Legal
Terms of Service
Last updated: July 17, 2026
Welcome to Heritage Studio. These terms are an agreement between you and Heritage Studio (“we,” “us”) covering your use of heritagestudio.us and the services we offer there. By creating an account or using the service, you agree to them. If you have questions, write to us at support@heritagestudio.us — a person reads that inbox.
What Heritage Studio is
Heritage Studio turns your family tree (a GEDCOM file) into print-ready genealogy books, charts, and reports, with a Media Vault for your photos and documents, an AI Photo Studio for restoring old photographs, and an AI Storyteller that drafts narrative family history from your tree's facts and the material you supply. It is a subscription service: an active plan is required to access your projects.
Your account
You're responsible for your account, for keeping your password private, and for the content you upload. You must be at least 16 to use the service. Provide accurate account information so receipts and service emails reach you.
Subscriptions, billing & auto-renew
- Paid plans are billed monthly, in advance, and renew automaticallyunless you turn auto-renew off on the Billing page.
- With auto-renew off, nothing further is charged and your plan stays active through the end of the period you've already paid for. You can turn it back on (or choose a plan again) anytime.
- Upgrades take effect immediately: you're charged the prorated difference for the rest of the billing period and your new credits arrive right away.
- Payments are processed by Stripe. We never see or store your card number.
- Prices may change; we'll notify you before a change affects your renewal.
AI credits
- Each plan includes a monthly allowance of AI credits, spent when you use AI features (Storyteller chapters, photo restorations, indexing, and similar). Monthly credits reset at each renewal— they don't carry over.
- Purchased credit packs are different: they stay in your balance until used. Plan credits are always spent first.
- AI features run only when you explicitly request them, and each request shows or reflects its credit cost. Exports of work you've already generated never re-bill.
Your content — you own it
Your family tree, photos, documents, written material, and finished books are yours. We claim no ownership. You grant us only the limited license needed to operate the service — to store your files, render your books, and run the AI features you request. Your uploaded GEDCOM is never modified; display standards are applied at render time only.
You're responsible for having the right to upload what you upload, including photographs and documents, and for how you share what you make. Family history often involves living people — use good judgment and applicable law when publishing information about them.
AI features — honest by design
The AI Storyteller writes only from your tree's recorded facts and the material you supply; it is instructed never to invent facts. The AI Photo Studio restores — it does not reimagine faces or alter what was photographed. Even so, AI output can contain mistakes: review your chapters and restorations before you print or share them. Drafts are yours to edit, and your edits always win.
Access requires an active plan; your work is kept
When your subscription ends, access to your projects is suspended until you choose a plan again. Your family tree, book settings, and drafts are kept indefinitely— they'll be waiting whenever you return. Media Vault files (photos and documents) are retained for at least 30 days after your subscription ends and may then be permanently deleted. You can download your files at any time while your plan is active.
Acceptable use
Don't use the service to violate the law, infringe others' rights, upload malicious code, attempt to breach or probe our systems, or resell access. We may suspend accounts that do. Professional genealogists are welcome to build client deliverables with their own accounts.
Our service, our limits
We work hard to keep Heritage Studio reliable, but it is provided “as is” without warranties of any kind. To the fullest extent the law allows, we are not liable for indirect, incidental, or consequential damages, and our total liability for any claim is limited to the amount you paid us in the twelve months before the claim arose. Nothing in these terms limits liability that cannot be limited by law. Keep your own copies of irreplaceable originals — Heritage Studio is a workshop for your family history, not your only archive.
Ending your account
You can stop anytime: turn off auto-renew on the Billing page and your plan simply runs out — no further charges, and your work is kept as described above. If you want your data gone too, delete your projects in the app (deleting a project permanently removes its tree, books, drafts, and Media Vault — the app warns you loudly and offers a backup download first, and there is no undo), or email support@heritagestudio.us and we'll erase your account entirely.
Changes
We may update these terms as the product grows. For material changes we'll notify you by email or in the app before they take effect. Continuing to use the service after that means you accept the updated terms.
Governing law
These terms are governed by the laws of the State of New Jersey, USA, without regard to conflict-of-law rules.
Contact
Questions about these terms: support@heritagestudio.us. Billing questions: billing@heritagestudio.us.