Terms of service

You can use Deference if you are at least 18 and can enter a binding contract. If you use it for an organization, you accept these terms for that organization and confirm you may do so.

You cannot use Deference if you are on a UN, EU, UK or US sanctions list, or in a country under comprehensive sanctions.

These terms include the acceptable use policy. The privacy policy explains what we do with your data.

You sign in with email, Google, a wallet or a passkey; Privy runs sign-in for us. One sign-in identity opens one account, and credit activated or claimed from any wallet you link to it lands there.

A session lasts 7 days. Sign out everywhere in Settings ends every session at once, this device included.

Keep your sign-in methods and wallets safe. We cannot recover an external wallet you lose.

An API key starts with sk-df- and is shown once; we store only its hash. You can give a key a spending limit and an expiry, and disable or delete it at any time.

Every request sent with your key is charged to your account and counts as your use. If a key leaks, disable it in API keys and create a new one.

Deference forwards each request to OpenRouter, which sends it to a provider that runs the model. Models and prices follow OpenRouter, and providers retire models; the Models page shows what is available now.

We make no uptime commitment. The Status page shows what is working.

A request costs OpenRouter's price for the tokens it used, plus OpenRouter's 5% platform fee. Deference adds no markup.

Holds. Before a request runs, we hold its largest possible cost from your credit. Image requests hold $0.20 per image unless the model's listed price is higher.

Settlement. When the request ends, we charge an estimate and release the rest of the hold, then correct the charge to the final cost OpenRouter reports.

Failures. A request that fails before the model starts costs nothing; one that fails partway costs what OpenRouter reports. If your connection drops mid-stream, the model keeps generating and you pay for the tokens it produced.

Questions about a charge. Write to support@deference.so with the request ID from Activity.

Credit is a balance in our records that pays for requests. You get it by activating INFERENCE, by buying INFERENCE and activating it in one step, by claiming rewards as credit, or as free credit (§7).

Credit cannot be withdrawn, sent to another account, sold or refunded. Credit from INFERENCE does not expire; free credit does (§7). When you delete your account, its credit is gone for good.

New accounts can receive free credit for finishing setup tasks:

• Confirm an email address or a Google account: $0.25
• Create your first API key: $0.25
• Send your first request: $0.50
• Send 3 successful requests from a supported coding tool, across 2 sessions: $0.50
• Buy or activate at least $5 of INFERENCE for the first time: $1

One account receives at most $2.50. Each grant expires 30 days after it is given, and the top-up grant after 60.

Free credit pays only for open-weight text models whose output price is at most $2 per million tokens, and only for requests estimated at $0.05 or less. Until an account first adds credit, it can send 20 requests a minute.

Free credit has no cash value. Each person receives it once, checked by sign-in identity, email and Google account; disposable email addresses never qualify. Grants pause when the month's $2,000 budget runs out. We can change the program for future grants and remove grants collected with extra accounts.

INFERENCE is an ERC-20 token on Ethereum with 6 decimals. Authorized minters create it. Activating burns INFERENCE from your wallet and adds credit after any activation fee to the selected Deference account. Activation cannot be undone.

Deference runs on Sepolia, an Ethereum test network, today. INFERENCE, USDC and the launch token there are test tokens with no market value.

Sale proceeds go to a funding wallet. Its balance is not constrained by INFERENCE supply or unspent credit. Authorized administrators can change fees and upgrade the INFERENCE, sale and distributor implementations. Sale purchases can be paused; token transfers and activation remain available. Holding INFERENCE gives you no right to withdraw the funding wallet's USDC.

The sale contract does not buy it back. To sell INFERENCE, use an available decentralized exchange route or the on-chain order book, at the market price. Liquidity and open orders determine what you receive, and there may be no buyer at all.

Blockchain transactions are final. Check the address, amount and network before you sign. You pay network fees, and any taxes on your tokens are yours to handle.

A second token launches through the Stockereum launchpad. Its trading fees arrive in WETH. The holders' share buys or mints INFERENCE through the available route. Each payout uses a selected snapshot block, its minimum holding and excluded addresses. Eligible holders share the payout in proportion to their eligible balances.

After a payout's Merkle root is published, qualified wallets can claim INFERENCE to their wallet or activate it as service credit after the activation fee. Available archived data lists eligible addresses, allocations, cumulative entitlements and proofs. Payouts require an explicit claim.

The amount depends on available funding, and some reward cycles distribute nothing. We can change or end the program for future cycles.

Your prompts and the outputs you receive are yours, as far as the model provider's terms allow. We do not store either: see where your prompts go.

Models make mistakes. Check outputs before you rely on them. How you use them is your responsibility.

Deference depends on OpenRouter, the model providers, Privy for sign-in and embedded wallets, Ethereum, Uniswap and the Stockereum launchpad. Each runs under its own terms, and we do not control them.

Names and logos. Model, tool and token names and logos belong to their owners. We show them only to identify their products; they do not endorse Deference.

We disable API keys, or block an account from sending requests, when it breaks these terms or the acceptable use policy, puts other people at risk, or the law requires it. To appeal, write to support@deference.so.

You can leave at any time with Delete account in Settings: it deletes every key, ends every session and gives up all credit. What we keep is in the privacy policy.

Sections 14 and 15 keep applying after you leave.

We do not promise that:

• Deference, or any model, is available at a given moment;
• outputs are correct, complete or fit for your purpose;
• INFERENCE will have any price, or that anyone will buy it;
• any reward cycle will distribute rewards;
• smart contracts, Ethereum, Uniswap, wallets or Privy will work without faults.

Consumer law where you live may give you rights these terms cannot remove. Those rights still apply.

If we are liable to you for anything connected with Deference, our total liability is limited to what you paid for credit in the 3 months before the event. We are not liable for indirect or consequential losses, lost business or lost data. Nothing here limits liability for fraud, or any liability the law does not let us limit.

Each new version is published here with its effective date, never earlier than its publication, and listed in the version history. Using Deference after that date means you accept it.

Write to support@deference.so.