Terms of Service

Last updated: July 14, 2026

These Terms of Service (“Terms”) govern your use of Chess DNA at chessdna.io, operated by Starfish Engineering (“we”, “us”). By using Chess DNA, you agree to these Terms. If you do not agree, do not use the service.

1. Acceptance of terms

By creating an account or otherwise using Chess DNA, you accept these Terms and our Privacy Policy. If you use the service on behalf of an organization, you represent that you are authorized to accept these Terms on its behalf.

2. Description of the service

Chess DNA fetches your public Chess.com game history and analyzes it to produce analytics, a “chess personality type”, insights, and AI-generated coaching. The service is provided for analysis and entertainment. It is not professional coaching, and nothing in it is financial, investment, or other professional advice. We make no guarantee that using Chess DNA will improve your rating or results.

3. Accounts and eligibility

You must be at least 13 years old to use Chess DNA, or at least 16 in the European Economic Area and the United Kingdom. You are responsible for activity under your account and for keeping your login secure. You agree to provide accurate information and to only connect a Chess.com username that you have the right to use.

4. Acceptable use

You agree not to:

• Scrape, crawl, or bulk-download the service, or access it through automated means we have not authorized.
• Reverse engineer, decompile, or attempt to extract source code or underlying models.
• Interfere with, overload, or disrupt the service or its infrastructure.
• Attempt to gain unauthorized access to any account, system, or data.
• Use the service to break the law or to infringe anyone’s rights.

5. Subscription and billing

Chess DNA offers an optional “Pro” subscription for $7 per month, processed by Stripe. Subscriptions auto-renew monthly until canceled. You can cancel anytime through the Stripe billing portal; cancellation stops future renewals and your Pro access continues until the end of the current billing period.

Except where required by law, payments are non-refundable and we do not provide refunds for partial billing periods. We may change our prices; any change will apply to your next renewal after we give you notice.

6. Third-party services and Chess.com data

Chess DNA relies on third-party services — including Supabase, Vercel, Stripe, Resend, Anthropic, OpenAI, Meta, PostHog, and Vercel Analytics — and on the Chess.com public API as the source of your game data. Your use of the service may also be subject to those providers’ own terms.

You represent that you have the right to the Chess.com data associated with the username you connect. We access only data that Chess.com makes publicly available through its public API. Chess DNA is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or sponsored by Chess.com or Lichess. “Chess.com” is a trademark of its owner.

7. Intellectual property

The Chess DNA name, software, design, analytics, and content (excluding your underlying game data) are owned by Starfish Engineering and protected by intellectual-property laws. We grant you a limited, non-exclusive, non-transferable right to use the service for your personal use. You retain any rights you have in your own game data.

8. Disclaimers

The service is provided “as is” and “as available”, without warranties of any kind, whether express or implied, including warranties of merchantability, fitness for a particular purpose, and non-infringement. We do not warrant that the service will be uninterrupted, error-free, or that any analysis or AI output will be accurate. AI-generated coaching may be incomplete or wrong; use your own judgment.

9. Limitation of liability

To the maximum extent permitted by law, Starfish Engineering will not be liable for any indirect, incidental, special, consequential, or punitive damages, or for any loss of data, profits, or goodwill, arising from your use of the service. Our total liability for any claim relating to the service will not exceed the greater of the amount you paid us in the twelve months before the claim, or US $50.

10. Termination

You may stop using Chess DNA and delete your account at any time. We may suspend or terminate your access if you violate these Terms or if we reasonably need to protect the service or other users. Sections that by their nature should survive termination will survive.

11. Changes to these terms

We may update these Terms from time to time. When we do, we will revise the “Last updated” date above. Your continued use of the service after changes take effect constitutes acceptance of the updated Terms.

12. Governing law

These Terms are governed by the laws of the United States and the State of Delaware, without regard to conflict-of-laws principles. You agree to the exclusive jurisdiction of the courts located in Delaware for any dispute that is not otherwise resolved.

13. Contact

Questions about these Terms? Email Starfish Engineering at shaun@starfish.engineering.