Terms of Use

Whist — the iOS app and the whistapp.com website — is made by Buildable Labs Studio and offered by Power Umbrella S.R.L., Romania (“we”). By creating an account or using the app, you’re agreeing to these terms. If you don’t agree, don’t use Whist — no hard feelings.

Whist is a private messenger built around circles: one person subscribes and owns a circle, then invites others, who join free with an invite code. Invite codes expire after 7 days and the owner can rotate or revoke them at any time.

Whist is in beta. Things will occasionally break, change, or be removed while we build. We’ll be straight with you about what works and what doesn’t — the same honesty standard as our privacy policy.

You must be at least 16 to use Whist. If you’re under 18, make sure a parent or guardian is fine with you using it — the subscription is a real payment through Apple.

A Whist account is a set of cryptographic keys generated on and held by your device — there is no password reset and, today, no cloud backup of your account. If you delete the app’s data, log out, or lose your device, your account and message history on that device are gone. Permanently. The app warns you about this at every step that could trigger it; please take those warnings seriously.

You’re responsible for keeping your device secure. Anyone with your unlocked device is, as far as Whist can tell, you.

Circle plans (Duo, Circle, Team) are auto-renewing subscriptions purchased through Apple’s App Store, billed monthly or yearly to your Apple account. Cancel anytime in your App Store subscription settings; cancellation takes effect at the end of the current billing period. Refunds are handled by Apple under Apple’s terms — we can’t issue them ourselves.

If a subscription lapses, the owner’s circle stops accepting new members and paid features switch off, but nothing on anyone’s device is deleted by us. Prices may change; existing subscribers get notice before any change affects them, and EU withdrawal rights apply as provided by law.

Whist is distributed exclusively through Apple’s App Store, and we follow Apple’s Developer Program License Agreement and App Review Guidelines. Your licence to use the app is the minimum set out in Apple’s standard Licensed Application End User License Agreement, supplemented by these terms where they give you more.

These terms are between you and us — not Apple. Apple has no obligation to provide maintenance or support for Whist, isn’t responsible for the app or its content, and isn’t a party to these terms — but Apple and its subsidiaries are third-party beneficiaries of them and may enforce them against you. In case of any claim that the app infringes third-party intellectual property rights, we — not Apple — are responsible for handling it. You confirm you’re not in a country under a U.S. Government embargo and not on any U.S. Government restricted-parties list.

Don’t use Whist to break the law, to harass, threaten, or defraud people, to distribute malware, or to send spam. Child sexual abuse material is reported and results in immediate termination — zero tolerance, no exceptions.

Don’t attack the service either: no probing, overloading, or disrupting our infrastructure, and no attempts to break other people’s encryption. Good-faith security research is welcome — email [email protected] first and we’ll work with you.

Your messages are yours. We claim no ownership of anything you send, and — by design — we couldn’t read it to want it. You grant us only the technical right to store and transmit your encrypted data so the service can function, which is revoked when it’s delivered or deleted.

Whist is provided “as is” while in beta. To the extent the law allows, we don’t promise uninterrupted service, and we’re not liable for indirect damages or lost data — which is also why the app is built so the worst-case loss is bounded. Nothing in these terms limits liability that can’t legally be limited (including under EU and Romanian consumer law), and nothing here reduces your statutory consumer rights.

You can stop anytime: delete your account in Settings (that’s a real deletion — see the privacy policy) and cancel the subscription with Apple. We can suspend or terminate accounts that violate these terms, with notice and a reason unless the violation makes that impossible.

These terms are governed by Romanian law, without limiting protections you have as an EU consumer in your country of residence. Disputes go to the competent courts of Romania or your home country as consumer law provides. The EU online dispute resolution platform is at ec.europa.eu/consumers/odr.

If these terms change in a way that matters, you’ll see notice in the app or by email before the change applies, with enough time to walk away if you disagree. The current version always lives at this page.

Questions? [email protected].