Terms of Service

Welcome to LightningWeb ("LightningWeb," "we," "us," or "our"). These Terms of Service ("Terms") govern your access to and use of our AI-powered website building platform, including the lightningweb.io website, dashboard, and related services (collectively, the "Service").
Effective Date: June 23, 2026 · Last Updated: July 16, 2026 · This policy replaces our prior SiteForge AI policy following our 2026-06-23 brand transition to LightningWeb.

By creating an account, accessing, or using the Service, you ("you" or "Customer") agree to be bound by these Terms. If you do not agree, do not use the Service.

1. Service Description

LightningWeb provides an AI-driven website creation, hosting, and management platform for small businesses. Features include AI-generated website design, AI-powered chat-based editing, hosting, SEO tools, analytics, A/B testing, competitor monitoring, and integrated e-commerce via Stripe.

2. Account Registration

You must be at least 18 years old and capable of forming a binding contract to use the Service. You agree to provide accurate, current, and complete information during registration and to keep this information updated. You are responsible for safeguarding your account credentials and for all activities under your account.

3. Subscription Plans and Billing

Pricing: The Service offers a free tier (preview only, no published site) and paid plans (Pro at $69/month, Agency at $120/month). Pricing is subject to change with 30 days' notice to existing subscribers.

Billing: Paid subscriptions are billed monthly in advance to the payment method you provide. You authorize us to charge your payment method on a recurring basis until you cancel.

Refunds: Within 14 days of your initial paid subscription, you may request a full refund by contacting support. After 14 days, refunds are prorated for unused subscription time at our discretion.

Cancellation: You may cancel your subscription at any time through your account settings. Your site remains live through the end of the billing period, then goes offline. There are no cancellation fees.

Failed Payments: If a payment fails, your published site may go offline until payment is restored. We will attempt to notify you before this occurs.

4. Customer Content

Ownership: You retain all ownership rights to the business information, photos, logos, brand assets, and other content you provide to the Service ("Customer Content").

License to LightningWeb: You grant us a worldwide, non-exclusive, royalty-free license to use, store, reproduce, modify, and display your Customer Content solely to provide the Service to you.

No AI Training: We do NOT use your Customer Content to train third-party AI models. Your business information, customer data, chat messages, and uploaded assets remain your property and are not used for model training.

Your Responsibilities: You represent and warrant that:

• You have the right to provide all Customer Content
• Your Customer Content does not violate any third-party intellectual property rights
• Your Customer Content is accurate and does not contain false advertising or misleading claims
• You will not upload content that is illegal, defamatory, obscene, or harmful

5. AI-Generated Content

The Service uses AI to generate website copy, layouts, images, and other elements. You acknowledge:

• AI-generated content may contain inaccuracies; you are responsible for reviewing all generated content before publishing
• We do not guarantee that AI-generated content is unique or non-infringing
• You retain ownership of the published website created using the Service, subject to these Terms
• AI-generated images may include stock photography from Pexels or other providers under their respective licenses

6. Acceptable Use

You agree not to:

• Use the Service for any illegal purpose
• Publish false, fraudulent, or misleading content
• Impersonate any person or entity
• Upload malware, viruses, or harmful code
• Attempt to gain unauthorized access to the Service or other accounts
• Resell or sublicense the Service without our written permission (Agency plans permit specific resale terms — contact us)
• Scrape, mine, or extract data from the Service in bulk
• Use the Service to send spam, phishing, or unsolicited communications
• Build websites for industries that violate our acceptable use policy (gambling, adult content, illegal substances, weapons)

We reserve the right to suspend or terminate accounts that violate these terms.

7. Storefront and Payments

For customers using the integrated storefront feature:

• Payments are processed by Stripe; you are responsible for accepting Stripe's terms separately
• You retain 100% of revenue minus Stripe's standard processing fees; LightningWeb takes 0% of storefront revenue
• You are responsible for tax collection, remittance, shipping fulfillment, and customer service
• You are responsible for the legality of products and services you sell

8. Third-Party Services

The Service integrates with third-party providers including Stripe (payments), Supabase (database), Vercel (hosting), Anthropic and Google (AI services), Pexels (stock photos), and Google Analytics (tracking). Your use of these integrations is subject to the respective providers' terms.

9. Intellectual Property

The Service, including all software, design, branding, and content (excluding Customer Content), is owned by LightningWeb or its licensors and protected by intellectual property laws. You may not copy, modify, distribute, or reverse engineer any part of the Service.

The Service Defined. "The Service" includes, without limitation, the underlying software, system prompts, cluster system, motion library, palette engine, AI orchestration pipeline, generation pipeline, curated section library, design system, and all derivative works thereof.

No Competing Service. You may not use the Service, or any output of the Service (including generated websites, generated code, generated copy, or generated imagery), to build, train, develop, market, or operate a competing AI website generation service, website builder, or substantially similar product. This includes reverse-engineering the Service's output to recreate its underlying methodology.

No AI Training on Service Output. You may not use AI-generated content from the Service, or content from any customer website built using the Service, to train, fine-tune, or evaluate machine learning models without our express written permission. This restriction applies whether the training data is used commercially or for research purposes.

10. Limitation of Liability

TO THE MAXIMUM EXTENT PERMITTED BY LAW:

• The Service is provided "AS IS" without warranties of any kind, express or implied
• We do not warrant uninterrupted, error-free, or secure operation of the Service
• We are not liable for indirect, incidental, special, consequential, or punitive damages
• Our total liability for any claim arising from these Terms or the Service is limited to the amount you paid us in the 12 months preceding the claim
• These limitations apply regardless of the legal theory of the claim

Some jurisdictions do not allow these limitations; they apply to the maximum extent permitted by law.

11. Indemnification

You agree to indemnify and hold harmless LightningWeb, its officers, directors, employees, and agents from any claims, damages, losses, liabilities, costs, and expenses (including reasonable attorneys' fees) arising from:

• Your use of the Service
• Your Customer Content
• Your violation of these Terms
• Your violation of any third-party rights

12. Termination

We may suspend or terminate your account at any time for violation of these Terms or for any reason with reasonable notice. Upon termination, your access to the Service ends, and your published site will go offline. We will retain your data for 30 days post-termination during which you may export it; after 30 days, we may delete your data.

You may terminate your account at any time through your account settings or by contacting support.

13. Changes to Terms

We may update these Terms from time to time. Material changes will be communicated by email or dashboard notification at least 30 days before taking effect. Continued use of the Service after changes take effect constitutes acceptance.

14. Governing Law and Disputes

These Terms are governed by the laws of the State of Delaware, United States, without regard to conflict of law principles. Any disputes arising from these Terms or the Service shall be resolved through binding arbitration in Delaware, except that either party may seek injunctive relief in court for intellectual property violations.

You waive any right to a jury trial or to participate in a class action lawsuit related to these Terms.

15. Miscellaneous

• Entire Agreement: These Terms, the Privacy Policy, and any plan-specific terms constitute the entire agreement between you and LightningWeb
• Severability: If any provision is found unenforceable, the remaining provisions remain in effect
• No Waiver: Our failure to enforce any provision does not waive the right to enforce it later
• Assignment: You may not assign these Terms without our written consent; we may assign these Terms in connection with a merger, acquisition, or sale of assets

16. Contact

For questions about these Terms, contact us at:

LightningWeb Email: support@lightningweb.io Website: https://lightningweb.io

17. Open-Source Components

The Service incorporates open-source software components, including but not limited to:

• React (MIT License)
• Next.js (MIT License)
• Tailwind CSS (MIT License)
• GSAP (commercial license held by LightningWeb for use in the Service; ScrollTrigger and related plugins used under commercial terms)
• Three.js (MIT License)
• Supabase JavaScript Client (MIT License)
• Stripe.js (Stripe Services Agreement)
• Express.js (MIT License)

A complete list with current versions and license texts is available at https://lightningweb.io/licenses.

Customer Content generated by the Service may include output that uses these components. Customer is responsible for honoring each component's license terms when redistributing or modifying generated code outside of the Service.

LightningWeb's incorporation of these components does not grant Customer any additional rights to the components themselves beyond what is provided by their respective licenses.

18. DMCA Copyright Policy

LightningWeb respects the intellectual property rights of others and expects every user of the Service — and every visitor to websites hosted through the Service — to do the same. This policy describes how copyright owners can report claimed infringement and how affected users can respond, in accordance with the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, 17 U.S.C. § 512 ("DMCA"). LightningWeb operates as a service provider within the meaning of the DMCA and maintains this policy to qualify for the safe harbors it provides.

18.1 Designated Copyright Agent

LightningWeb's Designated Agent for receiving notifications of claimed infringement, registered with the U.S. Copyright Office (Registration Number DMCA-1075715, effective July 16, 2026), is:

Avery Wilkerson
LightningWeb (service provider: Avery Wilkerson, d/b/a LightningWeb.io)
8874 Rolling Acres Trl
Fair Oaks Ranch, TX 78015
Phone: 432-638-7277
Email: hello@lightningweb.io

This designation can be verified in the U.S. Copyright Office's DMCA Designated Agent Directory (searchable at dmca.copyright.gov under "LightningWeb" or "Avery Wilkerson").

18.2 Reporting Copyright Infringement (Takedown Notice)

If you believe material available through the Service infringes your copyright, send a written notification to the Designated Agent above containing all of the following, per 17 U.S.C. § 512(c)(3)(A):

1. Identification of the copyrighted work you claim has been infringed (or, for multiple works at a single site, a representative list);
2. Identification of the material you claim is infringing and that you want removed or disabled, with information reasonably sufficient for us to locate it (include the specific URL(s));
3. A statement that you have a good-faith belief that use of the material in the manner complained of is not authorized by the copyright owner, its agent, or the law;
4. A statement that the information in the notification is accurate, and under penalty of perjury, that you are the copyright owner or authorized to act on the owner's behalf;
5. Your physical or electronic signature; and
6. Your contact information: name, mailing address, telephone number, and email address.

On receipt of a valid notice, we will remove or disable access to the identified material promptly and take reasonable steps to notify the user who posted it. Knowingly materially misrepresenting that material is infringing may make you liable for damages under 17 U.S.C. § 512(f).

18.3 Counter-Notification

If material you posted was removed or disabled and you believe this was a mistake or misidentification, you may send a written counter-notification to the Designated Agent containing all of the following, per 17 U.S.C. § 512(g)(3):

1. Identification of the material that was removed or disabled and the location where it appeared before removal;
2. A statement, under penalty of perjury, that you have a good-faith belief the material was removed or disabled as a result of mistake or misidentification;
3. Your name, address, and telephone number, and a statement that you consent to the jurisdiction of the federal district court for the judicial district in which your address is located (or, if outside the United States, any judicial district in which LightningWeb may be found), and that you will accept service of process from the person who filed the original notice or their agent; and
4. Your physical or electronic signature.

On receipt of a valid counter-notification we will forward it to the original complainant. Unless the complainant notifies us within 10 business days that they have filed a court action seeking to restrain the alleged infringement, we may restore the removed material within 10 to 14 business days.

18.4 Repeat Infringers

LightningWeb will, in appropriate circumstances, terminate the accounts of users who are determined to be repeat infringers.