Terms

Last updated 2026-10-01

What this is

SocialEar watches public conversations on Reddit, Hacker News, Lobsters, YouTube, Instagram, TikTok, X and LinkedIn for words you choose and shows you what it finds. It is a monitoring tool, not an archive, and not a guarantee: every platform limits how often it can be read, some are occasionally unavailable, and a busy place can produce more between two checks than one check can hold. We work hard to catch everything and we do not promise to.

Not affiliated with any platform

SocialEar is an independent product. It is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or sponsored by Reddit, Y Combinator, Lobsters, Google, YouTube, Meta, Instagram, TikTok, ByteDance, X Corp., LinkedIn or Microsoft. Their names are their trademarks. We read what they show publicly, under their terms, and if those terms change this service changes with them. What they publish belongs to them and to the people who wrote it, not to us or to you.

Your account

You must be at least 16. One person per account, and you are responsible for what happens under it, including keeping your password and your API keys to yourself. Creating an account means agreeing to these terms and to the privacy policy.

What you may not do

Do not use this to harass anyone, to build a profile of a private individual, or for anything a platform's own rules prohibit. Do not resell, republish or redistribute the content it collects as a dataset. Do not try to get around plan limits, rate limits or credit metering, and do not probe or load the service in ways it is not meant for. We will close accounts that do any of this.

The API

API keys act with the full authority of your workspace, so treat them like passwords: keep them out of client code and repositories, and revoke one the moment you think it has leaked. Requests are metered in credits and rate limited per your plan. We may revoke a key that is abusing the service or the platforms behind it.

Money

The Starter plan starts with a 14-day trial; the other self-serve plans have none and are billed from their first day. A card is taken when the trial starts and nothing is charged until it ends; cancel before then, in Settings, on the billing page or in Polar's portal, and it never is. Moving to another plan during the trial ends it, and the new plan is charged that day. When the trial ends the plan renews at its price on the cycle you chose, and we email you a few days beforehand to say so. One trial per person: Polar declines a second one to the same email or card, and a subscription taken after that is billed from its first day. Plans bill monthly or yearly through Polar, who are the merchant of record. Cancel any time, in Settings or in Polar's portal, and you keep the plan until the period you paid for ends; nothing is charged after that. We do not pro-rate refunds, but if something went genuinely wrong, write to support@socialear.app and we will sort it out. If a price changes, we email you at least thirty days before it applies to your next renewal. When a subscription ends, the workspace pauses: nothing in it can be read until a plan is chosen again, and its history is kept for 90 days before the retention sweep drops it.

What we promise, and what we do not

The service is provided as it is. We do not promise it will be available at every moment, that it will catch every mention, or that what a platform shows is accurate or will stay online. Content you see here was written by other people and is theirs. To the extent the law allows, our total liability to you for anything arising from the service is limited to what you paid us in the twelve months before the claim, and we are not liable for indirect losses such as lost revenue or lost data. Nothing here removes rights the law does not let us remove.

Ending it

You can delete your account whenever you like, under Settings → Delete account. We can close one that breaks these terms. Either way your data goes with it, immediately.

Changes

When these terms change materially we email you at least fourteen days before the change applies; the date at the top always says when they last did. Using the service after that date means accepting the new terms. Questions: support@socialear.app.