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Terms of Service

The agreement between you and Observer when you use the Service. Plain language. Last updated 2026-05-24.

Effective date: 2026-05-24 Last updated: 2026-05-24

These Terms of Service ("Terms") govern your use of Observer ("the Service"). Observer is operated by a sole trader based in England, United Kingdom, trading as "Observer" ("the Company", "we", "us"). Our trading address is available on request to [email protected].

By signing up for or using the Service, you agree to these Terms, the Privacy Policy, the Acceptable Use Policy, and, where applicable, the Data Processing Agreement. If you are entering into these Terms on behalf of an organisation, you confirm that you have authority to bind that organisation, and "you" refers to both you and the organisation.

The Service is intended for business use. It is not designed or marketed for consumers as defined under the UK Consumer Rights Act 2015, and we do not knowingly provide the Service to consumers.

Summary in plain English

  • You pay for the plan you sign up for. You can cancel at any time and cancellation takes effect immediately. We do not provide refunds.
  • You own everything you put into the Service. We claim no rights over your data.
  • You can export your data at any time using the API.
  • We provide the Service "as is" without warranties of any kind. To the maximum extent permitted by law, we exclude liability for damages arising from use of the Service, save for the limited categories of liability that English law does not allow us to exclude.
  • We will only contact the account owner before suspending or terminating an account, except where the level of use risks harming other customers or where required by law.
  • These Terms are governed by the laws of England and Wales, and any disputes will be resolved in the courts of England and Wales.

The detail is below. Read it.

1. Account terms

You must provide your real legal name when you sign up. One login may only be used by one person; sharing logins is not permitted. You must not register an account on behalf of someone else without their authorisation, and you must not automate sign-up via bots, scripts, or other means.

You are responsible for the security of your account, including your password, your Clerk session, and any API keys you generate. You must notify us at [email protected] without delay if you suspect any unauthorised access to your account.

The Service is not directed at children under the age of 16. By using the Service, you confirm that you are at least 16 years old.

You must comply with all laws applicable to your use of the Service in your jurisdiction and in the jurisdictions of the systems you monitor.

2. API terms

You may use the Service's REST API and outbound webhooks as documented. You must not:

  • abuse the API in a way that materially degrades performance for other customers,
  • attempt to reverse-engineer the Service or its source code,
  • attempt to circumvent the Service's rate limits, quota enforcement, or billing controls,
  • use the API to scrape or mirror the Service for the purpose of building a competing product, or
  • use the API in any way prohibited by the Acceptable Use Policy.

We reserve the right to apply rate limits to any account and to revoke any API key without notice if abuse is detected.

3. Payment, cancellation, and refunds

The Service is offered on four plan tiers. Pricing is published on the Service's pricing page and may change with at least 30 days' notice for material increases affecting existing paying customers. Increases for new sign-ups may take effect immediately.

Payments are processed by our billing provider (see the Subprocessors list). All fees are exclusive of taxes, levies, or duties imposed by taxing authorities. You are responsible for payment of all such taxes. Where required by law, value added tax (VAT) will be added at the prevailing rate.

You can cancel your subscription at any time from your account settings. Cancellation takes effect immediately. You will not be billed for any subsequent billing period, and we do not refund prepaid fees for the current period or any earlier period. Downgrading your plan may cause the loss of features or capacity available to your account; we do not accept liability for any such loss.

The free tier is offered without time limit, but the Company reserves the right to modify the features and quotas of the free tier at any time.

4. Modifications to the Service

We may add, change, or remove features of the Service at any time. We may suspend or discontinue the Service in whole or in part. Where a change materially reduces the functionality available to paying customers, we will provide at least 30 days' notice by email and via the in-product notification mechanism.

We do not warrant that the Service will be uninterrupted, timely, secure, or error-free, nor that any errors in the Service will be corrected.

5. Content ownership

You retain all right, title, and interest in the data you upload to, or generate through, the Service ("Customer Data"). The Company claims no ownership of Customer Data and no licence over it beyond what is needed to provide the Service to you.

The Service itself, including its software, documentation, design, brand, and the Observer name, is owned by the Company. These Terms grant you a limited, non-exclusive, non-transferable, revocable licence to use the Service for the duration of your subscription. They do not grant you any rights in the Service's intellectual property.

If you provide feedback about the Service, you grant us a perpetual, royalty-free licence to use that feedback to improve the Service. We will not identify you publicly as the source of any feedback.

6. General conditions

Warranty disclaimer

The Service is provided "as is" and "as available". To the maximum extent permitted by law, the Company makes no warranties of any kind, whether express or implied, including but not limited to warranties of merchantability, fitness for a particular purpose, or non-infringement. Without limiting the foregoing, the Company does not warrant that (i) the Service will meet your specific requirements, (ii) the Service will be uninterrupted, timely, secure, or error-free, (iii) the results that may be obtained from the use of the Service will be accurate or reliable, (iv) the quality of any products, services, information, or other material purchased or obtained by you through the Service will meet your expectations, or (v) any errors in the Service will be corrected.

Limitation of liability

To the maximum extent permitted by law, you expressly understand and agree that the Company shall not be liable for any direct, indirect, incidental, special, consequential, or exemplary damages, including but not limited to damages for loss of profits, revenue, goodwill, use, data, or other intangible losses (even if the Company has been advised of the possibility of such damages), resulting from: (i) the use or the inability to use the Service; (ii) the cost of procurement of substitute goods and services resulting from any goods, data, information, or services purchased or obtained or messages received or transactions entered into through or from the Service; (iii) unauthorised access to or alteration of your transmissions or data; (iv) statements or conduct of any third party on the Service; or (v) any other matter relating to the Service.

Aggregate fallback cap

If any court of competent jurisdiction or arbitrator holds that the foregoing limitation of liability is unenforceable in whole or in part, the Company's total aggregate liability arising out of or in connection with these Terms, the Service, the Data Processing Agreement, or any related agreement, regardless of the form of action and across all claims and theories of liability, shall not exceed the lesser of (i) one hundred pounds sterling (£100), or (ii) the total amount, if any, you paid the Company for the Service in the twelve (12) months immediately preceding the event giving rise to liability. This cap is cumulative and applies in the aggregate across all claims.

Mandatory carve-outs (English law)

Nothing in these Terms excludes or limits liability for: (a) death or personal injury caused by negligence; (b) fraud or fraudulent misrepresentation; (c) any other liability that cannot be excluded or limited under the laws of England and Wales. Where any provision of these Terms is held to be unenforceable, the rest of the Terms remain in full force and effect.

Indemnification

You will defend, indemnify, and hold harmless the Company, its operator(s), agents, and contractors against any and all claims, damages, losses, liabilities, costs, and expenses (including reasonable legal fees and disbursements) arising out of or related to: (a) your breach of these Terms, the Acceptable Use Policy, the Data Processing Agreement, or any applicable law; (b) your content, monitoring configuration, status page content, or use of the Service infringing or alleged to infringe the rights of any third party; (c) claims brought by end users of any status page or status communication you create (including subscribers, viewers, or other recipients of communications sent through the Service); (d) your monitoring of any system without proper authorisation; or (e) your negligence or wilful misconduct. The Company will give you prompt notice of any such claim, and you will have sole control of the defence and any related settlement, provided that no settlement requiring an admission of liability from the Company is made without the Company's prior written consent.

Limitation period

To the maximum extent permitted by law, any claim arising out of or in connection with these Terms, the Service, or any related agreement must be brought within one (1) year after the cause of action accrues, or it is permanently barred. This contractual limitation period applies in addition to, and where shorter than, the statutory limitation period.

Force majeure

The Company is not liable for any failure or delay in performance arising from causes beyond its reasonable control, including but not limited to acts of God, war, terrorism, civil unrest, governmental action, labour disputes, internet or telecommunications failure, cyberattack, outage of any subprocessor or upstream provider (including hosting, CDN, authentication, billing, or email providers), failure of utility services, or any other cause of similar character. The Company's performance is suspended for the duration of the event and resumes when reasonably practicable.

Suspension and termination

The Company has the right to suspend or terminate your account for breach of these Terms, the Acceptable Use Policy, or applicable law, with immediate effect. The Company may also terminate your account for any other reason on at least 30 days' written notice. Of course, we will reach out to the account owner before taking any action except in cases where the level of use may negatively impact the performance of the Service for other customers, where required by law, or where we have a reasonable basis to suspect fraud or security risk.

On termination, your access to the Service ceases. Customer Data is retained for 30 days from the date of termination, during which you may export it via the API. After 30 days, Customer Data is removed from active systems and is permanently deleted from backups within a further 30 days (60 days total). See the Privacy Policy and the Data Processing Agreement for full retention details.

No pre-screening of content

The Company does not pre-screen Customer Data or other content submitted to the Service, but reserves the right (without obligation) in its sole discretion to refuse or remove any content that, in the Company's reasonable view, violates these Terms or any applicable law.

Technical reality

You understand that the technical processing and transmission of the Service, including Customer Data, may be transferred unencrypted and may involve (a) transmissions over various networks and (b) changes to conform and adapt to the technical requirements of connecting networks or devices.

Assignment

You may not assign these Terms or your rights under them without the Company's prior written consent. The Company may assign these Terms to a successor entity following a change of legal form (for example, on incorporation as a limited company), an acquisition, or a reorganisation, provided the successor agrees to be bound by these Terms.

Severability and entire agreement

If any provision of these Terms is held to be invalid or unenforceable, the remaining provisions remain in effect. These Terms, together with the documents referenced in them, constitute the entire agreement between you and the Company in relation to the Service and supersede any prior agreement on the same subject matter.

7. Observer-specific provisions

Observational, not operational

Observer provides monitoring, alerting, and status communication services. Observer is not part of your production infrastructure. You must not design your systems such that Observer's availability is required for your service or infrastructure to function. The Company accepts no liability for damages arising from architectures that depend on Observer for operational continuity.

Customer-scoped status pages: responsibility for end users

If you create a status page that has its own subscribers, viewers, or other end users, those end users are your data subjects, not the Company's. You are the controller of any personal data you collect from them through the Service. You are responsible for obtaining any required consent from them, providing your own privacy notice to them, and handling any data subject rights requests they make. The Company acts only as a processor of that data on your behalf, on the terms of the Data Processing Agreement.

The Observer Agent runs in your environment

The Observer Agent is software you deploy and operate within your own infrastructure. You are solely responsible for its installation, configuration, security, and operation. The Company is responsible only for the data the Agent transmits to Observer Cloud after you have configured it.

Customer-defined probes and queries

You configure the metrics, probes, queries, and monitoring targets that the Service evaluates. You warrant that you have the legal right to monitor every target you configure. The Company does not validate or verify your authorisation to monitor any target. You are responsible for ensuring that your monitoring activity complies with all applicable laws, including data protection law, computer misuse law, and any contractual restrictions applicable to the targets you monitor.

Detection accuracy depends on your configuration

The accuracy of incident detection, alerting, and status reporting depends on the metrics, thresholds, and configuration you provide. The Company makes no warranty that any specific outage, degradation, or condition will be detected, nor that any detection will be free of false positives. You are responsible for defining what constitutes a meaningful signal for your service and for tuning thresholds accordingly.

Prohibited uses: safety-critical systems

You must not use the Service to monitor, control, or communicate about systems where failure of monitoring could result in death, serious personal injury, severe environmental damage, or critical infrastructure failure. The Service is not designed for safety-critical applications. Such use is a material breach of these Terms and grounds for immediate termination.

8. Governing law and disputes

These Terms are governed by the laws of England and Wales. Any dispute arising out of or in connection with these Terms, including any question regarding their existence, validity, or termination, shall be subject to the exclusive jurisdiction of the courts of England and Wales.

If you have a complaint about the Service, please contact [email protected]. We will respond as quickly as we reasonably can.

9. Changes to these Terms

We may update these Terms from time to time. Material changes will be notified by email to the account owner and via the in-product notification mechanism at least 30 days before they take effect, except where a change is required by law or for security reasons, in which case the change may take effect immediately. Continued use of the Service after the effective date of an updated version of these Terms constitutes acceptance of the updated Terms.

The current version is always available at https://use.observer/policies/terms.

Contact

For questions about these Terms, write to [email protected]. For security disclosure, write to [email protected]. Our trading address is available on request.