Terms of Service

Effective date: May 7, 2026

1. Acceptance of Terms

By accessing or using SurgeNiche (the "Service"), you agree to be bound by these Terms of Service ("Terms"). If you do not agree, you must not use the Service. These Terms form a legally binding agreement between you and the operator identified in Section 12 below ("we", "us", or "our").

We may update these Terms at any time. Continued use of the Service after any changes constitutes your acceptance of the revised Terms.

2. Service Description

SurgeNiche is an AI-powered YouTube niche discovery platform. The Service scans publicly available YouTube channel data, detects trending topics and viral spikes, and presents opportunity scores to help content creators identify potentially underserved niches.

All data and insights provided by SurgeNiche are informational only. Nothing on the platform constitutes financial, investment, or business advice. Past spike patterns and opportunity scores are analytical signals, not guarantees of future channel performance, growth, or revenue.

3. Subscriptions & Billing

SurgeNiche offers the following subscription plans:

• Free — limited access to niche data with no charge.
• Basic — €9/month (or €90/year) — expanded niche discovery, spike alerts, and opportunity scoring.
• Premium — €19/month (or €190/year) — full access including advanced filters, trend history, and priority data refresh.

All payments are processed by Stripe Payments Europe, Limited. By subscribing, you authorize Stripe to charge your payment method on a recurring basis until you cancel. Prices include any applicable value-added tax where required.

4. Refund Policy

All sales are final. We do not offer refunds for any reason, including unused time on a billing period, accidental purchases, or dissatisfaction with the Service.

SurgeNiche relies on third-party AI providers (Anthropic, OpenAI) and infrastructure providers (Supabase, Vercel) whose costs are incurred immediately as you use the Service. AI features such as Niche Health Check, Content Angles, and replication clustering execute paid API calls the moment you trigger them. Because those costs cannot be recovered, we cannot return them to you in the form of a refund.

EU 14-day right of withdrawal — express consent and waiver: Under Art. 16(m) of EU Directive 2011/83/EU and §356 (5) BGB, the 14-day right of withdrawal for digital content does not apply once performance has begun with your express prior consent and acknowledgment that you thereby lose the right of withdrawal. By initiating a paid subscription and using any feature of the Service before the 14-day window elapses, you give your express consent for performance to begin immediately and acknowledge that you waive your right of withdrawal. The Stripe checkout flow asks you to confirm this consent before completing payment.

Exceptions. We may review individual cases on request for: (a) duplicate charges caused by a payment-processor fault, (b) extended Service outages of more than 48 continuous hours, (c) charges made after a cancellation we failed to register. To request a review, email support@surgeniche.com within 14 days of the charge.

5. Cancellation

You may cancel your subscription at any time from the "Manage subscription" link in your account dashboard or by contacting us. Cancellation takes effect at the end of the current paid period; until then you retain full access to your tier's features. We do not prorate or refund the unused portion of a billing period.

After your subscription ends, your account moves to the Free tier. Your saved niches and account history are retained but features that exceed the Free tier limits become read-only or inaccessible until you re-subscribe.

6. Acceptable Use

You agree to use the Service only for lawful purposes and in accordance with these Terms. You must not:

• Scrape, crawl, or otherwise extract data from SurgeNiche through automated means beyond normal personal use of the web interface.
• Access the Service via automated scripts, bots, or third-party tools for the purpose of bulk data collection.
• Resell, sublicense, redistribute, or commercialize data or insights obtained from the Service without our express written permission.
• Attempt to reverse-engineer, decompile, or circumvent any aspect of the Service or its underlying infrastructure.
• Use the Service in any way that could impair its performance, availability, or integrity, or that could harm other users.

Violation of these rules may result in immediate termination of your account without refund.

7. Intellectual Property

SurgeNiche and its original content, features, and functionality are owned by ELM Social Media (Viktor Martinovic) and are protected by applicable intellectual property laws. You may not reproduce, distribute, or create derivative works from any part of the Service without explicit written permission.

YouTube channel data displayed within the Service is sourced via the YouTube Data API and is subject to the YouTube Terms of Service and Google Privacy Policy. SurgeNiche does not claim ownership over any YouTube content or channel data.

8. Disclaimer of Warranties

The Service is provided on an "as is" and "as available" basis without warranties of any kind, either express or implied, including but not limited to implied warranties of merchantability, fitness for a particular purpose, or non-infringement.

All niche data, opportunity scores, and trend signals are informational tools derived from publicly available data. Past spike patterns do not guarantee future results. SurgeNiche makes no representations about the accuracy, completeness, or timeliness of the data provided.

9. Limitation of Liability

To the maximum extent permitted by applicable law, we shall not be liable for any indirect, incidental, special, consequential, or punitive damages, including but not limited to loss of profits, data, or goodwill, arising from your use of or inability to use the Service.

In no event shall our total aggregate liability to you exceed the total amount you paid for the Service in the three (3) months immediately preceding the event giving rise to the claim. Mandatory statutory liability under applicable consumer-protection law remains unaffected.

10. Governing Law & Jurisdiction

These Terms are governed by the laws of the Federal Republic of Germany, excluding its conflict-of-law rules and the UN Convention on Contracts for the International Sale of Goods. The exclusive place of jurisdiction for all disputes arising out of or in connection with these Terms is Mülheim an der Ruhr, to the extent permitted by law.

Mandatory consumer-protection provisions of the country in which you habitually reside remain unaffected.

11. Changes to These Terms

We may update these Terms from time to time to reflect changes in the Service, applicable law, or our business practices. When we make material changes, we will update the effective date at the top of this page and may also notify you by email.

Your continued use of the Service after the revised Terms have been posted constitutes your acceptance of those changes. If you do not agree to the revised Terms, you must stop using the Service.

12. Operator & Imprint (Anbieterkennzeichnung gem. § 5 TMG)

Contact: support@surgeniche.com

VAT identification number: not applicable. Operates as Kleinunternehmer per § 19 UStG; no VAT is shown or charged.

Person responsible for content within the meaning of § 18 (2) MStV: Viktor Martinovic (address as above).

13. Contact

Questions about these Terms? Email us at support@surgeniche.com.