editing.help · Subtextual

Terms of Service

Last updated October 23, 2026

Who these terms are with

Subtextual, the writing app at editing.help/app/, and the editing.help website are made by editing.help, a business of Dev Edit Portland, Inc., 3055 NW Yeon Ave #747, Portland, OR 97210. You can reach it at info@editing.help. In these terms, “Subtextual” and “editing.help” mean the same maker, and “you” means the person using the app.

Subtextual AI is sold through Link. For that purchase, Stripe, through its Link service, is the seller of record: it takes your payment, pays any sales tax or VAT included in the price, sends your receipts, and can help with billing. The Stripe company involved depends on where you live, and Link’s Sold through Link terms (link.com/terms) also apply to your purchase. editing.help provides Subtextual AI itself, under these terms.

By using Subtextual, or by subscribing to Subtextual AI, you agree to these terms and to the privacy policy. If you don’t agree, please don’t use the app.

Who can use Subtextual

You must be 13 or older to create an account, or older where local law requires. To subscribe to Subtextual AI, you must be 18 or older. Sharing a page, or writing beneath one, requires an account, so the 13-or-older rule applies to both people.

Your writing

• It’s yours. You keep every right to what you write in Subtextual. Subtextual doesn’t claim ownership of it.
• What you allow Subtextual to do with it: only what’s needed to run the app for you. That means storing the documents you choose to sync, showing them to you on your devices, showing a copy of a page to the people you invite to it, and sending the text you ask about to the AI provider that answers it. This permission ends when you delete the document or your account.
• Never for training. Subtextual never uses your writing to train AI, and never allows it to be used that way.
• Notes on someone else’s page belong to the person who wrote them. By sending notes to a writer, you let them keep, read, reply to and remove those notes with their document, export them, and include them (labelled with your name) when they ask the AI about that document.
• A page shared with you belongs to its writer. Read it to help the writer, and don’t copy, publish or pass on their page. When sharing ends, you keep only your own notes and the words you quoted.
• Keep your own copies. Documents you don’t sync live only in your browser and can be lost if its data is cleared. Export what matters to you.

Sharing and other people’s notes

• Only the writer of a page can change it. An invitation is to write beneath a page (Editor) or to read it (Read only); either way, never on it.
• The writer can stop sharing at any time. Anyone invited can leave at any time.
• An invitation link is meant for one person. Anyone who opens it and signs in first takes the invitation, unless the writer limited it to an address, so send it only to the person you mean. The writer sees who accepted and can stop sharing at once.
• If the writer turns on They see each other’s notes, notes you send on that page can be read by the other people on it. The writer can turn this on or off at any time.
• Ask Subtextual to email an invitation only to someone who expects it from you.
• Shared pages and notes aren’t public, and Subtextual doesn’t show them to anyone but the people on that page.

Field Guides

Field Guides from editing.help are licensed under CC BY-NC 4.0: share them with credit to editing.help, but not for sale, unless a guide says otherwise.

AI answers

AI answers appear beneath your thoughts, marked as AI. They can be wrong, incomplete or out of date, so check anything that matters. What you do with an answer is your choice and your responsibility. Subtextual doesn’t claim ownership of the answers you receive.

You can use AI in two ways:

• Your own key. Connect a key from Anthropic, OpenAI or OpenRouter in Settings. Your use is billed by that provider and governed by its terms.
• Subtextual AI. The subscription described below.

Subtextual AI

What it includes

Subtextual AI gives your signed-in account AI answers in Subtextual without a key of your own. Each month includes about $3 of AI use, measured at OpenRouter’s prices. Answers come from Anthropic’s Claude models, through OpenRouter, using a personal key created for your account: Claude Haiku 5.5 by default, or Claude Sonnet 5.5 if you choose it in Settings. Sonnet uses about 20 times more of your allowance for each answer. The list of models may change over time, to models of similar or better quality, and the multiples are estimates; the price won’t change without notice (see “Price changes”).

If you reach the month’s allowance, AI answers pause until it renews on your next billing date, and you can still use your own key. Unused allowance doesn’t carry over, but added replies do (see below).

Added replies

While you’re subscribed, you can add more AI in Settings → Account. A pack costs $10, including any sales tax or VAT, and adds about $6 of AI use: about 2,000 answers with Claude Haiku 5.5. Added AI is used only after the month’s allowance runs out, oldest pack first. It carries over from month to month and doesn’t expire while you’re subscribed. If your subscription ends, what’s left pauses with it, and comes back if you subscribe again within 12 months; after that it lapses. Added AI can’t be exchanged for money, except as the refund policy describes.

Subtextual Patron

Subtextual Patron is a monthly membership that supports Subtextual. It replaces the $5 plan; you can’t have both. You choose $10, $20 or $50 a month, or your own amount in $5 steps from $10 up to $100, in US dollars, including any sales tax or VAT. Every level includes about $6 of AI use a month (about 2,000 answers with Claude Haiku 5.5, twice the $5 plan), early access to new features while you’re a Patron, and, if you choose, your name on the Patrons page. Patron is a membership, not a donation, and it isn’t tax-deductible. It’s sold, billed, renewed and cancelled through Link like the $5 plan. Upgrades, to a higher Patron level or from the $5 plan to Patron, start straight away; you pay the difference for the rest of this billing period. Downgrades start at your next billing date, and you keep this period’s replies. When you move from Patron to the $5 plan or stop being a Patron, early access and your listing on the Patrons page end with it.

The Patrons page

If you’re a Patron and choose to be listed, Subtextual shows the name you type on the public Patrons page at editing.help/patrons/. Names appear only after editing.help approves them, and editing.help can decline or remove a name without giving a reason. Your name comes off when you turn the listing off in Settings, when you stop being a Patron, or when you delete your account. Please use a name that’s yours to use, and nothing offensive.

Billing

Subtextual AI is sold and billed through Link. You can pay by card, Apple Pay, Google Pay, Link, or another method shown at checkout, and charges appear on your statement as LINK.COM* SUBTEXTUAL. Your subscription is $5 a month in US dollars, including any sales tax or VAT; checkout may show the amount in your own currency, and your receipt shows any tax included. It’s billed monthly, in advance, on the date you subscribed, and renews automatically until you cancel. Receipts and invoices come from Link by email. Subtextual never sees or stores your full card number.

If a payment fails, Stripe tries again for about two weeks, and Subtextual AI keeps working meanwhile. If it still can’t be collected, the subscription ends and Subtextual AI stops. Your writing is never affected by billing.

Cancelling

You can cancel at any time with Manage… in Subtextual’s Settings → AI (or the Subtextual AI subscription row in Settings → Account), which opens Stripe’s billing portal, or in your Link account at link.com. After you cancel, Subtextual AI keeps working until the end of the period you’ve paid for, then stops, and you won’t be charged again. Your documents, settings and account stay as they are. Refunds are covered by the refund policy, which has two ways within 14 days of a charge: by email, in full, no questions asked; or automatically when you delete your account, minus the AI you’ve already used. If you’re in the EU or UK, you also have a 14-day right to cancel under Link’s terms.

Price changes

If the price changes, you’ll be told by email at least 30 days before it applies to you, and you can cancel before then.

Using Subtextual fairly

Please don’t:

• use Subtextual to break the law, or to create or store material that’s illegal, abusive, or infringes someone else’s rights;
• share, resell or extract the personal AI key that comes with Subtextual AI, or use it outside Subtextual, or in automated or bulk ways the app wasn’t built for;
• try to get around the monthly allowance, other accounts’ privacy, or the app’s security;
• use notes, invitations or shared pages to harass, threaten or impersonate anyone, or to send material the recipient didn’t ask for;
• use AI answers in ways the model providers’ policies don’t allow: Anthropic’s usage policy ↗ (opens in a new tab) and OpenRouter’s terms ↗ (opens in a new tab).

Either side can end sharing at any time. Report misuse to info@editing.help.

If an account breaks these terms, Subtextual may pause or end its Subtextual AI access or the account, after telling you why where it’s reasonable to do so. Unused time isn’t refunded in that case, except that the 14-day refund in the refund policy still applies, as does anything the law requires.

The service itself

Subtextual is new and changes often. Features may change or be removed. Subtextual aims to keep the app and sync available but can’t promise it will always be, or that it will be free of errors. Keep exports of anything important.

If Subtextual AI is ever discontinued, you’ll be told at least 30 days ahead, and any unused prepaid time will be refunded. Your writing stays yours, and you can export it.

Limits of responsibility

Subtextual is provided “as is”. To the extent the law allows, editing.help isn’t responsible for indirect or consequential losses, or for lost writing that wasn’t synced or exported, and its total responsibility to you is limited to what you paid for Subtextual AI in the 12 months before the claim. Nothing in these terms takes away rights you have under consumer law that can’t be waived.

Ending your account

You can delete your account at any time in Settings → Account. Deleting it cancels any Subtextual AI subscription at once, deletes your AI key, and removes your synced documents, as the privacy policy describes. If your last subscription charge was within the past 14 days, it’s refunded automatically, minus the AI use you’ve already had, usually within about 10 minutes, once per person; otherwise the rest of the month isn’t refunded. A pack of added replies bought within the past 14 days is refunded too, less the replies used from it; older packs aren’t refunded. (You can also ask by email for a full refund within 14 days of a charge, as the refund policy says.) Deleting your account also deletes every note you wrote on other people’s pages, ends the pages people shared with you, and deletes every page you shared and its copies. People you shared with keep their own notes.

Governing law

These terms are governed by the laws of the State of Oregon, United States, except where your local consumer law says otherwise.

Changes to these terms

If these terms change, the new version will be posted here with a new date. If a change affects Subtextual AI subscribers in a meaningful way, you’ll be told by email at least 30 days before it takes effect.