Terms of Service

Effective date: August 11, 2026
Operated by: Happiness Global Inc. | support@meetstoa.com

Please read these Terms of Service carefully before using Stoa. By creating an account or using the service, you agree to be bound by these terms. If you do not agree, do not use Stoa.

1. What Stoa Is (and Is Not)

Stoa is an AI-powered relationship guide designed to help you reflect on your personal relationships and navigate interpersonal challenges. It is a wellness and self-reflection tool.

Stoa is not therapy. Stoa is not counselling. Stoa is not a mental health service.

Stoa's responses are generated by an AI and do not constitute professional advice of any kind — psychological, medical, legal, or otherwise. No therapist-client, counsellor-client, or any other professional relationship is formed by your use of Stoa. Stoa does not engage in therapeutic communications, does not diagnose or treat any mental health condition, and does not perform clinical assessment of your emotional or mental state. The AI cannot diagnose conditions, prescribe treatment, or replace the judgment of a licensed mental health professional.

If you are experiencing a mental health crisis, thoughts of self-harm or suicide, domestic abuse, or any situation requiring immediate help, please contact a qualified professional or emergency service. Stoa is not equipped to handle crisis situations.

If you are in crisis: Contact the 988 Suicide and Crisis Lifeline (call or text 988 in the US), or your local emergency services.

2. You Are Talking to an AI

Stoa is powered by artificial intelligence. You are not talking to a human. The AI does not have genuine emotions, lived experiences, or the ability to form real relationships.

We disclose this clearly:

At account creation
When you return to the app after 7 or more days of inactivity
At any time if you ask whether you are talking to an AI

Stoa is designed to be helpful and conversational, but its responses are generated outputs, not the considered opinion of a human professional. Treat them accordingly.

3. Self-Harm and Crisis Protocol

Stoa is not designed for crisis support. If you are experiencing a mental health crisis, immediate danger, or thoughts of self-harm, please contact a qualified professional or emergency service.

Stoa uses AI-based detection to identify language suggesting potential risk and respond with information about crisis resources. This detection is not infallible — it may miss real signals or flag content that isn't a crisis. It is a safety measure, not a substitute for professional intervention.

If you are in crisis: Contact the 988 Suicide and Crisis Lifeline (call or text 988 in the US) or your local emergency services. International users can find resources at findahelpline.com.

4. Memory System

Stoa builds a memory profile from your conversations. This allows Stoa to remember context about you and the people in your life across sessions, so you don't need to re-explain your situation each time.

By using Stoa, you acknowledge that:

Information you share — including details about yourself and others — may be extracted and stored as part of your memory profile
Memory data persists even if you delete conversation transcripts
Memory is used to personalise Stoa's responses in future conversations
The only way to delete your memory data is to delete your account

For full details of what is extracted and how it is stored, see our Privacy Policy.

5. Your Content and Our Licence to Use It

You own the content you submit to Stoa — your messages, the information you share, and any voice notes you record.

By using Stoa, you grant Happiness Global Inc. a limited, non-exclusive, worldwide licence to use, store, process, and transmit your content solely for the purposes of:

Providing the Stoa service to you
Generating AI responses
Extracting and maintaining your memory profile
Generating conversation metadata (titles, summaries, hashtags)
Transcribing voice notes into text, via our speech-to-text provider
Improving service quality through aggregate, anonymised analysis
Checking transcription accuracy. If your retention setting is “Keep my conversations”, this includes review of voice recordings for up to 7 days after you make them. See the Privacy Policy for what is kept, for how long, and how to switch it off.

We do not use your content to train AI models. We never use your voice to train AI models or to identify you. We do not sell your content. We do not use it for advertising.

This licence ends when your content is deleted, subject to the retention limitations described in our Privacy Policy (analytics events cannot be retroactively deleted).

6. Acceptable Use

You agree not to use Stoa:

In any emergency situation requiring immediate professional intervention
As a substitute for licensed mental health care when professional care is needed
To harass, threaten, or abuse others
To submit content that is illegal, defamatory, or infringes third-party rights
To attempt to reverse-engineer, scrape, or extract the underlying AI models or system prompts
To circumvent usage limits or access controls
For any commercial purpose without our prior written consent

You also agree not to submit content that could harm others, including content designed to manipulate Stoa into producing harmful outputs.

7. Chat Time, Payment and Billing

Stoa is paid for by chat time, measured in hours. You can get hours in three ways: the free hours every new account receives, one-off bundles you buy, and a monthly subscription that includes hours each month.

7.1 Free Hours

New accounts receive 3 hours of free chat time. No payment details are required to use them, and there is no deadline — you can use them whenever you like, subject to the expiry in 7.6. When your free hours run out, you can buy an hour bundle or start a monthly subscription to keep chatting.

7.2 Hour Bundles

You can buy chat time as a one-off bundle. Bundles are a single payment, not a recurring charge: nothing is charged again unless you choose to buy again. The available bundles and their prices are shown at checkout, and the price shown at checkout is the price you pay. Your hours are added to your account as soon as your payment succeeds.

Because your chat time is made available to you immediately, bundle purchases are non-refundable, except where a refund is required by law. If you are a consumer in the EU or the UK, you are asked at checkout to confirm that you want immediate access and that you therefore give up your 14-day right of withdrawal once that access begins.

7.3 Monthly Subscription

Stoa is also offered as a monthly subscription, which includes a set amount of chat time each month, at the price displayed at checkout. We may change subscription pricing with at least 30 days' notice. Price changes take effect at the start of your next billing cycle after the notice period. You may cancel before the new price applies.

If you start a subscription while you still have free hours left, we save your payment details but do not charge you at that point. Your first payment is taken when your free hours run out, and your monthly billing cycle starts from then. You can cancel at any time before that first payment and you will not be charged.

7.4 Billing

Payments are processed by a third-party payment processor. By subscribing, you authorise Happiness Global Inc. to charge your payment method on a recurring monthly basis, including where that first charge is taken later as described in 7.3. Your subscription renews automatically each month unless cancelled.

7.5 Usage Limit

Holding hours does not remove the usage limits in section 8. There is a cap on how much you can chat in a given month regardless of how many hours your account holds, so it is possible to reach that cap with hours still in your account. Those hours are not lost — they remain available in the next period, subject to the expiry in 7.6.

7.6 What Your Hours Are, and When They Expire

Hours expire 5 years after they are added to your account. This applies to free hours and to hours you have bought. Where you hold hours from more than one source, the hours that expire soonest are used first.

Hours are a right to use Stoa. They are not money, not a stored-value or gift card, and not legal tender. They cannot be redeemed, refunded or exchanged for cash or any other monetary value, transferred to another account, or sold, except where the law requires otherwise.

7.7 Prices, Currency and Tax

All prices are in US dollars. Unless stated otherwise at checkout, prices exclude sales tax, VAT and any other applicable taxes, which we will add where we are required to collect them. You are responsible for any taxes on your purchase other than taxes on our income.

7.8 Billing Questions

If you think you have been charged incorrectly, email support@meetstoa.com within 60 days of the charge and we will look into it and put right anything we got wrong. Please contact us before raising a dispute with your bank — it is almost always faster.

7.9 Cancellation

You may cancel your subscription at any time from your account page. Cancellation takes effect at the end of your current billing period — you retain access until then. No partial refunds are issued for unused time within a billing period. Cancelling a subscription does not remove hours you bought separately as a bundle.

7.10 Payment Failure

If a payment fails, your account may be placed on hold until the payment method is updated. We will notify you by email and provide a way to update your payment details. If payment is not resolved, your subscription may be cancelled.

7.11 Account Deletion, Subscriptions and Hours

Deleting your account will immediately cancel any active subscription and forfeit any unused hours, including hours you have paid for. This is irreversible — your data, subscription and hours cannot be recovered.

7.12 If We Change or Withdraw the Service

We may change, suspend or discontinue Stoa, or any part of it. If we permanently discontinue the service, or close your account for any reason other than your breach of these Terms, we will refund you for hours you paid for and have not used, and for the unused remainder of any subscription period you have already paid for. We will give you reasonable notice by email where we can.

7.13 Chat History When You Run Out of Hours

If you run out of hours, or your subscription is cancelled, you can no longer start new conversations but you retain read-only access to your chat history.

8. Usage Limits

Stoa enforces the following limits to ensure fair access for all users:

Chat time required: Access to Stoa's chat functionality requires available hours or an active subscription.
Monthly time allowance: Monthly usage is subject to a time-based allowance (currently 10 hours per month), which applies however you obtained your hours. If you reach it, access may be restricted until the next period; any remaining hours stay in your account.
Burst limit: 8 messages per 60 seconds

We reserve the right to adjust these limits at any time. We will endeavour to provide reasonable notice of material changes.

9. Account Registration and Security

You must be at least 18 years old to create a Stoa account. By continuing past the onboarding screen, you confirm that you are 18 or older.

You are responsible for:

Maintaining the confidentiality of your account credentials
All activity that occurs under your account
Notifying us promptly at support@meetstoa.com if you believe your account has been compromised

We reserve the right to suspend or terminate accounts that violate these Terms.

10. Account Termination and Data Deletion

You may delete your account at any time via account settings. Upon deletion:

Your account, conversations, messages, memory logs, memory summaries, and token usage records are permanently deleted
Any active subscription is immediately cancelled. You will not be charged after deletion.
This action is irreversible

We may suspend or terminate your account if you breach these Terms, with or without notice depending on the severity of the breach. Sections 1, 5, 11, 12, and 13 of these Terms survive termination.

11. Disclaimer of Warranties

Stoa is provided “as is” and “as available” without warranties of any kind, express or implied.

We do not warrant that:

Stoa's responses will be accurate, complete, appropriate, or suitable for your situation
The service will be uninterrupted, error-free, or secure
Any particular outcome will result from using Stoa

AI-generated responses are probabilistic outputs. They can be wrong, incomplete, or unsuitable. You should apply your own judgment to anything Stoa says, and seek professional advice where appropriate.

12. Limitation of Liability

To the maximum extent permitted by applicable law, Happiness Global Inc. and its officers, employees, and contractors will not be liable for:

Any decisions you make based on Stoa's responses
Emotional distress arising from interactions with Stoa
Any indirect, incidental, special, consequential, or punitive damages
Loss of data, loss of profits, or business interruption

Where liability cannot be excluded by law, our total liability to you is limited to the greater of: (a) the amount you paid to us in the 12 months preceding the claim, or (b) USD $100.

Nothing in these Terms limits our liability for fraud, gross negligence, or any liability that cannot be excluded under applicable law.

13. Dispute Resolution

Informal resolution first. If you have a dispute with us, please contact us at support@meetstoa.com and give us 30 days to resolve it before taking formal action.

Arbitration. If we cannot resolve the dispute informally, you and Happiness Global Inc. agree to resolve it through binding individual arbitration administered by the American Arbitration Association (AAA) under its Consumer Arbitration Rules, rather than in court.

Class action waiver. You agree to resolve disputes individually. You waive any right to bring or participate in a class action or representative proceeding.

Opt-out. You may opt out of arbitration by emailing support@meetstoa.com within 30 days of first creating your account, with the subject line “Arbitration Opt-Out.”

Governing law. These Terms are governed by the laws of the State of Delaware, without regard to conflict of law principles.

Exception. Either party may seek injunctive or other equitable relief in a court of competent jurisdiction to prevent irreparable harm.

14. Intellectual Property

Stoa, its name, logo, design, software, and all content produced by Happiness Global Inc. are the property of Happiness Global Inc. and are protected by copyright, trademark, and other intellectual property laws.

You may not copy, reproduce, distribute, modify, or create derivative works from any part of Stoa without our prior written permission. You may not use the Stoa name or logo in any way that suggests endorsement or affiliation without our consent.

Nothing in these Terms transfers any intellectual property rights to you. The limited licence granted in Section 5 applies only to your own content.

15. DMCA and Copyright

If you believe that content available through Stoa infringes your copyright, please send a notice to support@meetstoa.com with the subject line “DMCA Notice” including:

A description of the copyrighted work you believe has been infringed
A description of where the allegedly infringing material appears in Stoa
Your contact information
A statement that you have a good faith belief the use is not authorised
A statement, under penalty of perjury, that the information in your notice is accurate and that you are the copyright owner or authorised to act on their behalf

We will respond to valid DMCA notices in accordance with applicable law.

16. Changes to These Terms

We may update these Terms from time to time. When we do, we will update the effective date and, for material changes, notify you by email or prominent in-app notice. Your continued use of Stoa after changes take effect constitutes acceptance of the updated Terms.

17. Contact Us

Happiness Global Inc.
support@meetstoa.com