep the paid features until the period you've already paid for runs out. Deleting the app does not cancel a subscription.
• Free trials, if we ever offer one: any unused part of a trial is forfeited when you buy a subscription. That's Apple's rule and it applies to every app on the store.
• Refunds are handled by Apple, because Apple took the payment. Ask at reportaproblem.apple.com. We can't issue a refund for an App Store purchase ourselves, but tell us anyway if something went wrong, because we'd want to know.
• If a price changes, we'll tell you in advance, and under Apple's rules an increase doesn't take effect on your subscription unless you agree to it. If you don't, it simply stops renewing.
• If you stop paying, nothing is deleted. Your account drops back to the free limits. If you're over the free cap we won't remove anyone, you just can't add new people until you're back under it.

10.Changing your mind (EU and UK consumers)

If you're a consumer in the EU, EEA or UK, you normally have 14 days to withdraw from a distance contract for a digital service, without giving a reason. Where a service starts immediately at your request and is fully performed inside that window, that right can end early. You'll be told so before you confirm any purchase.

Today there is nothing to withdraw from, because there is nothing to buy. When there is, purchases go through Apple, so the quickest route to your money back is Apple's Report a Problem page, and Apple's own terms apply to the sale alongside these. Either way, email support@betterfriend.site and we'll help you get it sorted.

11.Availability, and changes to the app

We'd love to promise BetterFriend is up every second of every day. We can't. It runs on services we don't control, it gets updated, and things occasionally break. We don't guarantee uninterrupted or error-free service, and we're not able to compensate you for an outage. However, if this might happen, we are pleased to povide all our users a discount for the lost hours not able to use the app.

The app will be under constant development. Features get added, reworked and occasionally retired. If we remove something you're relying on, we'll tell you before it goes, wherever we reasonably can.

If we ever have to stop offering BetterFriend altogether, we'll give you at least 30 days' notice by email and a way to get your data out before the lights go off. If you'd paid for a period that hadn't run out, we'd refund the unused part.

12.Ending it

You, at any time

Settings → Delete account. It happens immediately: your people, notes, photos, dates and login all go, and we email you a receipt confirming it. There's no 30-day window where we quietly keep a copy, which also means we can't undo it. You can also simply stop using the app; we don't delete quiet accounts behind your back.

Us, if we have to

We can suspend or close an account that breaks clause 5, where the law requires it, or if we shut the service down under clause 11. Where it's practical we'll email you first and tell you why; for things more serious, for example: an account being used to harm someone, or an attack on the service, it may be immediate. If we closed a paid account for anything other than a deliberate or unlawful breach, we'd refund the part of the period you'd paid for and not used.

When this agreement ends, the clauses meant to outlive it do: your ownership of your content (4), the limits on liability (13), and the law that applies (17).

13.What we promise, and the limits of it

BetterFriend is provided as it is. We build it carefully and use it ourselves every day, but we can't promise it's free of bugs, that it fits a particular purpose you have in mind, or that it will always be available.

Beyond those rights, and as far as the law allows:

• We're not liable for notes lost through the encryption design in clause 7. A lost device, a missing recovery phrase, a phrase given to someone else. You were told plainly, twice, before you wrote anything.
• We're not liable for a nudge that doesn't arrive or arrives late, or for anything that follows from one (clause 6).
• We're not liable for indirect or consequential loss. Lost income, lost opportunity, or damage to a relationship.
• Where we are liable, our total liability for all claims is limited to the greater of what you paid us in the twelve months before the claim, and €100.

14.Our name, our code

The app itself "the software", the name BetterFriend, the logo, the design and the words on this site belongs to us, or to the people we license it from. Using the app gives you the licence in clause 15 and nothing beyond it. Please don't copy the brand or pass the app off as your own.

If you send us an idea or a feature request, we can use it, freely and without owing you anything. We say so only to spare anyone the awkwardness of wondering. Suggestions are genuinely read, and BetterFriend is small enough that a good one can be in the next release.

15.Apple's part in this

BetterFriend is distributed through the App Store, and Apple requires every app's terms to say the following. It's boilerplate, but it's boilerplate that matters, so here it is in full:

1. This agreement is with us, not Apple. These terms are between you and Rik Bergevoet only. Apple is not a party to them and is not responsible for BetterFriend or its content.
2. Your licence. We grant you a personal, non-transferable licence to use BetterFriend on any Apple-branded device that you own or control, as permitted by the Usage Rules in the App Store Terms of Service, including, where those rules allow it, use by other members of your Family Sharing group.
3. Support is ours. We're solely responsible for maintaining and supporting the app. Apple has no obligation to provide any support for it.
4. Warranty is ours. Any warranty is ours alone. If the app fails to conform to a warranty that applies to it, you may notify Apple, and Apple will refund the purchase price, which for BetterFriend is currently nothing. Apple has no other warranty obligation of any kind.
5. Claims about the app come to us. We, not Apple, are responsible for dealing with any claim you or a third party makes about BetterFriend, including product liability, a failure to meet a legal or regulatory requirement, and claims under consumer protection or privacy law.
6. Intellectual property claims come to us. If a third party claims the app infringes their intellectual property, we, not Apple, are responsible for investigating, defending, settling and discharging that claim.
7. Sanctions and export. By using BetterFriend you confirm that you're not located in a country subject to a US Government embargo or designated by the US Government as a "terrorist supporting" country, and that you're not on any US Government list of prohibited or restricted parties.
8. How to reach us. Rik Bergevoet, the Netherlands, support@betterfriend.site. Send any question, complaint or claim about the app there.
9. Third-party terms still apply. You have to comply with any applicable third-party terms when using the app.
10. Apple can enforce this. Apple and its subsidiaries are third-party beneficiaries of these terms, and Apple has the right to enforce them against you as a third-party beneficiary.

16.If these terms change

They will, because the app is still growing. When they do we'll update the date at the top of this page. If a change genuinely affects you,anything about money, or anything that takes something away, we'll email you before it takes effect, with at least 14 days' notice, rather than quietly editing the page and hoping you don't notice. Carrying on using BetterFriend after that means you accept the new version. If you'd rather not, delete your account; that's a complete answer and nothing further is owed.

17.Which law applies, and where disputes go

Dutch law governs this agreement. If you're a consumer living elsewhere in the EU, EEA or UK, that doesn't cost you anything: you keep the mandatory protections of your own country's law, and you can bring a case in your own country's courts. Otherwise, disputes go to the competent court in the Netherlands.

Before any of that, please email support@betterfriend.site. Almost everything is a misunderstanding that one honest reply fixes, and we'd far rather fix it than argue about it. If we can't sort it out and you're a consumer in the EU outside the Netherlands, your national European Consumer Centre can help you take it further.

These terms are written in English, and the English version is the one that governs. If part of them turns out to be unenforceable, the rest carries on unaffected.

18.Questions

If any of this is unclear, or reads as though it's hiding something, email support@betterfriend.site. It's a small project, so you'll get a real answer from a real person, and if a clause needed explaining, it probably needed rewriting, so tell us that too.

Last updated 22 August 2026.