Terms of sale

These terms apply when you try or buy Steerwell, the research workspace for Mac. Steerwell is made by Black Ueli GmbH, An der hohlen Gasse 23, 4058 Basel, Switzerland (UID CHE-365.774.580) (“we”). Contact: contact@black-ueli.ch.

Using the app is also governed by the licence agreement, and what we do with personal data by the privacy policy.

1. Paddle sells, we deliver

Our order process is conducted by our online reseller Paddle.com. Paddle.com is the Merchant of Record for all our orders: you buy from Paddle, which takes the payment, charges VAT or sales tax and issues the invoices, under Paddle's buyer terms. Paddle provides all customer service inquiries about payments and handles returns. We provide the app and the licence, and answer everything else.

2. The free trial

You can use every feature free for 14 days. The trial starts when you sign in to Steerwell with your e-mail address and press the link we send you. It needs no card and ends by itself: nothing is charged when it ends. An address gets one trial per Mac.

3. Subscriptions and seats

• Steerwell is sold as a subscription per seat, monthly or yearly. The prices are on the pricing section and in the checkout, in US dollars, euros or Swiss francs depending on your country. Paddle adds VAT or sales tax where it applies.
• A seat is for one person, named by their e-mail address, on up to two Macs at a time. Signing in on a third Mac asks which of the other two to sign out.
• Whoever buys a subscription (the buyer) gets the first seat and gives the others to colleagues on the seats page, licence.steerwell.ch/account. A seat can be taken back and given to someone else at any time; Steerwell then locks on the Macs of the person it was taken from, the next time they check the licence.
• Adding seats is charged pro rata at once for the rest of the period; removing paid seats is credited pro rata against the next payments.
• Every version of Steerwell that comes out while the subscription runs is included.
• Your agent (Claude Code, Codex, Gemini CLI or another) is not part of Steerwell: you use it under your own subscription and its maker's terms, and you pay for it separately.

4. Renewal, payment and price changes

A subscription renews by itself at the end of each month or year and is charged to the payment method you gave Paddle, until it is cancelled. If a payment fails, Paddle tries again for up to 30 days; Steerwell keeps working meanwhile and says that the card needs updating. If the payment still fails, the subscription ends.

We may change prices for future periods. We tell the buyer by e-mail at least 30 days before a renewal at a new price, so there is time to cancel first.

5. Early-adopter offer

Early adopters who were given our code get 50% off their first 6 monthly payments, or 25% off their first yearly payment, when they buy with the code before the offer closes, 3 months after launch. The code can't be combined with other offers or exchanged for money.

6. Cancelling

The buyer can cancel at any time in Paddle's customer portal, opened from the seats page. The subscription then runs to the end of the period already paid and does not renew. Refunds are covered by the refund policy.

7. When a trial or subscription ends

Steerwell and its steerwell command lock: they no longer open or change your Workspaces. Your files are not touched. A Workspace is a plain folder of Markdown, YAML and your recordings on your own storage, readable by any other tool, and it stays yours. Buying or renewing unlocks Steerwell again.

Steerwell checks the licence with our server when it is online and works for 30 days without a connection; after that it locks until it reaches the server once.

8. Your research stays yours

We never receive your Workspaces, recordings, transcripts, notes or participants' data: they stay on your storage and with the agent you choose to run. You are responsible for having the right to process them, for example your participants' consent. We have no access to them and can't recover them for you, so keep backups.

9. Warranty and liability

We build Steerwell with care and fix the faults we learn of, but we don't promise that it is free of faults or always available, or that it suits a particular purpose. Analyses and texts written by your agent are the agent's work: check them before you rely on them.

To the extent the law allows, our liability is limited to the amount paid for Steerwell in the 12 months before the event that caused the damage, and we are not liable for indirect damage, lost profit or lost data. We remain liable without limit for damage caused intentionally or by gross negligence, and where the law doesn't allow a limitation.

10. Changes to these terms

We may change these terms for future periods. We tell the buyer by e-mail at least 30 days before a change takes effect; if the buyer doesn't agree, they can cancel before then.

11. Law and courts

These terms are governed by Swiss law, without the UN Convention on Contracts for the International Sale of Goods. The courts at our registered office are competent. If you buy as a consumer, the mandatory law and courts of the country you live in still apply where they protect you.