Terms of Service
Please read these terms carefully before using DeductSam. They describe what the service does, what it does not do, and the rules that govern your use.
These Terms of Service ("Terms") are a legal agreement between you and DeductSam LLC ("DeductSam," "we," "us," or "our"). By creating an account or using the Service, you agree to be bound by these Terms and our Privacy Policy.
1. The Service
What DeductSam does
DeductSam is an expense, mileage, and income tracking tool for self-employed individuals, freelancers, independent contractors, rental hosts, and small business owners. It helps you organize records, surface deductions worth discussing with a preparer, and produce a year-end package to hand off. The Service helps you:
- Capture and categorize business expenses
- Upload and match receipts to transactions
- Identify potential tax deductions you may have missed
- Track invoices and income
- Run a set of defined tax-position checks against the data in your own workspace
- Generate Year-End Packets to share with a tax preparer
- Sync bank and credit card transactions (Pro plan)
Strategy checks — what they are and what they are not
Parts of the Service run defined tests against the data in your workspace and report what each test found — for example, whether the figures you entered meet a stated threshold, and what documentation a position of that kind normally requires. These checks are deterministic: the same data produces the same result, and the result describes the test, not you. A check never determines that you qualify for a deduction or credit, and nothing the Service reports is a determination of your eligibility or a filing position. Each check also lists what DeductSam cannot verify. Whether a position is actually available to you, and whether to take it on a return, is a decision for you and your tax preparer.
The Service does not prepare, sign, review, or file tax returns, and does not represent you before any tax authority.
What DeductSam does not do
DeductSam is not a tax filing service. We do not:
- Prepare or file your tax returns
- Provide official tax advice that carries the weight of a licensed professional opinion
- Guarantee that any specific expense qualifies as a deduction under your circumstances
- Represent you in an IRS audit or tax dispute
- Provide legal or accounting services of any kind
Sam's suggestions are educational starting points. The final decision about what to deduct belongs to you and, ideally, to a qualified tax professional who knows your complete financial picture.
2. Accounts and Eligibility
You must be at least 18 years old and a legal resident of the United States to use the Service. By creating an account, you represent that this is true.
You are responsible for maintaining the confidentiality of your login credentials. You are responsible for all activity that occurs under your account. Notify us immediately at admin@deductsam.com if you believe your account has been compromised.
You may not share your account or allow others to access the Service using your credentials except through the team member and accountant access features available on the Pro plan.
3. Subscription Plans and Billing
Plans
DeductSam offers the following subscription plans:
- Free — $0. One personal workspace and one business or rental workspace. Manual expense & income entry, receipt upload, mileage log, payroll tracking, the Year-End Packet, and 10 Sam messages a month. Some AI helpers in the app — for example category suggestions and turning a voice note into an entry — also use those messages; reading a receipt or a tax document, and writing your Year-End Packet's summary, do not.
- Pro — $24.99/month or $250/year. Everything in Free, plus automatic bank sync, Sam with no monthly limit (a fair-use limit of 60 Sam answers a day applies; it resets each day at midnight Hawaii time, UTC−10), Tax Health, Tax Opportunities, Analytics, invoicing, asset & depreciation tracking, unlimited workspaces, and team access.
- Bank history — when you connect a bank on Pro, DeductSam imports up to 90 days of past transactions, or up to two years on an annual plan, whether you bought it on the web or in the iOS app. Your bank may provide less.
- Earlier plans — if you subscribed to a plan we no longer sell (Starter, Core, or the earlier Pro price), you keep what you bought on the terms you bought it until you change or cancel your plan.
Free trial
New accounts start on the Free plan — no payment method required. The 14-day free trial applies to the monthly Pro plan; annual plans begin billing immediately and do not include a trial. The trial is for first-time subscribers. On the web, an account that has ever had a DeductSam subscription — including a trial it cancelled — starts paid, with no trial. In the iOS app, Apple decides trial eligibility for your Apple Account. If you subscribe on the web, a valid payment method is required to start the trial. If you subscribe inside the DeductSam iOS app, Apple collects payment and applies any trial through your Apple Account; the trial offered there is the one Apple shows you at purchase. If you do not cancel before the trial ends, your paid subscription begins automatically. If you cancel during the trial, you keep Pro until the trial ends, are never charged, and then move to the Free plan — your data remains yours.
Billing
Subscriptions are billed in advance on a monthly or annual basis. If you subscribe on the web, billing is processed by Stripe, and by subscribing you authorize DeductSam to charge your payment method on a recurring basis at the applicable price until you cancel. If you subscribe inside the DeductSam iOS app, your subscription is billed by Apple through your Apple Account under Apple’s terms, and DeductSam never receives or charges your payment details.
Annual plans are billed as a single charge at the start of your subscription year. You save compared to monthly billing (approximately 17%).
Price changes
We reserve the right to change subscription prices. For a subscription bought on the web, we will give at least 30 days' notice by email before a new price takes effect, and the new price applies from your next renewal unless you cancel first. For a subscription bought in the iOS app, Apple notifies you of a price change and, where Apple requires it, asks you to agree; if you do not agree, your subscription ends at the end of the current period.
Cancellation
If you subscribed on the web, you may cancel at any time in the DeductSam web app, from Settings › Subscription & billing › Manage subscription · cancel, which opens Stripe's billing portal. If you subscribed inside the DeductSam iOS app, cancel in your Apple Account — Settings › [your name] › Subscriptions › DeductSam › Cancel Subscription, or at apps.apple.com/account/subscriptions. Cancellation takes effect at the end of your current billing period. You will continue to have access to the Service until the end of the period you have already paid for. Apple renews an App Store subscription unless it is cancelled at least 24 hours before the trial or billing period ends.
Deleting your account is different. If you subscribed on the web, deleting your DeductSam account cancels your subscription immediately rather than at the end of the period, and the unused part of the period is not refunded except as described under Refunds below. If you are charged after deleting your account, contact us at admin@deductsam.com and we will refund that charge. Deleting your account does not cancel a subscription you bought inside the iOS app — Apple bills it, so cancel it in your Apple Account or Apple will keep charging you.
On the web, cancellation of an annual plan in the middle of the year does not entitle you to a prorated refund for unused months, unless required by applicable law.
Refunds
Monthly subscriptions bought on the web: we do not offer refunds for partial months. For subscriptions bought in the iOS app, see the App Store paragraph below.
Annual subscriptions purchased on the web: if you cancel within the first 14 days of an annual subscription, you may request a full refund by contacting admin@deductsam.com. After 14 days, annual subscriptions are non-refundable, except where required by applicable law.
Annual subscriptions purchased through the DeductSam iOS app are billed by Apple, and refunds for App Store purchases are issued by Apple, not DeductSam. Request one at reportaproblem.apple.com. We can tell you how to ask, but we cannot issue or guarantee an App Store refund.
We may make exceptions at our discretion for extenuating circumstances. Contact us and we will do our best to find a fair resolution.
4. Getting Paid Through Invoices (Stripe Connect)
The Service lets you connect your own Stripe account so your clients can pay your invoices. This section describes that arrangement. It has nothing to do with your subscription to DeductSam, which is covered in Section 3.
Your account, your relationship with Stripe
Connecting creates a Stripe Standard account in your name. You accept Stripe's own agreement directly with Stripe, and you are the merchant of record for every payment your clients make. DeductSam is not a party to the transaction between you and your client, and does not provide payment processing, money transmission, or escrow services.
DeductSam takes no fee, and never holds your money
DeductSam charges no platform fee on invoice payments. Payments are created as direct charges on your own Stripe account: the money goes into your Stripe balance and is paid out to you by Stripe on your schedule. It never enters a DeductSam account or balance, not even briefly. Stripe's own processing fees are charged to you by Stripe under your agreement with them.
Disputes, chargebacks, refunds, and failed payments
Because you are the merchant of record, chargebacks, disputes, refunds, and failed payments are between you, your client, and Stripe. They are governed by your Stripe agreement, and any amounts charged back or refunded come out of your Stripe balance. DeductSam cannot intervene in or resolve them. Stripe notifies you directly. DeductSam is not notified of disputes or chargebacks.
An invoice marked paid does not correct itself
When a client pays through a payment link, the Service marks that invoice paid. When Stripe notifies us that such a payment was refunded, the Service records the refund and reduces the income counted for that invoice. If a payment is disputed, charged back, or reversed in any other way, the invoice stays marked paid until you change it, because DeductSam is not notified of those events — and if a refund notification does not reach us, the same is true. This matters beyond the invoice list: an amount marked paid is counted as income, and therefore flows into your gross receipts, your tax estimates, and your year-end packet. If a payment is reversed, you must undo the payment on that invoice yourself (in the invoice's menu) so your records and any figures derived from them stay accurate. You are responsible for the accuracy of the records you keep in the Service.
If you delete your DeductSam account
Your Stripe account belongs to you, not to DeductSam. Deleting your DeductSam account does not delete or close it. When you delete your account, we ask Stripe to disconnect DeductSam from your Stripe account, and the deletion screen tells you whether Stripe confirmed it. If Stripe did not confirm it, remove DeductSam from your account in your Stripe Dashboard (or contact us and we will remove the connection on our side). Your balance, payouts, and payment history stay with you at Stripe; close the account with Stripe if you no longer need it.
5. Acceptable Use
You agree to use the Service only for lawful purposes and in accordance with these Terms. You agree not to:
- Use the Service to prepare tax filings with knowingly false or fabricated data
- Attempt to circumvent, disable, or interfere with security features of the Service
- Scrape, crawl, or automate access to the Service in ways not authorized by us
- Use the Service to store or transmit malicious code
- Violate any applicable law, including tax law, data privacy law, or consumer protection law
- Use the Service if you have been suspended or banned by DeductSam previously
DeductSam is for personal and small business financial management. It may not be used to manage the finances of publicly traded companies, registered investment vehicles, or financial institutions.
6. Your Data
You own your data. By using the Service, you grant DeductSam a limited license to store, process, and transmit your data solely for the purpose of delivering the Service to you. We do not claim ownership of your financial data.
You are responsible for the accuracy of the data you enter. DeductSam's AI analysis is only as good as the information you provide. Entering incorrect data (wrong amounts, wrong categories, fabricated business purposes) can lead to inaccurate deduction estimates and, in a filing context, potential legal consequences — consequences that are your responsibility, not ours. The same is true of everything you confirm or set in the app: a figure read from a receipt or tax document, a category, a business-use share, an answer to a question, or a position you record. The app shows you what it read or suggested so that you can check it; confirming it makes it your record.
Some records are created for you. Each U.S.-dollar charge for your DeductSam subscription is added as an expense in your oldest business workspace, or, if you have none, your oldest rental property workspace (see the Privacy Policy). If you have neither, nothing is added. You can delete the entry, and it is not added again.
You can download your expenses (as a CSV file), your Year-End Packet, and your receipts at any time, and delete your account and its data from Settings. See our Privacy Policy for details on data retention.
7. Intellectual Property
The DeductSam application, its design, code, Sam AI personality, and all associated intellectual property are owned by DeductSam LLC. These Terms do not grant you any rights in our intellectual property except the limited right to use the Service as described here.
You may not copy, modify, distribute, sell, or lease any part of the Service, nor may you reverse-engineer or attempt to extract source code from the Service.
8. Third-Party Services
The Service relies on third-party providers, including Supabase (database and storage), Vercel (hosting), OpenAI (AI features), Plaid (bank connections), Stripe (web billing and invoice payments), Apple (in-app purchases and map lookups), Resend (email), and Sentry (error monitoring). Our Privacy Policy says what each receives. Use of these integrations is subject to their respective terms of service and privacy policies. DeductSam is not responsible for the actions or policies of these third parties.
Plaid's end user privacy policy is available at plaid.com/legal. Stripe's terms are available at stripe.com/legal.
9. Disclaimers
THE SERVICE IS PROVIDED "AS IS" WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED. DEDUCTSAM MAKES NO WARRANTIES REGARDING THE ACCURACY, COMPLETENESS, OR FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE OF ANY OUTPUT OF THE SERVICE, INCLUDING AI-GENERATED SUGGESTIONS, TAX ESTIMATES, AND THE RESULTS OF THE STRATEGY CHECKS DESCRIBED IN SECTION 1.
SAM'S SUGGESTIONS ARE EDUCATIONAL ESTIMATES BASED ON PUBLICLY AVAILABLE IRS GUIDANCE AND THE DATA YOU PROVIDE. THEY ARE NOT A SUBSTITUTE FOR PROFESSIONAL TAX ADVICE. DEDUCTSAM CANNOT GUARANTEE THAT ANY DEDUCTION WILL BE ACCEPTED BY THE IRS OR ANY STATE TAX AUTHORITY, AND DOES NOT GUARANTEE ANY DEDUCTION, CREDIT, REFUND, OR TAX OUTCOME.
AI OUTPUT CAN BE WRONG. SAM'S ANSWERS, AND ANYTHING THE SERVICE READS FROM A RECEIPT, DOCUMENT, OR VOICE NOTE OR SUGGESTS FOR A CATEGORY, MAY BE INACCURATE OR INCOMPLETE. YOU ARE RESPONSIBLE FOR CHECKING IT BEFORE YOU RELY ON IT. YOUR TAX PREPARER, NOT DEDUCTSAM, MAKES THE FINAL CALL ON WHAT GOES ON YOUR RETURN.
10. Limitation of Liability
TO THE FULLEST EXTENT PERMITTED BY APPLICABLE LAW, DEDUCTSAM WILL NOT BE LIABLE FOR ANY INDIRECT, INCIDENTAL, SPECIAL, CONSEQUENTIAL, OR PUNITIVE DAMAGES ARISING FROM YOUR USE OF THE SERVICE — INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO: TAX PENALTIES, INTEREST, AUDIT COSTS, ERRORS IN YOUR TAX RETURN, OR LOST BUSINESS — EVEN IF WE HAVE BEEN ADVISED OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH DAMAGES.
DEDUCTSAM'S TOTAL LIABILITY TO YOU FOR ANY CLAIMS ARISING FROM THESE TERMS OR THE SERVICE WILL NOT EXCEED THE AMOUNT YOU PAID US IN THE 12 MONTHS PRECEDING THE CLAIM.
Some jurisdictions do not allow the exclusion of certain warranties or limitations on liability. In those jurisdictions, our liability is limited to the maximum extent permitted by law.
11. Indemnification
You agree to defend, indemnify, and hold harmless DeductSam and its officers, directors, employees, and agents from any claims, damages, losses, and expenses (including reasonable attorney fees) arising from: (a) your use of the Service in violation of these Terms; (b) your violation of any applicable law; or (c) content you submit to the Service that infringes the rights of a third party.
12. Termination
We reserve the right to suspend or terminate your account at any time for violation of these Terms, fraudulent activity, or at our sole discretion with reasonable notice. If we terminate your account without cause and you subscribed on the web, we will refund any unused prepaid subscription fees. If we terminate your account without cause and you subscribed through the DeductSam iOS app, your fees were paid to Apple, and only Apple can refund them. Request a refund at reportaproblem.apple.com; we will tell you how, but we cannot issue or guarantee an App Store refund.
You may terminate your account at any time by deleting it from Settings (this does not cancel a subscription bought in the iOS app; see Section 3) or contacting us at admin@deductsam.com.
13. Governing Law and Disputes
These Terms are governed by the laws of the State of Florida, without regard to its conflict of law provisions. Any disputes arising under these Terms will be resolved in the state or federal courts located in Florida, and you consent to personal jurisdiction in those courts.
Before initiating any legal action, you agree to attempt informal resolution by contacting us at admin@deductsam.com. Many issues can be resolved quickly through direct communication.
14. Changes to These Terms
We may modify these Terms from time to time. We will provide at least 14 days' notice of material changes by email or by displaying a notice in the app. Continued use of the Service after changes take effect constitutes acceptance of the new Terms. If you do not agree to the revised Terms, please cancel your subscription and stop using the Service.
15. Contact
Questions about these Terms? Contact us at:
DeductSam LLC
Email: admin@deductsam.com