Terms of Service · Thelemail

Effective date: 11 June 2026

These Terms of Service (“Terms”) govern your use of Thelemail, an encrypted email hosting service provided by Vladislav Gorokhov, trading as an Empresário em Nome Individual registered in Portugal at Praça de Bocage 67, 2900-277 Setúbal (“Thelemail”, “we”, “us”). By creating an account or using the service, you agree to these Terms.

If you do not agree, do not use the service.

1. The service

Thelemail provides encrypted email hosting: mailboxes on the thelemail.com domain or on custom domains you own, with zero-access encryption at rest, end-to-end encryption between Thelemail accounts, and encryption to external recipients who publish a compatible OpenPGP key. The technical scope of what is and is not protected is described in our threat model, which forms part of how the service is described but is not a guarantee beyond what these Terms state.

2. Accounts and eligibility

You must be at least 16 years old to create an account. You are responsible for the accuracy of the information you provide, for maintaining the confidentiality of your password and recovery material, and for all activity under your account.

Important (zero-access consequence): your stored mail is encrypted with keys derived from your password. We do not hold your password or keys. If you lose your password and your recovery phrase, we cannot decrypt or restore your stored mail. This is a deliberate design property of the service, not a defect, and we are not liable for data loss resulting from lost credentials.

3. Plans, billing and payment

Plans are billed annually in advance. Current plans and prices are listed at thelemail.com/pricing. Prices exclude VAT, which is added at checkout where applicable.
Payment is by card, processed by Stripe. We do not store full payment card details.
For per-mailbox plans, adding or removing mailboxes mid-term is prorated against the remaining term.
Founder rate-lock: where offered, your signup price remains fixed for as long as your subscription stays continuously active. A lapse in subscription ends the rate-lock.
Prices for new terms may change; we will notify you before any renewal at a changed price.

4. Refunds and the 30-day guarantee

New subscriptions are covered by a 30-day money-back guarantee: if you are not satisfied, contact us within 30 days of your first payment for a full refund. After 30 days, fees for the current term are non-refundable except where required by law. Renewals can be cancelled any time before the renewal date.

5. Cancellation and termination by you

You may cancel at any time from your account settings. Cancellation stops future renewals; the service remains available until the end of the paid term. You may export your mail at any time, including after cancellation until the account is closed.

6. Acceptable use

You agree not to use Thelemail to:

send spam, bulk unsolicited mail, or mail that violates anti-spam laws (including the ePrivacy rules and CAN-SPAM where applicable);
conduct phishing, fraud, or distribution of malware;
harass, threaten, or harm others, or infringe others’ rights;
violate any applicable law;
attempt to probe, breach, or disrupt the service or other users’ accounts;
resell the service or operate it as your own email provider for third parties without our written agreement.

Because all customers share sending infrastructure, abuse by one account damages mail delivery for everyone. We therefore enforce sending rate limits and may suspend or terminate accounts engaged in abuse immediately and without prior notice. Where reasonably possible we will notify you and, for paid terms terminated for reasons other than abuse, refund the unused portion.

7. Termination or suspension by us

We may suspend or terminate your account if you materially breach these Terms, if required by law, or if your use creates a serious risk to the service or other users. For breaches capable of remedy, we will normally give you notice and an opportunity to remedy before termination, except in cases of abuse under Section 6.

8. Service availability and support

We aim for high availability but do not guarantee uninterrupted service. Planned maintenance and incidents are communicated on our status page. Support is provided by email on a reasonable-efforts basis; plans that include priority support receive faster response targets as described on the pricing page.

9. Service changes and discontinuation

We may improve or modify the service over time. If we ever discontinue Thelemail, we commit to: a minimum of six (6) months’ advance notice, keeping export tools available throughout the notice period, refunding the unused portion of prepaid terms, and providing reasonable migration assistance (custom-domain users can redirect their mail by changing their DNS records at any time).

10. Your content

You retain all rights to the contents of your mail. We claim no ownership of it. Due to the zero-access design, we cannot read your stored mail; we process message data only as technically necessary to provide the service (e.g. transmitting messages you send, encrypting inbound messages to your key on receipt), as described in the Privacy Policy.

You are responsible for the content you send. You warrant that your use does not infringe third-party rights or law.

11. Custom domains

You are responsible for owning and controlling any custom domain you connect, and for maintaining its DNS configuration. Loss of domain control may interrupt mail flow; we are not responsible for domains you do not maintain.

12. Intellectual property

The Thelemail service, software, and branding are our property or that of our licensors. Where we publish client application source code, its use is governed by the licence attached to that code, not by these Terms.

13. Disclaimers

The service is provided “as is” and “as available”. To the maximum extent permitted by law, we disclaim all warranties not expressly stated in these Terms, including fitness for a particular purpose. Email as a system has inherent limitations described in our threat model (for example, messages exchanged with external providers over standard SMTP are not end-to-end encrypted, and envelope metadata is visible); we do not warrant protection beyond what the service technically provides.

Nothing in these Terms excludes liability that cannot be excluded under applicable law, including under Portuguese and EU consumer protection law.

14. Limitation of liability

To the maximum extent permitted by law, our total aggregate liability arising out of or relating to the service in any 12-month period is limited to the amounts you paid us in that period. We are not liable for indirect or consequential losses, loss of profits, or loss of data except where caused by our breach of these Terms or by our failure to exercise reasonable care, and except for liability that cannot lawfully be limited (including for intent or gross negligence, death or personal injury).

This limitation does not affect your statutory rights as a consumer.

15. Changes to these Terms

We may update these Terms. For material changes we will notify you (by email or in-product notice) at least 30 days before they take effect. If you do not agree to the changes, you may cancel before they take effect and receive a pro-rata refund of the unused term.

16. Governing law and disputes

These Terms are governed by the laws of Portugal, without prejudice to mandatory consumer protections of your country of residence within the EU. Disputes are subject to the jurisdiction of the Portuguese courts; consumers may also bring proceedings in their country of residence. EU consumers may use the European Commission’s Online Dispute Resolution platform.

17. Contact

Vladislav Gorokhov (Empresário em Nome Individual) Praça de Bocage 67, 2900-277 Setúbal, Portugal Email: legal@thel.email

These Terms were last updated on 11 June 2026.