Terms of service

Switchback is currently run by its founder as an individual in South Carolina. When the company that will operate it is formed, these documents will be updated to name it, and account holders will be told.

In these terms, “Switchback”, “we” and “us” mean whoever that sentence names, and “you” means the person using the service.

A tool for planning a household or organisation budget around paydays, tracking bills and debts, reconciling imported bank statements, and storing account logins in an encrypted vault.

It is not a bank and not a money transmitter. It holds no money, moves no money, and connects to no financial institution. Everything in it is a record you entered or a file you imported.

Payoff dates, interest projections, category totals and “what’s left over” figures are arithmetic performed on numbers you supplied. They are not financial, tax, accounting or legal advice, and they do not account for your full circumstances.

Check anything important against your actual statements before acting on it, and talk to a qualified professional before making a significant financial decision. A projection is a projection.

You are responsible for keeping your password secure and for what happens under your account. Tell us promptly if you think someone else has access. Give accurate information when signing up — in particular, an email address you can actually receive mail at, since that is how account recovery works.

You must be at least 13 to have an account. If you are under the age of majority where you live, you may use Switchback only with the permission of a parent or guardian, who agrees to these terms on your behalf and is responsible for any purchase.

A budget belongs to a household, and a household can have several members. Whoever invites someone decides what they can see and change. Anything you enter into a shared household is visible to its other members at the level they were given, and stays with the household if you leave it — it is their budget too.

Only invite people you intend to share that information with, and only enter information about other people that you have a right to share with the household.

Vault entries are encrypted on your device under a passphrase that is never transmitted or stored. No one — not Switchback, not support, not a backup — can decrypt them or reset that passphrase.

If it is forgotten, those entries are permanently unreadable. You accept that risk by using the vault, and you are responsible for recording the passphrase somewhere safe. This is the direct cost of the server being unable to read your passwords, and it is not a defect.

Switchback can be used without paying: one household with paychecks, bills, the past-due list and the overview is free. Switchback Plus is a paid subscription that adds the ledger (register, statement import, reconciliation and receipt scanning), funds, debt payoff and the vault. It is offered inside the iPhone app at $2.99 a month or $24.99 a year in the United States, with a 14-day free trial for new subscribers. What the subscription includes, its price (which may differ by country) and its billing period are shown on the purchase screen before you confirm.

• Who bills you. Subscriptions bought in the app are sold and billed by Apple (App Store) or Google (Google Play), and payment is charged to that store account when you confirm the purchase. We never see your card details.
• Automatic renewal. A subscription renews automatically at the end of each billing period, at the then-current price, unless you turn off auto-renew at least 24 hours before the period ends. Your store account is charged for the renewal within the 24 hours before the period ends.
• Cancelling. Manage or cancel in your App Store or Google Play account settings. Cancelling stops the next renewal; you keep the paid features until the end of the period already paid for.
• Free trials. If a trial is offered, any unused part of it ends when you buy a subscription. If you don’t cancel before the trial ends, the subscription begins and you are charged.
• Refunds. Refunds for store purchases are decided by Apple or Google under their own policies, and are requested from them — we are not able to issue them ourselves.
• Price changes. If the price of your subscription changes, you will be told in advance as the store requires, and in some cases asked to agree before you are charged the new price.
• Deleting your account does not cancel a subscription. The store keeps billing until you cancel it there.

A subscription applies to the household you buy it for: everyone in that household gets Plus, in the app and when they sign in on the web.

You agree not to use Switchback to:

• break the law, or help anyone else do so;
• store credentials or financial records you have no right to — someone else’s bank login is not yours to keep because you can type it in;
• attack, overload, probe or reverse-engineer the service, or try to reach data belonging to another household;
• resell or rebrand the service as your own;
• upload malware, or anything designed to damage another user.

Accounts used this way may be suspended or removed, with notice where it is safe and practical to give it.

You keep all rights to everything you put into Switchback. Switchback claims no ownership of your budget, and uses your data only to operate the service for you, as described in the privacy policy. You give us only the permission needed to store, process and display it back to you and the members of your household.

You can ask for an export at any time, and delete your account yourself from Settings. Neither costs anything.

The Switchback apps and website, including their code, design and name, belong to Switchback. We give you a personal, non-exclusive, non-transferable, revocable licence to use them for your own household or organisation budgeting, under these terms. If you downloaded an app from the App Store or Google Play, that store’s own usage rules apply too.

Switchback is actively being built and is offered with no uptime guarantee. Features may change or be removed. There may be bugs. Data may occasionally be unavailable while something is being fixed.

If the service is ever going to shut down, everyone with an account gets at least 30 days’ notice by email and a way to export their data first, and auto-renewing subscriptions will be stopped. Keeping your own copy of anything you cannot afford to lose is, as always, wise.

The service is provided “as is” and “as available”, without warranties of any kind, express or implied, including merchantability, fitness for a particular purpose, and non-infringement. Switchback does not warrant that the service will be uninterrupted, error-free, or that any calculation will be accurate for your circumstances.

To the fullest extent the law allows, Switchback is not liable for indirect, incidental, special, consequential or punitive damages, or for lost profits, lost data, late fees, or missed payments, arising from your use of or inability to use the service.

Switchback’s total liability for any claim relating to the service is limited to the greater of the amount you paid for Switchback in the twelve months before the claim arose, or one hundred US dollars ($100).

Some jurisdictions do not allow certain exclusions, so parts of this section may not apply to you. Nothing here limits liability for fraud, or for anything that cannot lawfully be limited.

Before bringing any formal claim, email support@everydaycompasslife.com and give us 30 days to try to put it right. Most problems are fixed faster than a letter can be drafted. Either of us may still take a claim to small-claims court.

You may stop using Switchback whenever you like, and delete your account from Settings → Delete account (or at switchbackmoney.com/delete-account). Switchback may suspend or end an account that breaches these terms, or discontinue the service on the notice described above.

The sections on the vault, no warranty, limitation of liability and governing law continue to apply after an account ends.

If these terms change materially, the date at the top changes and anyone with an account is emailed before the change takes effect. Continuing to use the service after that means accepting the new terms.

These terms are governed by the laws of the State of South Carolina, United States, without regard to conflict of law rules, and any dispute will be heard in the state or federal courts located there. If you are a consumer elsewhere, this does not remove protections you have under the mandatory law of your own country.

These points apply in addition to everything above, and win if anything conflicts:

• These terms are between you and Switchback only, not Apple. Switchback, not Apple, is solely responsible for the app and its content.
• Your licence to the app is limited to using it on Apple-branded devices you own or control, as permitted by the Usage Rules in the Apple Media Services Terms and Conditions, including through Family Sharing where applicable.
• Switchback alone is responsible for maintenance and support. Apple has no obligation to provide either.
• If the app fails to conform to any warranty that applies by law, you may notify Apple, and Apple will refund the purchase price of the app (if any). To the maximum extent the law permits, Apple has no other warranty obligation for the app, and any other claims, losses or costs from a failure to conform to a warranty are Switchback’s responsibility, subject to these terms.
• Switchback, not Apple, is responsible for addressing any claims relating to the app or your use of it, including product liability claims, claims that it fails to meet a legal or regulatory requirement, and consumer protection, privacy or similar claims.
• If anyone claims that the app or your use of it infringes their intellectual property, Switchback, not Apple, is responsible for investigating, defending, settling and discharging that claim.
• You confirm that you are not located in a country subject to a U.S. Government embargo or designated as a “terrorist supporting” country, and are not listed on any U.S. Government list of prohibited or restricted parties.
• You must also comply with any third-party terms that apply when using the app, such as your wireless data agreement.
• Apple and its subsidiaries are third-party beneficiaries of these terms, and once you accept them Apple has the right to enforce them against you.

Questions, complaints, or anything that reads wrong on this page: support@everydaycompasslife.com.