A handshake, written down.

Most terms of service are written to be hard to read. This one isn’t. We wrote it in plain English, organized it so you can find what you need, and explained the “why” where it actually matters. The result is still a real, enforceable contract — it just doesn’t pretend to be impressive.

If you read something here and think “that’s not what they actually do,” that’s a bug. Email us at [email protected] and we’ll fix it.

Smol is sold as a one-time purchase in three plans. Whichever one you pick, you get a personal, perpetual, non-exclusive, non-transferable license to use Smol — you do not get ownership of the software, the source code, or any intellectual property in it.

• Solo — $29 USD. One license for one person, activating one Mac.
• Team — $49 USD. 3 individual licenses assigned to 3 different people. Each license activates one Mac.
• Enterprise — $20 USD per seat, minimum 5 seats, maximum 500. One purchase, N individual licenses, one admin dashboard. Each license activates one Mac.
• Perpetual means your license doesn’t expire. You can keep using the version you bought forever.
• One license, one Mac. Each license activates one Mac at a time. To move a license to a different Mac, deactivate the old one in Smol → Preferences → License. Sharing one license across multiple people is not allowed.
• Non-transferable means you can’t sell or give a license to someone else outside your purchase. (Within a Team or Enterprise order, the admin can revoke a seat and reassign it to a different teammate — that’s fine.)

With your license, you can:

• Install Smol on one Mac per license. Move it freely by deactivating the old Mac in Preferences.
• Compress as many files as you want, of any size, of any type Smol supports — for any purpose, personal or commercial. We don’t care if you use it for your blog, your client work, your magnum opus, or your hobby memes.
• Process files for paying clients. Files compressed by Smol are yours. We make no claim on them.
• Use the outputs in any way you would’ve used the original files. We do not assert copyright, trademark, or any other right over the things Smol produces for you.

The Team and Enterprise plans are designed for buying for more than one person from a single invoice.

• You are the owner. The person who paid is the billing owner. The owner is the only one who can invite or revoke teammates from the admin dashboard at smolmac.com/account.
• Each seat is for one named individual. You assign a seat by entering a teammate’s email; we email that person their own license key, which activates one of their Macs.
• Reassigning a seat. If someone leaves your team, the owner can revoke their seat from the dashboard. The old license key stops working immediately and the seat becomes available to invite someone else.
• One company — one admin. We do not currently support multiple admins per order. If you need this, email [email protected].
• Need more than 500 seats? Write to us — we’ll set it up by hand.

The following will get your license revoked. We’d rather not have to do that, so please don’t:

• Don’t share your license key publicly. Each license is for one person. Sharing on forums, Discords, or torrent sites is grounds for revocation.
• Don’t resell, rent, or sublicense Smol. Don’t bundle it into another product you sell.
• Don’t reverse-engineer, decompile, or modify the application with the intent of redistributing it, removing the license check, or creating a competing product. Looking under the hood for personal curiosity or security research is fine — please tell us what you find.
• Don’t use Smol for anything illegal. Compressing child sexual abuse material, content that infringes someone else’s rights, or material that violates the laws you’re subject to — that’s on you, not us. We cooperate with law enforcement on lawful requests.
• Don’t use the Smol name, logo, or marks to imply we endorse you, your product, or your services without written permission.

A license revoked for these reasons is forfeited — the purchase is not refunded.

All prices are in US dollars, one-time, and processed through Stripe. We accept the methods Stripe accepts in your country.

• Solo — $29 USD (1 license).
• Team — $49 USD (3 licenses).
• Enterprise — $20 USD × seats (from 5 to 500 seats).

• Sales tax / VAT / GST may be added at checkout based on where you’re buying from. Stripe calculates this automatically.
• Currency is shown in USD by default. Your card issuer converts to your local currency at their exchange rate.
• Receipts are sent automatically. If you need an invoice with a VAT number or company details, email us at [email protected] and we’ll send one.
• Price changes apply to new purchases only. Anyone who already bought keeps their license forever, at the price they paid.

Smol is sold as a one-time digital purchase. License keys are delivered instantly and become usable on your Mac the moment you activate. Because of that, all sales are final and purchases are not refundable.

We’d rather you not buy Smol if you’re unsure it fits. The product page lays out exactly what Smol does, what formats it supports, and what it requires — please read it first. If you have a question before buying, email [email protected] and we’ll answer it.

If you’re a consumer in a jurisdiction (for example, the EU or UK) where local law grants a statutory right of withdrawal for digital goods, that right may still apply unless waived. By starting your download and activating the license, you’re asking us to begin performance immediately and acknowledging that your right of withdrawal ends once activation completes.

We ship updates regularly. Most include bug fixes, performance improvements, and new format support. Some include entirely new features. All of these are included in your license.

• Free updates within the major version you bought. If you bought Smol 1.x, every 1.x update is free.
• Major-version upgrades (1.x → 2.0) may be paid. We won’t do this unless we’ve built something substantially new. If we do, we’ll give existing customers a meaningful upgrade discount.
• We do not push updates against your will. Smol checks for updates and tells you when one is available. You decide when to install it.

We do not see, touch, claim, or process your files in any way. Every compression happens locally on your Mac. We make no copies. We retain no metadata. We do not, and cannot, identify what you compress or what you do with the results.

The files you put into Smol are 100% yours. The files Smol produces are 100% yours. The full version is in our Privacy Policy.

What we promise:

• Smol will do what we say it does on smolmac.com. If a feature breaks, we’ll fix it.
• Updates will continue for the foreseeable future. If we ever shut the project down, we’ll give you at least 90 days’ notice and a final offline-friendly build that doesn’t need a working license server.
• We will not introduce ads, telemetry, paid placements, or data-selling into the app. Ever. This is foundational; if we’re acquired, this commitment carries over or the deal doesn’t happen.

What we don’t promise:

To the maximum extent allowed by law, Smol is provided “as is” and “as available” without warranty of any kind, express or implied, including warranties of merchantability, fitness for a particular purpose, and non-infringement. We do not warrant that the software will be uninterrupted, error-free, or free of harmful components, or that any defects will be corrected.

In plain English: we tested it, we use it ourselves, we believe it works — but software is software. Always keep original copies of important files before compressing them. We are not liable if a one-of-a-kind RAW photo you didn’t back up gets compressed in a way you regret.

To the maximum extent allowed by law, our total liability to you for any claim arising out of or relating to these Terms or Smol is limited to the amount you paid us in the 12 months before the claim (so, the price of your license: $29 USD). We are not liable for indirect, incidental, special, consequential, exemplary, or punitive damages, or for lost profits, lost data, business interruption, or loss of goodwill, even if we’ve been advised of the possibility.

In plain English: if something goes wrong because of Smol, the most we owe you is what you paid for Smol. We can’t take on liability greater than the price of the app.

Some jurisdictions don’t allow limits like this. If you live in one, the limits above apply only to the extent permitted by your local law, and your statutory rights are unaffected.

If you use Smol in a way that violates these Terms or someone else’s rights (for example, compressing content you don’t have the right to use), and a third party comes after us because of what you did, you agree to defend us and cover the reasonable costs involved. This does not apply to any claim that Smol itself infringes someone’s intellectual property — that’s on us.

You can stop using Smol at any time. Uninstall the app and you’re done.

We can revoke your license if you materially breach these Terms (see §05). We’ll usually email first and give you a chance to fix it. For egregious cases (selling pirated keys, illegal use) we’ll revoke immediately.

Sections that should logically survive termination — the warranty disclaimer, liability limits, your responsibility, and any unpaid amounts — do.

These Terms are governed by the laws of San Francisco, California, without regard to conflict-of-laws principles. Both you and we agree that any dispute will be heard in the courts of San Francisco, California.

If you live in a country where consumer-protection law forces a different forum or different governing law, those rules win.

Before filing anything formal, please email us at [email protected]. We resolve almost everything that way.

We’ll change these Terms as the product changes. When we do:

• The version number and the “Last updated” date at the top of this page change.
• For material changes, we’ll email you 30 days before they take effect, with a one-line summary of what changed.
• If you don’t agree with a material change, you can stop using Smol at any time. Since Smol is a one-time purchase and not a subscription, there’s nothing to cancel.

Changelog

• v1.0 — May 13, 2026 — Initial terms.

• Entire agreement. These Terms plus the Privacy Policy are the whole deal between you and us about Smol.
• If one part fails, the rest stays. If a court decides any part of these Terms is unenforceable, the rest continues to apply.
• We can assign these Terms. If we’re acquired or restructured, the buyer takes over our obligations (including the privacy commitments in §10).
• You can’t assign these Terms without writing to us first.
• No waiver by silence. If we don’t immediately enforce something, that doesn’t mean we’ve given it up.
• Force majeure. Neither of us is responsible for delays caused by events outside reasonable control (outages, earthquakes, the internet briefly going sideways).

Smol is operated by an indie team based in San Francisco, California. For any question about these Terms — or any other reason — write to:

[email protected]

A human reads it. Usually within a day.