1. Acceptance of these terms
These Terms of Service (the “Terms”) govern your access to and use of the Vellum website, progressive web app, and related services (together, the “Service”), operated by Vellum (“Vellum”, “we”, “us”). By creating an account, requesting a one-time code, or otherwise using the Service, you confirm that you have read, understood, and agree to be bound by these Terms and by our Privacy Policy, Community & Safety Guidelines, and Age & Consent Policy, which are incorporated here by reference.
If you do not agree to these Terms, you must not use the Service.
2. Eligibility (21+)
Vellum is strictly for adults. You may use the Service only if you are at least 21 years of age (or older, where a higher age of majority applies where you live), and you are legally permitted to use an adult dating service there. Our eligibility rules are set out in full in the Age & Consent Policy.
- You must provide a truthful date of birth during sign-up.
- You must not create or use an account if you are under 21, and you must not help, invite, or permit anyone under 21 to use the Service.
- We use an age gate at sign-up and may use additional automated and manual checks (including AI review of suspected underage accounts). Misrepresenting your age is a serious breach of these Terms and may be unlawful.
3. Your account & verification
Vellum uses passwordless sign-in. You register with a mobile number or email address and confirm it with a one-time code. You are responsible for keeping access to that number or inbox secure, and for all activity that occurs under your account.
- One account per person. Accounts are personal and non-transferable. You may not sell, share, or operate an account on behalf of anyone else, and you may not hold more than one account.
- Verification. Some features require verification: a phone or email check, a selfie check that matches your face to your photos, and — for men — a Respect Check before they can reach other members. You agree to complete verification honestly and with your own face. Verification reduces, but does not eliminate, risk; it is not a background check or a guarantee of anyone’s identity, intentions, or conduct.
- Accurate profile. Your profile must describe you and use recent, genuine photographs of you. Your display name is fixed once your profile is created, so that a block or a report always points to the same person.
- Admission for men. To keep the community balanced, men may be placed on a waiting list for their city and admitted in turn. Being on the waiting list does not give access to other members’ profiles.
4. Acceptable use
You agree to use the Service respectfully and lawfully. Detailed conduct rules are in the Community & Safety Guidelines. Without limiting those, you must not:
- harass, threaten, stalk, defame, or abuse any person;
- solicit money, gifts, gift cards, cryptocurrency, or financial information, or promote escorting, prostitution, or any commercial sexual service;
- post or send unlawful, hateful, sexually exploitative, or non-consensual content, or any content depicting minors;
- share another person’s private information, images, messages, or exact location without consent;
- impersonate others, create fake, duplicate, or automated profiles, run scams, spam, or use the Service for advertising or recruitment;
- edit your photos, with any tool, so that they no longer show what you actually look like;
- attempt to bypass safety, moderation, verification, rate-limiting, or visibility controls, or scrape, reverse-engineer, or overload the Service;
- use the Service if you are a registered sex offender or barred by law from using it.
5. Your content & our licence
You retain ownership of the photos, text, voice messages, and other content you submit (“Your Content”). You are solely responsible for Your Content and for having the rights to share it.
You grant Vellum a worldwide, non-exclusive, royalty-free licence to host, store, reproduce, adapt, and display Your Content solely to operate, secure, and improve the Service — for example, to show your profile to the members you choose to be visible to, to generate blurred previews and resized copies, to run AI safety moderation and transcription, to produce an enhanced version of a photo when you ask for one, and to review reports. This licence ends when Your Content is deleted, except for copies we must keep for a limited period to comply with law, resolve disputes, or enforce our agreements.
You grant other members no rights to Your Content beyond viewing it within the Service. Capturing, copying, or redistributing another member’s content or images off the Service is prohibited.
6. Assistive AI features
Vellum offers optional AI assistance: bio drafts, conversation openers and tone suggestions, a readiness score, and photo enhancement.
- Suggestions are never sent or published automatically — you always decide what to use, and you are responsible for what you post or send.
- Suggestions can be inaccurate or unsuitable; treat them as a starting point, not advice.
- Photo enhancement improves lighting and clarity only. You see a before/after preview and choose to keep or discard it. A kept photo must still be a genuine likeness of you; we check that the enhanced photo shows the same face, and we may remove photos that misrepresent you.
- To provide these features, the relevant text or photo is processed by our AI provider on our instructions, as described in the Privacy Policy.
7. Our intellectual property
The Service — including its software, design, brand, logos, and the “Vellum” name — is owned by Vellum and protected by intellectual-property laws. We grant you a limited, personal, non-exclusive, non-transferable, revocable licence to use the Service for its intended purpose. You may not copy, modify, distribute, sell, or create derivative works from any part of the Service except as expressly permitted.
8. Privacy & data
Privacy is central to Vellum. Our Privacy Policy explains what we collect (such as your phone number or email for sign-in, your profile and photos, an approximate location only — never your exact coordinates — chat messages, your online status, and product-analytics events), why we collect it, how long we keep it, and the rights you have, including deletion. By using the Service you acknowledge that processing.
9. Safety, reporting & moderation
Vellum provides safety tooling including AI moderation of messages and photos, request filtering, blocking, and reporting. You can report a member or message at any time; recent messages may be attached as evidence for our safety team to review.
- We may review, limit, hide, or remove content and may warn, restrict, suspend, or ban accounts that we reasonably believe violate these Terms or endanger others.
- Moderation is provided on a reasonable-efforts basis and is not guaranteed to detect every violation. You remain responsible for your own safety.
- Meeting people carries real-world risk. Vellum does not conduct criminal background checks on members. Always follow the safety guidance in the Community & Safety Guidelines: meet in public, tell a friend, never send money, and keep your exact location private.
If you are in immediate danger, contact your local emergency services first, then reach our safety team at [email protected].
10. Fees
Vellum, including its AI safety checks, is currently offered free of charge. If we introduce paid features in the future, we will present the price and terms clearly before you buy, and additional purchase terms may apply. We may change or discontinue features at any time.
11. Suspension & termination
You may stop using the Service at any time. You can pause your profile (you become invisible and keep your matches) or delete your account from your account settings. Deleting your account permanently removes your data and media as described in the Privacy Policy.
We may suspend or terminate your access, with or without notice, if you breach these Terms, create risk or legal exposure for us or others, or if required by law. Sections that by their nature should survive termination — including content licences already exercised, disclaimers, limitations of liability, and dispute terms — will survive.
12. Disclaimers
The Service is provided “as is” and “as available”, without warranties of any kind, whether express, implied, or statutory, including implied warranties of merchantability, fitness for a particular purpose, and non-infringement. We do not warrant that the Service will be uninterrupted, secure, or error-free, that any member is who they claim to be, or that any interaction or match will be safe, successful, or satisfactory. Online status, last-seen times, and read indicators are best-effort signals and may be delayed or inaccurate. To the extent any warranty cannot be excluded by law, it is limited to the minimum period permitted.
13. Limitation of liability
To the maximum extent permitted by law, Vellum and its officers, employees, and agents will not be liable for any indirect, incidental, special, consequential, or punitive damages, or for any loss of profits, data, or goodwill, or for personal injury or emotional distress arising from your use of — or inability to use — the Service, your interactions with other members (online or in person), or any content. Our total aggregate liability for all claims relating to the Service will not exceed the greater of the amount you paid us in the twelve months before the claim or USD 100. Some jurisdictions do not allow certain limitations, so some of these may not apply to you; nothing in these Terms limits liability that cannot lawfully be limited.
14. Indemnification
You agree to indemnify and hold Vellum harmless from any claims, damages, liabilities, and reasonable costs (including legal fees) arising from your use of the Service, Your Content, your interactions with other members, or your breach of these Terms or of any law or third-party right.
15. Changes to these terms
We may update these Terms from time to time. When we make material changes, we will update the “Last updated” date and, where appropriate, notify you in the Service. Your continued use after changes take effect means you accept the updated Terms.
16. Governing law & disputes
These Terms, and any dispute arising out of or relating to them or the Service, are governed by the laws of the country in which the Vellum operator is established, without regard to its conflict-of-laws rules, and the competent courts of that country have exclusive jurisdiction — except that if mandatory consumer-protection law where you live grants you additional rights or a different forum, those rights are preserved. Before starting a claim, please contact us at [email protected] so we can try to resolve the matter informally.