Acceptance
By using Tropesmith — visiting the site, building a Map, buying credits — you agree to these Terms and to our Privacy Policy. If you don't agree, please don't use the service.
You must be at least 18 years old to use Tropesmith.
The service
Tropesmith provides AI-assisted trope research and market intelligence reports ("Maps") for romance authors. Each Map is built from publicly available data sources combined with editorial judgement, and is delivered as a structured document covering trope recommendations, comp titles, archetypes, market gaps, and next actions.
A Map is a research tool — an informed read of the market at the time it's built. It is not a guarantee of commercial success. The decision to write any book, and the prose of that book, remains yours.
Your account
Sign-in is by one-time email link — no passwords. You're responsible for keeping access to your email account secure. Anyone with access to your inbox can sign in to your Tropesmith account.
You may not share your account or your Maps with others. Each Map is licensed to the email account that purchased it.
Pricing & payment
- Per Map — every Map is $15, paid at build via Stripe checkout before the Map generates.
- Volume pricing — buy more than one credit and the price per Map drops automatically (from $15 for a single credit down to $10.50 each at 11+). Prices in US dollars and shown on the Pricing page.
- Credits never expire. Credits remain on your account indefinitely while the service is operating.
- Payment processor — all payments are processed by Stripe. By paying, you also accept Stripe's terms.
- Taxes — prices do not include VAT, sales tax, or equivalent. Where we are required to collect these, they will be added at checkout.
- Currency conversion — your card issuer determines the conversion rate from USD to your local currency. Tropesmith does not control conversion rates or foreign-transaction fees.
Refunds
Maps are digital goods delivered immediately on demand. Because of this, the following refund policy applies:
- Unused credits — refundable in full within 14 days of purchase, provided no Map has been built or delivered.
- Partially used credits — once any Map has been built, the remaining credits are non-refundable. We will help with disputes on a case-by-case basis if a Map fails to deliver due to a technical fault on our end.
- Delivered Maps — non-refundable. By starting a Map build, you expressly request immediate performance and acknowledge that you lose the right of withdrawal under EU consumer law for that delivered digital good.
- Technical failures — if we fail to deliver a paid Map due to a fault on our end, we will re-run the Map at no charge or refund the credit. Email support@tropesmith.com.
Intellectual property
Tropesmith owns: the website, software, brand, methodology, data pipeline, and the underlying corpus and aggregations.
You own: any books, outlines, blurbs, marketing copy, and other creative work you produce — including work informed by a Map you commissioned. Tropesmith makes no claim on your manuscripts or your sales.
Your Map: the structured document we deliver to you is licensed to your account for your own use in planning, writing, and marketing your books. You may quote from it, share it with collaborators, or include findings in pitches and submissions. You may not republish, resell, or systematically distribute Maps as products in their own right, or feed them into a competing trope-research service.
Tropesmith name, logo, and "Map" branding are trademarks of Tropesmith. Don't use them in a way that suggests endorsement or partnership without permission.
AI & accuracy
Maps are generated with help from AI models and large datasets. We work hard to make every Map accurate, useful, and fair, but:
- Market data shifts. A trope hot this month may cool by next quarter.
- AI can occasionally misclassify, miscount, or invent. We mitigate this with editorial passes and source-verification, but you should treat individual data points as evidence to weigh, not gospel.
- Comp titles and trope rankings are recommendations based on patterns in the corpus, not promises about your book's reception.
Use Maps the way you'd use any other research tool: as one input into a creative decision that's still yours.
Acceptable use
You agree not to:
- Resell, sublicense, or redistribute Maps as standalone products.
- Scrape, crawl, or otherwise extract content from the site by automated means without our written consent.
- Reverse-engineer the service or attempt to access non-public APIs, accounts, or data.
- Submit briefs that are spam, fraudulent, or designed to test the service for harmful purposes.
- Use Tropesmith for any unlawful purpose, or in any way that infringes others' rights.
- Bypass rate limits, quotas, or paywalls.
Violations may result in termination of your account without refund.
Service availability
We aim to keep Tropesmith running smoothly, but we don't guarantee a specific level of uptime. We may take the service down for maintenance, upgrades, or to respond to security incidents. Where reasonable, we'll give notice in advance. Credits remain valid through any temporary downtime.
We may also change or discontinue features. If we discontinue the service entirely, we'll give you reasonable notice and a way to export your existing Maps.
Limitation of liability
To the maximum extent permitted by law:
- Tropesmith is provided "as is" and "as available", without warranties of any kind, express or implied, including warranties of merchantability, fitness for a particular purpose, and non-infringement.
- We are not liable for indirect, incidental, special, consequential, or punitive damages, including lost profits, lost revenue, lost data, or business interruption — even if we've been advised of the possibility.
- Our total aggregate liability to you for any claim arising out of or relating to the service is limited to the amount you paid us in the 12 months preceding the claim, or USD $100, whichever is greater.
Some jurisdictions don't allow certain limitations. To the extent any limitation in this section is not enforceable, it will be enforced to the maximum extent permitted.
Indemnity
You agree to defend and indemnify Tropesmith against any claim arising out of (a) your use of the service in breach of these Terms, (b) your violation of applicable law, or (c) any book, blurb, marketing, or other work you create or publish — whether or not informed by a Map.
Termination
You may stop using Tropesmith at any time. To delete your account, email support@tropesmith.com.
We may suspend or terminate your account if you breach these Terms, abuse the service, or if continuing to provide it creates a legal or security risk. We will refund unused credits where the termination is at our initiative and not due to your breach.
Governing law
These Terms are governed by the laws of the Republic of South Africa. The courts of South Africa have exclusive jurisdiction over any dispute, except where mandatory consumer-protection law in your country of residence requires otherwise.
Changes to these Terms
We may update these Terms from time to time. The "last updated" date at the top tells you when. Material changes will be announced by email to active users at least 14 days before they take effect. Continued use of the service after that constitutes acceptance.
Contact
Questions about these Terms? Email support@tropesmith.com.
