Terms of Service

1. The Basics

These terms are an agreement between you and Hobby Card Index ("HCI", "we") covering your use of hobbycardindex.com and its apps and APIs. By creating an account or using the service, you agree to them. If you don't agree, don't use the service.

2. Who Can Use HCI

You must be at least 13 years old to use Hobby Card Index. If you're under the age where you can legally agree to these terms where you live, a parent or guardian must agree for you.

3. Your Account

• Give us accurate information when you sign up, and keep it current.
• Keep your password and login credentials to yourself. You're responsible for activity that happens under your account.
• One person per account. Team seats on Dealer and Enterprise plans get their own logins.
• Tell us right away at support@hobbycardindex.com if you think your account has been compromised.

4. Acceptable Use

Don't abuse the service. Specifically, you agree not to:

• Scrape, crawl, or bulk-extract data from the site or APIs, or use automated tools to do what the app does manually
• Resell, republish, or redistribute pricing data or other content from the service, or show it to your customers or the public, unless you hold a Commercial Data License (see section 8)
• Circumvent rate limits, scan limits, subscription tiers, or other technical controls
• Probe, attack, or attempt to gain unauthorized access to the service or other users' accounts
• Upload anything illegal, infringing, or malicious
• Use the service to break any law, or to violate the terms of connected services (for example, eBay's policies when you list through our dealer tools)

We can suspend or terminate accounts that violate these rules. Where practical we'll warn you first, but serious abuse can mean immediate suspension.

5. Subscriptions & Billing

• HCI has a free tier and paid tiers (Pro, Dealer, Enterprise), billed monthly or annually.
• Payments are processed by Stripe. We never see or store your card number.
• Paid plans renew automatically at the end of each billing period until you cancel.
• You can cancel anytime from your account's billing settings.
• Monthly plans: cancelling ends your plan at the end of the current month. You keep access until then. Monthly payments are not refunded.
• Annual plans: cancelling issues an automatic prorated refund. You are charged the standard monthly rate for each month, or partial month, you have used, and the remainder is refunded automatically to your original payment method. Your access continues through the end of that final paid month. Refunds typically arrive within 5 to 10 business days, and applicable taxes are adjusted in proportion.
• If we change prices, the new price applies from your next renewal, and we'll tell you before it does.
• Feature limits (like monthly scan counts) vary by tier and are shown on the pricing page.

6. Pricing Data Is Informational — Not Financial Advice

7. Your Content and Our Content

Yours: You own the content you put into HCI — your collection data, card photos and scans, dealer inventory, notes. You give us permission to store, process, and display that content as needed to run the service for you (for example, sending a card photo to our identification provider, or backing up your collection). That permission ends when the content is deleted.

Ours: The HCI software, design, branding, and the databases and analytics we've built belong to Hobby Card Index. These terms don't give you any right to copy, resell, or build competing products from them.

Our data: the prices, sold sales, market data, card records, card identifications and bulk price files the service provides ("HCI Data") are licensed to you, not sold. Section 8 covers what that license lets you do.

8. Using Our Data: Your License and Commercial Use

What every plan includes. While your account is in good standing, we give you a limited, non-exclusive, non-transferable, revocable license to use HCI Data for your own purposes: tracking and valuing your own collection, pricing your own inventory, your own buying and selling decisions, and internal reports and tools used only by you or your team. This applies to data you see in the app and to data you get through exports, the API, or bulk downloads on the Enterprise plan. Setting your own price on a card using HCI Data counts as your own use.

What needs a Commercial Data License. You need our written Commercial Data License before you:

• Show HCI Data to your customers or the public, for example on a website, app, marketplace, widget, stream overlay, point-of-sale screen, printed price list or price guide
• Resell, sublicense, rent, or redistribute HCI Data, including API responses and bulk price files
• Use HCI Data to build or train a price guide, database, or AI model that you sell or make available to others
• Include HCI Data in a product or service you charge for
• Share your API key, exports, or bulk files with another person or company

An Enterprise plan on its own gives you internal-use rights only. It does not include commercial rights unless we have signed a Commercial Data License with you. Individual sold-sale records through the API (each sale's price, date, grade and listing title) are available only under a Commercial Data License.

How to apply. Email sean@hobbycardindex.com with the subject "Commercial Data License". Tell us who you are, what you want to show or build, and your expected volume. Commercial licenses are separate written agreements, priced by use and volume. They usually require a visible credit to Hobby Card Index with a link back to the card on our site.

When your plan or license ends. Stop using HCI Data you got through exports, the API or bulk downloads, and delete any stored copies (including cached API responses and bulk files) within 30 days. Your own collection data, notes and photos are yours to keep.

Enforcement. We monitor API and export usage. If HCI Data is used outside these terms, we may suspend API keys or accounts without a refund and seek any other remedy the law allows.

9. Third-Party Services

Parts of HCI rely on third parties — Stripe for payments, eBay for live listing data and dealer listing tools, Google for card identification. Your use of those services through HCI is also subject to their own terms. We aren't responsible for third-party services being available or accurate.

10. Service Availability & Changes

We work to keep HCI fast and available, but the service is provided "as is" — we don't promise it will be uninterrupted or error-free. We may add, change, or remove features over time. If we ever discontinue the service, we'll give you reasonable notice so you can export your data.

11. Limits on Our Liability

To the fullest extent the law allows: we are not liable for indirect or consequential damages (like lost profits or lost data), and our total liability for any claim related to the service is capped at the amount you paid us in the 12 months before the claim — or $50 if you're on the free tier. Some places don't allow these limits, in which case they apply only as far as local law permits.

12. Ending Things

You can stop using HCI and delete your account at any time — see Data Deletion for how. We can suspend or terminate your account if you violate these terms. If we terminate without cause, we'll refund the unused portion of any prepaid period.

13. Governing Law

These terms are governed by the laws of the United States. Any disputes will be handled in U.S. courts.

14. Changes to These Terms

If we change these terms, we'll post the updated version on this page and update the effective date at the top. For significant changes, we'll make the update visible in the app or by email. Continuing to use HCI after a change means you accept the new terms.

15. Contact

Questions about these terms: support@hobbycardindex.com