PL8Z Terms of Use

1. What this app is

PL8Z is a listings and messaging platform that connects home food sellers with local buyers. PL8Z does not sell food or take part in any transaction between a buyer and a seller — all sales, pricing, pickup arrangements, and payment for food happen directly between buyer and seller, outside of this app. Separately, PL8Z does offer optional paid features of its own (Boost and PL8Z Pro) — see Section 14.

2. Eligibility

You must be at least 18 years old to create an account or use PL8Z. This app arranges in-person meetings between buyers and sellers who don’t otherwise know each other, which isn’t appropriate for minors to do unsupervised. By creating an account, you represent that you meet this requirement.

3. Seller responsibilities

If you post a listing as a seller, you are solely responsible for:

• Complying with all applicable federal, state, and local laws that govern selling food prepared in a home kitchen — often called a “cottage food law” — including what foods may be sold, labeling requirements, and any sales limits in your specific state.
• The safety, quality, and accuracy of any food or listing you post.
• Any permits, registrations, or certifications required in your state or locality.

Home food laws vary significantly from state to state. It is your responsibility to know and follow the law that applies to you, wherever you are located.

4. Platform disclaimer

PL8Z (operated by Spire Applications) is a marketplace that connects buyers and sellers — it is not a party to any transaction between them. PL8Z does not inspect home kitchens, verify listings, or guarantee the safety, quality, allergen content, or legality of any food sold through the app. Where a seller shows a self-reported cottage food permit number on their public profile, that number is exactly that — self-reported, not independently verified by PL8Z — and category-specific notices shown when posting or viewing certain listings (foods that can require extra safe-handling care) are informational only, not a safety guarantee.

5. Assumption of risk

Food listed on PL8Z is made in a home kitchen, not a commercially licensed or state-inspected food facility. By using PL8Z to buy or arrange to receive food, you understand and accept that home-prepared food carries risks that professionally inspected food generally does not, and you assume all risk in purchasing, accepting, and consuming any food obtained through a listing on this app.

6. Not a party to transactions

PL8Z is not a party to, and has no responsibility for, any transaction, dispute, injury, illness, or loss arising from a sale arranged through the app. Any dispute over the transaction itself is between the buyer and seller directly.

7. Conduct

You agree not to use PL8Z for unlawful sales, harassment, fraud, or to share false information. PL8Z may suspend or remove any account or listing at its discretion.

8. Limitation of liability

To the maximum extent permitted by law, Spire Applications and PL8Z are not liable for any injury, illness, death, property damage, financial loss, or a broken agreement between users, arising from a transaction, interaction, or dispute between users of the app, or from your use of the app more generally — including indirect, incidental, and consequential damages. Nothing in this section limits any liability that cannot lawfully be limited or excluded, or takes away any right you may have under applicable consumer-protection law.

9. Indemnification

You agree to defend, indemnify, and hold harmless Spire Applications and PL8Z from any claim, damage, or expense (including reasonable legal fees) arising from your own conduct — including your listings, your food or its handling, a dispute or broken agreement with another user, or your violation of these terms or applicable law.

10. Dispute resolution; binding arbitration

This section is important — please read it carefully. It affects how a dispute between you and Spire Applications (not a dispute between you and another user, which Sections 6 and 8 already cover) gets resolved.

Informal resolution first: before filing any claim against Spire Applications, you agree to first contact us using the support option in the app and give us 60 days to try to resolve the issue informally.

Binding individual arbitration: if that doesn’t resolve things, you and Spire Applications agree that any remaining dispute will be resolved by binding individual arbitration rather than in court, except that either side may bring an individual claim in small claims court instead, if it qualifies. This means neither of us will have a judge or jury decide the dispute.

Class action waiver: you and Spire Applications each agree to bring claims only in an individual capacity, not as a plaintiff or class member in any purported class, collective, or representative proceeding.

Required carve-out — sexual assault and sexual harassment: as required by the federal Ending Forced Arbitration of Sexual Assault and Sexual Harassment Act of 2022, this arbitration agreement does not apply to a claim of sexual assault or sexual harassment, and does not require arbitration of such a claim. You may bring that kind of claim in court instead, at your option.

11. Changes to these terms

These terms may be updated from time to time. Continued use of the app after a change means you accept the updated terms.

12. Governing law

These terms — the agreement between you and PL8Z itself — are governed by the laws of the State of Mississippi, where PL8Z is operated. This does not affect your obligation to follow the food laws of your own state as described in Section 3.

13. Privacy

Our Privacy Policy explains what information we collect and how it’s used. You can review it and adjust your privacy preferences in the app at any time.

14. Paid features (Boost & Pro)

PL8Z offers two optional paid features: Boost, a one-time purchase that gives a listing top placement in Browse for a limited time, and PL8Z Pro, a recurring monthly subscription that raises your listing and photo limits, is required to edit a listing after it’s been posted, and includes one free Boost each month. Payments for both are processed by Stripe; PL8Z does not receive or store your card details. PL8Z Pro renews automatically each month until you cancel. Purchases of Boost and payments for PL8Z Pro are final — we don’t offer refunds for a Boost period or subscription time already used, except where required by law.

New accounts automatically receive PL8Z Pro free for the first 3 months from signup — no payment method is required or charged to start this trial, and it does not automatically convert into a paid subscription when it ends. If you’d like to keep Pro access after your trial ends, you can subscribe separately at that point, the same way any other account would.

15. Closing your account, and inactive listings

You can close your account at any time from the Settings tab, in one of two ways. Deactivating hides your profile, your listings and your messages from everyone else without deleting anything, and you can turn your account back on yourself for 90 days afterwards. Deleting removes your account and its content permanently and immediately, and cannot be undone. Full details of both, and of how to remove individual items without closing your account, are in How to Delete Your Account & Data.

If you deactivate, we keep your data for one year from the day you deactivate and then delete it permanently. You can still delete your account outright during that year, including after the 90-day window to reactivate yourself has passed. Note that PL8Z Pro and any Boost you have purchased continue to run down while your account is deactivated — deactivating does not pause paid time, and the app tells you how many days are left before you confirm.

To keep listings current, an active listing that has not been posted or bumped for 45 days is removed automatically. We send you a warning 7 days before that happens, and bumping the listing at any point resets the clock. This applies to the listing only, not to your account, and it does not apply to listings you have already marked as sold or to accounts that are deactivated. Removed listings follow the same one-year retention described above.