Fair usage policy

Why a fair usage policy

Every plan, including Free, comes with unlimited chat widgets and unlimited conversations. We chose that instead of counters and overage fees because a chat that stops answering halfway through a month is a bad product. The cost of running the service, though, grows with the traffic it carries. This policy is how we keep unlimited honest: generous by default, with a conversation when usage becomes exceptional.

We expect the usage of most organizations to fall comfortably within the free plan, and the paid plans exist for features, not for volume.

What normal use looks like

A business, a freelancer or an agency running chats for its own websites and its own customers, with real people on the other side. Traffic that follows the rhythm of your site: quiet nights, busy launches, seasonal peaks. A one-off spike, a campaign or a viral week is exactly what the service is for and never a problem.

What counts as extensive usage

Usage is extensive when it stays far above what the rest of the platform does, month after month. As a guide, we consider an organization to be beyond fair use when it consistently:

• relays more than 50,000 messages per month across its chats, for three or four months in a row;
• stores more than 2 GB of uploaded media (header images, intro images and other assets);
• triggers more than 100,000 outbound event deliveries per month to its events webhook;
• keeps a chat under sustained automated load rather than human visitors.

The word that matters is consistently. Reaching one of these figures in one month is not a breach of this policy. Reaching it every month is a sign that your needs have outgrown the standard plans.

What is not allowed

These are outside fair use at any volume, and we act on them without waiting for a pattern:

• Running scripts, bots or load tests against a chat, or using the widget as a general-purpose API for machines rather than as a chat for people.
• Sharing one account or one paid organization with other companies or individuals to avoid paying for their own plan. Team seats are for the members of your organization.
• Creating many organizations or accounts to multiply free allowances.
• Sexual content involving minors, in any form. Absolute zero tolerance. Any chat, message, image or agent that depicts, describes, solicits, promotes or facilitates the sexual exploitation or abuse of children, or that attempts to contact minors for sexual purposes, is removed immediately, the account and organization are terminated permanently, and everything we hold is reported to law enforcement and to the relevant child-protection authorities. There is no warning, no appeal and no exception.
• Pornography, prostitution, escort services or anything related to them. This exclusion is strict: no adult content, no sexual services, no chats that promote, sell, arrange or advertise them, whatever the volume and whether or not it is legal where you are. Such chats and accounts are deleted on sight.
• Using a chat to send unsolicited messages, harvest data, distribute malware, or for anything described in the acceptable use section of our terms.

If you come across a Chat4Agent chat being used this way, please report it.

What happens when a limit is reached

1. We get in touch first. Nothing is switched off automatically. We email the owner of the organization, explain what we see and ask about your plans.
2. We propose a custom plan. It is sized on your actual usage and billed on its own schedule, so the price reflects what you use and nothing else.
3. You keep the choice. If a custom plan is not for you, we give you ample time to move to another solution, so that your visitors never meet a dead chat.

For the behaviour listed under what is not allowed, we may suspend the chats or the account concerned straight away and contact you afterwards.

Contact

Not sure whether your usage fits, or already know you will need more? Write to support@chat4agent.com. We would rather set something up in advance than surprise you.

This policy is part of our Terms & Privacy.