Stave Terms of Service
Version 1.4 · Last updated: September 2026
In one paragraph
Stave is a Mac app made by Avysion that reads your bank SMS and email statements locally on your machine to help you understand your money. By using Stave, you agree to these terms. Stave is a tool for your personal use — it is not financial advice, it is not a bank, and it does not move your money. Because Stave runs on your own device and reads data Apple’s apps already store there, you are responsible for how you use it and for keeping your own Mac and data secure. The short version: use Stave reasonably, understand what it is and isn’t, and we’ll do our best to make it useful and keep it working.
1. Who these terms are between
These Terms of Service (“Terms”) are an agreement between you and Avysion, a partnership firm based in Gurugram, Haryana, India (“Avysion,” “we,” “us,” or “our”), the maker of Stave (“Stave,” “the app”).
By downloading, installing, or using Stave, you agree to these Terms and to our Privacy Policy, which is incorporated here by reference. If you do not agree, do not use Stave.
If you are using Stave on behalf of an organisation, you confirm you have authority to accept these Terms for that organisation.
2. What Stave is
Stave is a personal finance app for macOS. It reads transaction SMS and bank statement PDFs that are already stored on your Mac by Apple’s own apps (Messages and Mail), and organises them so you can see where your money goes. Processing happens on your Mac. Smart Assist, in the direct download, is optional and off unless you turn it on.
Stave ships in two editions from the same source code:
- Mac App Store edition — runs in the macOS App Sandbox and updates through the App Store.
- Direct download edition (getstave.app) — notarized and hardened-runtime, with anonymous diagnostics and software-update checks that are on by default and can be turned off in Settings.
The editions differ in distribution and diagnostics as described in our Privacy Policy. These Terms apply to both unless stated otherwise.
3. What Stave is NOT
This matters, so we’re explicit:
- Stave is not financial, investment, tax, or legal advice. It is a tool that organises information you already have. Any categorisation, total, summary, or insight Stave shows is for your personal understanding only. Decisions you make based on what Stave shows are your own.
- Stave is not a bank, payment service, or money-movement tool. Stave never connects to your bank, never holds your money, and cannot make payments, transfers, or transactions on your behalf.
- Stave is not an authoritative record. Stave reconstructs a financial picture from SMS and statements, which can be incomplete, delayed, or formatted in ways Stave doesn’t fully parse. Always treat your bank’s own statements as the source of truth. Do not rely on Stave for anything where accuracy is critical (for example, tax filing, loan applications, or reconciling disputes) without verifying against official bank records.
4. Accuracy and “as is”
Stave reads and interprets messages and documents created by third parties (your banks) in formats we don’t control and which change over time. We work hard to parse them correctly, but:
- Stave may miss transactions, misread amounts, miscategorise merchants, or fail to parse certain formats.
- Figures such as totals, balances, due dates, and amounts due are derived from the data available on your device and may be incomplete or out of date.
- Stave is provided “as is” and “as available,” without warranties of any kind, express or implied, including merchantability, fitness for a particular purpose, and non-infringement, to the maximum extent permitted by law.
You are responsible for verifying anything important against your bank’s official records.
5. Your responsibilities
By using Stave, you agree to:
- Use Stave only for your own personal, lawful purposes.
- Use Stave only with data you have the right to access (your own SMS, your own statements, your own accounts).
- Keep your Mac, your Apple ID, and your data secure. Because Stave’s data lives on your device and in your own private iCloud, your device security is your responsibility.
- Not attempt to use Stave to access, parse, or organise financial data that is not yours.
- Not reverse-engineer, resell, redistribute, or sublicense the app except as permitted by law or these Terms.
6. Licence
We grant you a personal, non-exclusive, non-transferable licence to use the app on your own Apple devices, in line with the applicable App Store terms (for the Mac App Store edition) or these Terms (for the direct download edition). The core app is free to use; access to Stave Pro features is governed by your subscription as described in section 7.
Mac App Store edition. If you downloaded Stave from the Mac App Store, your licence to use the app is Apple’s Licensed Application End User License Agreement. These Terms add to that agreement; where the two conflict, Apple’s agreement prevails.
You own your data. You do not own the app itself — you hold a licence to use it. The licence is for your personal use; you may not resell or redistribute the app or its licence.
Parser-improvement submissions. If you choose to send us something to help improve the parser — a masked outline of a statement Stave couldn’t read, a report of messages it couldn’t read, or a sample message through the getstave.app Contribute page — you give Avysion permission to use it to build and test Stave’s parser, including support for that bank’s format in future versions. You confirm you are entitled to share it. We handle it as described in Sections 3.8, 3.9, and 3.11 of our Privacy Policy and never sell it or use it for anything else.
7. Pricing, subscription, and refunds
Stave has a free tier and a paid tier:
- The core app is free. Transaction tracking, categorisation, history, and basic breakdowns are free to use and stay free — they are never paywalled, whether or not you ever subscribe.
- Stave Pro is a monthly subscription covering the intelligence layer: recurring-payment detection, natural-language search, and further analysis features as they ship. The current price is shown in the app and, for the direct download edition, on our pricing section and at checkout. New users get a 3-month free trial of Pro (on the Mac App Store, an introductory offer on the subscription, described below). When a trial ends and Pro is not continued, the free tier keeps working and anything Pro already produced stays visible — only new Pro output stops. During the public beta of the direct download edition, all of Stave is free to use.
Where you subscribe matters for billing and refunds:
- Mac App Store edition. Stave Pro is an auto-renewing monthly subscription purchased through your Apple Account. New subscribers may be eligible for a 3-month free introductory offer. Unless you cancel at least 24 hours before the trial or the current period ends, the subscription renews automatically and your Apple Account is charged the monthly price shown in the app. You can manage or cancel it in your App Store account settings. Billing and refunds are handled by Apple under the App Store’s terms; refund requests go through Apple, not us — we cannot directly issue or deny them.
- Direct download edition. Subscriptions are billed through our payment provider (Razorpay) via checkout on getstave.app, which collects your email address to deliver your license key and manage your subscription — see Section 3.10 of our Privacy Policy for what that involves. You can cancel at any time, and we offer a 14-day refund on any charge. The full details are in our Refund & Cancellation Policy.
We may change the subscription price in the future. Existing subscribers are notified in advance before any price change affects their billing — a change never applies silently to a renewal.
8. Updates and changes to the app
We may release updates that add, change, or remove features. We aim to improve Stave over time, but we don’t guarantee any specific feature will be added, kept, or supported indefinitely. For the direct download edition, software-update checks are described in our Privacy Policy. For the Mac App Store edition, updates come through the App Store.
We may discontinue the app or an edition. If we do, your locally stored data remains yours and on your device; we’ll give reasonable notice where we can.
9. Third-party services and platforms
Stave runs on Apple platforms and uses Apple frameworks and services (macOS, the App Sandbox, CloudKit for optional sync, Apple’s on-device Foundation Models, CoreML). Your use of these is also governed by Apple’s terms. We are not responsible for Apple’s services, your bank’s SMS or statement formats, or any other third party whose data or platform Stave interacts with.
Stave does not use third-party cloud AI services by default. The direct download edition has one opt-in exception — Smart Assist, which may send merchant names, category-search phrases, a redacted copy of a message, or a statement email’s password instructions (dates and digits removed) to OpenAI — described in full in Section 3.7 of our Privacy Policy. Separately, if you choose to send a masked outline of a statement Stave couldn’t read, it goes to our own server at getstave.app (or, in the Mac App Store edition, by email from your own address) and nowhere else (Section 3.11 of our Privacy Policy). Stave does not use bank-login aggregators or third-party analytics SDKs, as detailed in our Privacy Policy.
10. Limitation of liability
To the maximum extent permitted by law:
- We are not liable for any indirect, incidental, special, consequential, or punitive damages, or for any loss of data, profits, or financial outcomes, arising from your use of or inability to use Stave.
- We are not liable for decisions you make based on information Stave shows, including any financial loss resulting from incomplete, delayed, or incorrect data.
- Our total liability to you for any claim relating to Stave is limited to the amount you paid for Stave Pro in the 12 months before the claim.
Some jurisdictions don’t allow certain limitations, so some of these may not apply to you. Nothing in these Terms limits liability that cannot be limited by law.
11. Indemnity
You agree to indemnify and hold Avysion harmless from claims, damages, or expenses arising from your misuse of Stave, your violation of these Terms, or your use of Stave with data you don’t have the right to access.
12. Termination
You may stop using Stave at any time and delete it from your Mac. We may suspend or end your licence if you materially breach these Terms (for example, by reselling the app or using it to access data that isn’t yours). On termination, your locally stored data remains on your device under your control; deleting the app removes it as described in our Privacy Policy.
13. Governing law and disputes
These Terms are governed by the laws of India. Any dispute relating to Stave or these Terms is subject to the exclusive jurisdiction of the courts of Gurugram, Haryana, India.
14. Changes to these Terms
We may update these Terms. The version number and date at the top reflect the current version. Material changes are posted on this page and, where practical, noted in the app. Continuing to use Stave after a change means you accept the updated Terms.
Contact
Questions about these Terms:
Email: stave@avysion.studio
Website: https://www.getstave.app/
Stave is built by Avysion in India.