The agreement between you and us, in plain language. If anything here is unclear, ask us before you subscribe — we would rather explain it than have you find out later.
Crystal is a subscription software service that connects to mailboxes and calendars you authorise, reads and classifies the correspondence in them, and assists you with the work that follows. Exactly which capabilities are available depends on the plan you subscribe to.
You must give accurate details when subscribing and confirm your email address before we take payment. You are responsible for keeping your login credentials secure and for everything done under your account. Tell us promptly if you believe your account has been accessed by someone else.
Age. You must be 18 or older to hold a Crystal account or start a trial. A person aged 13 to 17 may use Crystal only as a member of a parent's or legal guardian's Personal or Family subscription: the parent or guardian adds them, consents on their behalf and is responsible for their use, and we record that consent. The account holder sees each member's usage and when they were last active — never their conversations. The holder may remove a member at any time; a removed member keeps Crystal to the end of the month already paid, nothing is refunded, and their data is then deleted as set out under Privacy & your data.
We do not claim ownership of your mail, your documents, your customer records or anything else you put into the service. You grant us only the permission we need to operate the service for you — to store, process and display your content back to you, and to act on the instructions you give.
You may only connect a mailbox you own or are authorised to administer. Connecting a mailbox does not by itself authorise Crystal to send anything on your behalf: automatic responding is a separate setting that is off until you deliberately turn it on, per mailbox.
We work to keep the service available and correct, and we monitor it continuously. We do not promise it will be uninterrupted or error-free, and we may need to take it down briefly for maintenance. Where we plan an interruption, we will tell you in advance.
Crystal uses AI models, and AI can be wrong. Classifications, summaries, drafts, figures and suggestions are assistance, not professional advice, and they are not a substitute for your own judgement. Anything with legal, financial or tax consequence should be checked by you or your advisor before you rely on it. Where the service is configured to act automatically, you remain responsible for the settings you chose.
Subscription fees are shown before you subscribe and are charged in South African Rand. Prices exclude VAT unless stated otherwise. We charge the first period at signup and then on the same cycle until you cancel. If we change a price we will tell you before it applies to you, and you may cancel rather than accept it.
You may cancel at any time (see Cancellation below). We may suspend or end an account that is in breach of these terms, is being used unlawfully, or where fees remain unpaid after we have asked. Where we end an account for a reason other than your breach, we refund the unused portion of the period you have paid for — we do not keep fees for a service we ourselves withdrew.
You can ask for an export of your data at any time while your subscription is active. After an account closes we retain the data for 30 days so it can be restored if the closure was a mistake, then delete it — except where we are required by law to keep records (tax records, for example) for longer.
Nothing here excludes liability that cannot lawfully be excluded. Subject to that, our total liability to you in connection with the service is limited to the fees you paid us in the three months before the claim arose, and we are not liable for indirect or consequential loss such as lost profits or lost business opportunity.
We may update these terms. Where a change materially affects you we will give you reasonable notice by email before it takes effect, and you may cancel if you do not accept it.
These terms are governed by the law of the Republic of South Africa, and the South African courts have jurisdiction.
We charge your card when you subscribe so the service can be provisioned immediately, and that payment is not refundable — including if you change your mind, stop using Crystal, or cancel part-way through a period you have paid for. You accept this when you subscribe, and you cannot subscribe without accepting it.
We would rather you knew this before you paid than discovered it afterwards, which is why it is said plainly on the signup page as well as here.
You can cancel at any time from your account. There is no cancellation fee and no notice period. Your subscription runs to the end of the period you have already paid for, and then does not renew. Nothing further is charged.
An annual term runs to its end date. Cancelling stops the renewal; it does not shorten or refund the term you have paid for.
If we close your account for a reason other than your breach of these terms, we refund the unused portion of the period you have paid for. We do not keep fees for a service we withdrew.
If we fail to deliver the service materially and cannot put it right in reasonable time, tell us. You may cancel immediately and we will stop billing you from that point.
For the mail, calendar and business records you put into Crystal, you are the responsible party and we are the operator — we process that information on your instruction, to provide the service, and for no other purpose. For your own account and billing details, we are the responsible party.
Payment card details are handled by our payment provider and are never stored on our systems.
We do not sell your data. We do not share it with anyone for their own marketing. We do not use the contents of your mailbox to advertise to you.
To classify mail and generate drafts, message content is sent to our AI provider for processing and a result is returned. It is processed to serve your request. Where you would rather a mailbox were not processed this way, do not connect it.
We use a small number of operators to run the service — hosting, our AI provider, our payment provider, and the channels used to deliver notifications you have asked for. Each is bound to process the data only as needed to provide their part.
Data is hosted on infrastructure we control. Processing may involve providers outside South Africa; where that happens we require protection comparable to POPIA. We keep your data for as long as your subscription is active, then for 30 days after closure, then we delete it — other than records the law requires us to keep. The same applies to a household member removed from a subscription: 30 days after their Crystal ends, their conversations, memories and lists are deleted.
You may ask us what we hold about you, to correct it, to export it, or to delete it. Email us and we will respond within a reasonable time and at no charge. You may also complain to the Information Regulator of South Africa.
Access is authenticated and role-restricted, mailbox credentials and tokens are stored for the sole purpose of connecting to the mailbox you authorised, and traffic is encrypted in transit. If a breach affects your personal information we will notify you and the Regulator as POPIA requires.