Terms

Short, because there is not much to agree to yet. Last updated 4 October 2026.

Your writing is yours

We claim no rights over anything you write. Not to use it, not to publish it, not to train anything on it. The files are ordinary Markdown. In a folder on your own computer they never leave it, and in a hosted project they sit on our infrastructure.

Hosting does not change that. Storing something in order to hand it back to you is not a licence to do anything else with it.

This is a preview, and it is unfinished

Longmatter is being built in the open. Features will change, some will be removed, and there will be bugs, including bugs nobody has found yet. Keep your own backups. That is ordinary advice for anything holding a manuscript, and it applies here more than usual.

The software is provided as it is, with no warranty of any kind. To the extent the law allows, we are not liable for lost work, lost time, or anything that follows from using it. Saying so plainly is more useful than burying it.

What you agree not to do

• Do not attack the service or try to reach anybody else's account or writing.
• Do not use it to break the law, or to store material that is illegal to hold.
• Do not resell it or present it as your own product.

Ordinary use of the editor on your own files is not restricted in any way, and there is nothing here about how much you may write or how often.

Accounts, and what is charged for

You can create an account with an email address and a password. Keep the password to yourself; anything done through your account is treated as done by you.

A folder on your own computer is free and always will be. There is no server in that path, so there is nothing to pay for. Hosted projects are $8 a month or $80 a year, taken by Stripe. You can cancel from inside the app at any time, through Stripe’s own page, which is also where a card is changed. Cancelling stops the next payment and leaves the current period alone; it is not refunded.

If you stop paying, your writing stays and keeps saving. Everything already in a hosted project remains readable and editable, and edits go on being saved. The only thing a lapsed subscription stops is starting a new hosted project. There is no lockout, no read-only mode, and no deletion for non-payment.

You can take a project out at any time, subscribed or not, as an archive of the Markdown files exactly as you wrote them. That is what makes the paragraph above something other than a promise.

Ending it

You can stop using Longmatter at any time by closing the tab. Your files are on your disk and need nothing from us. If hosted projects are in use, deleting an account removes everything it holds, and the export exists so you can take a copy first.

We may change or withdraw the hosted service. If that happens, there will be notice and an export, because the alternative is somebody losing a book to a shutdown announcement.

Governing law

These terms are governed by the laws of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, without regard to its conflict of law rules. Any dispute goes to the state or federal courts sitting in Massachusetts.

Who to contact

Write to hello@longmatter.com. Post reaches us at:

Longmatter
64 Lower County Rd
West Dennis, MA 02670
United States

Changes to these terms

They carry the date they were last changed. Nothing here is final; it is only set for now.