The short, plain-English version.

1. Service.

EpochPay is a developer payment rail operated by EpochCore LLC, a North Carolina limited-liability company (Delaware formation file 10448019, EIN 41-3234164). We provide an HTTP-to-HTTP API that lets you issue PQC-signed payment intents, route them through five settlement backends (ACH, Wire, QSWT on Base L2, Lightning), and seal each intent and receipt into a publicly-verifiable WORM chain.

FinCEN MSB registration and state money-transmitter licensure are in progress; see /trust/regulatory for the live filing matrix. Until those filings post, merchant-of-record obligations for money transmission remain with each merchant. EpochPay provides the developer rail; the merchant is responsible for the regulatory posture of payments it originates.

2. Eligibility.

• You must be 18 or older and authorized to bind the entity on whose behalf you sign up.
• Your entity must not be OFAC-sanctioned, on a US comprehensive-sanctions program list, or organized in a jurisdiction we don't service. OFAC screen runs automatically on merchant enroll (/v1/merchants/enroll).
• If your use case requires HIPAA-covered processing, talk to us before integration — EpochPay is not designed to receive PHI by default.

3. API keys & security.

• You choose your API key at enrollment. We store only its SHA-256 hash and cannot recover it for you. Lose it, regenerate.
• You are responsible for keeping the key secret. Activity originated under your key is attributable to you.
• Suspected key compromise: rotate immediately and email security@epochpay.today. We can mark the old key revoked in the chain on request.
• OFAC-flagged merchants cannot initiate payments. Rate limits apply per merchant (default tier: 60 req/min on /v1/intents).

4. Subscriptions, billing & overage.

• The 26 SKUs at /pricing are billed monthly via Stripe (USD) or directly in QSWT (φ-inverse rate, 20% discount). Cancel any month via written notice to billing@epochpay.today.
• 60-day pilot at no cost on starter tiers; no credit card required during the pilot window.
• Per-transaction rail fees are charged per intent at the rate published on the home page (ACH ~$0.25, Wire $25, QSWT 50 bps, Base L2 20 bps + $0.05, Lightning 10 bps). Rates change with 30 days notice via changelog.
• Overage on metered SKUs (QuantumCert, QFS-Alpha signals, BTCPQC requests) bills at the per-unit rate stated on the SKU, charged to the payment method on file.

5. Your data & intent payloads.

You retain ownership of intent and receipt payloads. EpochPay receives a license to process, seal, route, and verify them solely to operate the service. See /privacy for collection details, /dpa for the data processing addendum, and /trust/regulatory for the sub-processor list.

6. Acceptable use.

The acceptable-use policy at /aup is incorporated into these terms. Material violations (money laundering, sanctions evasion, financing of crime, attempting to compromise the rail) may result in immediate suspension; any payment held will be returned to the originating account where lawful and where the destination is not OFAC-flagged.

7. Warranty & liability.

• EpochPay is provided as-is. We represent that the cryptographic and operational claims at /trust and /security are accurate as of their last-updated date. No warranty beyond that.
• Errors-and-omissions insurance: $1,000,000 per claim. Our aggregate liability for any claim is capped at the fees paid by you in the 12 months preceding the claim.
• Neither party is liable for indirect, incidental, special, consequential, or exemplary damages.
• Nothing in these terms limits liability for fraud, gross negligence, or willful misconduct.

8. Termination.

Either party may terminate with 30 days written notice. On termination:

• Your sealed intents and receipts remain independently verifiable on the WORM chain (and on Base L2 for chain-anchored entries) forever — these don't depend on us being online.
• We provide a complete data export for 30 days at no extra cost.
• After 30 days the hot-storage mirror of your records is removed (chain anchors persist).
• We may suspend or terminate immediately for OFAC flagging, sanctions designation, fraud, or material AUP violation.

9. Changes.

We may revise these terms. Material changes are announced via email to the address on your subscription, on the public changelog (forthcoming), and sealed into the WORM chain so the change is provable. Continued use after the effective date constitutes acceptance.

10. Governing law.

These terms are governed by the laws of the State of North Carolina, USA. Disputes will be resolved in the state or federal courts located in Mecklenburg County, NC.

11. Contact.

Billing: billing@epochpay.today · Legal: legal@epochpay.today · Security: security@epochpay.today · Postal: EpochCore LLC, Huntersville NC USA.