These Terms of Service ("Terms") govern your use of arc-relay ("the Service"), operated at arc-relay.com by Hoopes Group LLC ("we", "us", "our"), a limited liability company organized in [STATE_OF_FORMATION], with a registered address at [POSTAL_ADDRESS]. By creating an account or using the Service, you agree to these Terms.
1. Service description
arc-relay is an email relay service that forwards incoming email with ARC (Authenticated Received Chain) sealing and SRS (Sender Rewriting Scheme) envelope rewriting. The Service provides:
- DMARC-compliant email forwarding for custom domains
- Email aliases, catch-all forwarding, and sender block rules
- Spam filtering on inbound mail
- Per-domain DKIM signing on outbound forwards (Pro and Studio plans)
- AI Auto-Reply with configurable persona and per-domain knowledge base, prompt-injection guard, and reply-from-your-domain (Pro and Studio plans; credit-capped per plan)
- Bring-your-own OpenAI-compatible AI endpoint (Studio plan)
- Relay logging, live logs, and analytics dashboard
- Email health scoring API and related lookup tools (public, no account required)
- DNS monitoring with automated alerts (Pro and Studio plans)
- Webhook notifications for email events (Studio plan)
- REST API with API keys for programmatic access
- MCP (Model Context Protocol) server for AI agent integration
- Third-party integrations (GitHub Action, WordPress plugin)
2. Account registration
- You must provide a valid email address to create an account
- You are responsible for maintaining the security of your account credentials
- You must be at least 16 years old, or the lower age of digital consent permitted under your country's law (which can be as low as 13 in the United States and in some EEA member states), to use the Service
- One person or entity per account — sharing account credentials is not permitted
3. Acceptable use
You agree not to use arc-relay to:
- Send spam or unsolicited bulk email — the Service is for forwarding legitimate inbound mail, not outbound mass mailing
- Forward phishing, malware, or fraudulent messages
- Impersonate other individuals or organizations
- Relay email in violation of applicable laws including CAN-SPAM, GDPR, or any local anti-spam regulations
- Circumvent rate limits or plan restrictions through technical means
- Abuse the relay for email bombing or denial-of-service attacks
- Forward content that is illegal in the United States or the recipient's jurisdiction
We reserve the right to suspend or terminate accounts that violate these terms without notice.
4. Plans and billing
arc-relay is sold as three tiers — Solo (free), Pro, and Studio. Custom plans for higher volume are available on request from [email protected]. The full feature comparison and current pricing live at /pricing.html; that page is authoritative for limits and prices.
Solo plan (free)
- 1 domain, 5 aliases, 500 forwards per month
- 100 API requests per month
- 10 AI Auto-Reply credits per month
- 7-day log retention
- No credit card required
- May be subject to reduced priority during high load
Paid plans (Pro and Studio)
- Billed monthly via Stripe
- You may cancel at any time through the Settings page or Stripe billing portal
- Cancellations take effect at the end of the current billing period
- No refunds for partial months — you retain access until the end of your paid period (subject to the EU/UK/Swiss right of withdrawal below)
- If payment fails, your account is marked "past due" and may be downgraded to the Solo plan after reasonable notice
Add-ons and overages
- Extra AI Auto-Reply credits — $29 per 1,000 credits, stacked on top of your plan. Credits do not expire.
- Additional custom domains — $2 per domain per month above your plan's domain limit, billed monthly
- Dedicated outbound IP — $25 per month, for higher-volume senders who need their own sender reputation
Add-ons are billed on the same monthly cycle as your subscription. You may remove an add-on at any time, effective at the end of the current billing period.
EU/UK/Swiss consumer right of withdrawal
If you are a consumer resident in the European Union, the United Kingdom, or Switzerland, you have a 14-day right of withdrawal from the date your paid subscription begins. You may cancel within 14 days for a full refund by emailing [email protected] from the email address on your account. Once you actively use the Service to relay mail or generate AI replies, you are deemed to have requested immediate performance and your right of withdrawal lapses to the extent the Service has already been performed.
Plan limits
Each plan has defined limits on domains, monthly forwards, aliases per domain, API requests, and feature access. Exceeding forwarding or API limits will result in temporary rejection until the next billing cycle or a plan upgrade. We will not silently drop or delete email — senders receive a temporary rejection (451) so their mail server retries.
5. Email processing
- arc-relay processes email in memory only and does not store email content
- We add ARC-Seal headers and rewrite envelope senders (SRS) as part of normal operation
- We log delivery metadata (sender, recipient, status, latency) for your dashboard — never email content
- Relay logs are automatically deleted on a per-plan schedule (between 7 and 365 days) — see the comparison table at /pricing.html and our Privacy Policy
- We do not read, scan, analyze, or index email content. AI Auto-Reply, when you enable it, is a separate optional path documented in our Privacy Policy.
6. Domain ownership
- You must own or have authorization to configure DNS for any domain you add to arc-relay
- Domain verification (MX + TXT records) is required before forwarding is activated
- We reserve the right to remove domains if ownership cannot be verified or if the domain is used for abuse
7. API keys
- API keys grant programmatic access to your account and should be treated as credentials
- You are responsible for keeping your API keys secure — do not commit them to public repositories or share them in plaintext
- You may create up to 5 API keys per account and revoke them at any time from Settings
- API usage is subject to monthly quotas based on your plan. Exceeding your quota results in HTTP 429 responses until the next billing cycle
- We reserve the right to revoke API keys used in violation of these Terms or for abusive behavior
8. Webhooks
- Webhook notifications are available on the Studio plan
- You may configure up to 5 webhook endpoints per account from Settings
- You are responsible for the security and availability of your webhook endpoints
- Webhook payloads are signed with HMAC-SHA256 (header
X-ArcRelay-Signature) — you should verify signatures before processing events
- Webhook delivery is best-effort and fire-and-forget; we do not guarantee delivery and do not retry failed deliveries
- We are not liable for actions taken by your systems in response to webhook events
9. Public API and tools
The Email Health Score API and related tools (DMARC checker, SPF validator, header analyzer) are publicly available without an account. Use of these public endpoints is subject to rate limiting. Automated bulk querying without an API key may result in temporary IP-level blocking.
10. Service availability
- We strive for high availability but do not guarantee 100% uptime
- Email delivery depends on factors outside our control (recipient server policies, DNS propagation, network conditions)
- We will make reasonable efforts to notify users of planned maintenance
- The Service is provided on an "as is" and "as available" basis
11. Limitation of liability
To the maximum extent permitted by law:
- arc-relay is not liable for email delivery failures, delays, or misdelivery caused by third-party mail servers, DNS issues, or factors outside our control
- arc-relay is not liable for any indirect, incidental, special, consequential, or punitive damages arising from your use of the Service
- Our total liability for any claim related to the Service is limited to the amount you paid us in the 12 months preceding the claim
12. Account termination
- By you: You may delete your account at any time from the Settings page. This permanently removes all data.
- By us: We may suspend or terminate accounts that violate these Terms, engage in abuse, or fail to pay after reasonable notice. We will attempt to provide notice before termination when possible.
13. Intellectual property
The arc-relay name, logo, and website content are our property. You retain full ownership of your email content and domain configurations. We claim no rights over email that passes through the relay.
14. Data Processing Agreement (B2B)
If you use arc-relay to process personal data on behalf of your own customers, employees, or end users (for example, an organization forwarding employee mail), you act as the data controller and arc-relay acts as your data processor under GDPR Art. 28 and the UK GDPR.
Our standard Data Processing Agreement (DPA), which incorporates the EU Standard Contractual Clauses for international transfers and the UK Addendum, is incorporated into these Terms by reference. A signed counterpart is available on request from [email protected]. The current list of sub-processors is published in our Privacy Policy, Section 6.
15. Indemnification
You agree to indemnify and hold arc-relay harmless from any claims, damages, or expenses arising from your use of the Service, your violation of these Terms, or your violation of any third-party rights.
16. Governing law
These Terms are governed by the laws of the State of Washington, United States. Any disputes will be resolved in the courts of Clark County, Washington. Nothing in this section deprives consumers in the European Union, the United Kingdom, or Switzerland of mandatory consumer-protection rights they enjoy under the law of their country of habitual residence; such consumers may also bring proceedings before the courts of their country of residence.
17. Changes to these terms
We may update these Terms from time to time. Material changes will be communicated by updating the "Last updated" date at the top of this page, and for substantive changes affecting your rights or obligations, by email to the address on your account at least 30 days before the change takes effect. Continued use of the Service after the effective date constitutes acceptance.
18. Contact
For questions about these Terms, contact Hoopes Group LLC at [email protected] or by post at [POSTAL_ADDRESS].