Terms of Service

Effective

These Terms of Service ("Terms") are a binding agreement between you and Verbalta, Inc., a Delaware corporation ("Verbalta," "we," "us"), located at 16690 Collins Avenue, Suite 1004, Sunny Isles Beach, FL 33160, United States. They govern your use of the Verbalta website at verbalta.com and the Verbalta English practice service delivered through WhatsApp (together, the "Service").

PLEASE READ SECTION 19 CAREFULLY. DISPUTES MUST FIRST GO THROUGH MEDIATION AND THEN BINDING INDIVIDUAL ARBITRATION. YOU WAIVE YOUR RIGHT TO A JURY TRIAL AND TO PARTICIPATE IN A CLASS ACTION. YOU MAY OPT OUT WITHIN 30 DAYS BY EMAIL OR MAIL AS DESCRIBED IN SECTION 19.8. IF YOU LIVE OUTSIDE THE UNITED STATES, SECTION 20 MAY REPLACE SECTION 19 ENTIRELY.

1. Acceptance and eligibility

By creating an account and checking the acceptance box at signup, you agree to these Terms and acknowledge our Privacy Policy at https://www.verbalta.com/privacy/. If you do not agree, do not use the Service.

Age. You must be 18 or older to create an account, agree to these Terms, and pay for a subscription. A parent or legal guardian may create an account and permit a learner aged 13 to 17 to use the Service under their supervision; in that case the adult is the account holder, is responsible for everything done on the account, and gives the voice-data consent on the minor's behalf. The Service is not available to anyone under 13, and we do not knowingly permit under-13 use. If we learn that an account is held by someone under 18 without a supervising adult, or used by anyone under 13, we will close it and delete the associated data.

2. What the Service is — and is not

Verbalta is an AI-powered English speaking practice service. You exchange voice and text messages with an AI coach over WhatsApp. The Service uses large language models, automated speech-to-text, and text-to-speech to run these conversations, and it maintains a personal record of your recurring errors, study plans, and progress to personalise your coaching over time (your "Learning Profile").

The Service is not:

  • A school, accredited course, or credential. Completing sessions or exercises does not certify any proficiency level, and nothing the Service produces should be presented as a qualification.
  • An assessment or screening tool. The Service is for your own practice. It is not designed or licensed to evaluate, rank, screen, admit, hire, promote, or grade any person, and you may not use it or its output for those purposes (see Section 12).
  • Immigration, legal, medical, therapeutic, or professional advice. Nothing the AI coach says should be relied on for visa applications, legal proceedings, medical decisions, or professional certification — including practice scenarios framed around interviews, appointments, or official meetings, which are exercises only.
  • A speech therapy or health service. The Service does not diagnose or treat any speech, language, hearing, or medical condition. If you have a clinical concern, see a qualified professional.
  • A crisis or emergency service. If you are in danger or in crisis, contact local emergency services.
  • A human tutor. Responses are generated by artificial intelligence and may be inaccurate, incomplete, or inappropriate despite our efforts. See Section 12.

3. You are talking to an AI

The Verbalta coach is an artificial intelligence system, not a person. We tell you this before your first practice session, the coach will confirm it plainly if you ask, and we identify it as AI wherever a reasonable person might be uncertain. This disclosure is made in accordance with Article 50 of Regulation (EU) 2024/1689 (the EU AI Act) and as a matter of general practice everywhere else.

The coach's voice is synthetic. It is not a recording of a specific real person speaking to you.

4. Your account and phone number

You create an account on verbalta.com using our login provider and your WhatsApp phone number. Your WhatsApp number is how the coaching side of the Service identifies you. You must provide a number you own and control, verify it during signup, and keep it current. Your account area on verbalta.com is where you manage your details, billing, reminder settings, consents, and data.

If you change numbers, update your account before losing access to the old number. If you lose access to your number, contact support@verbalta.com; we may require additional verification before restoring access, and we may be unable to restore history associated with a number we cannot verify you control.

You are responsible for activity on your account and for keeping your credentials secure. The Service is licensed for your individual use; do not share it.

By signing up and checking the messaging consent box, you expressly consent to receive messages from Verbalta on WhatsApp at the number you provide, including:

  • Conversation and coaching messages during your practice sessions;
  • Practice reminders and study-plan updates, up to one reminder a day by default, adjustable in your account settings;
  • Service and account notices (billing, renewal, policy changes).

Message and data rates from your carrier may apply. Consent to reminder messages is not a condition of purchase; you can use the Service with reminders turned off.

To stop reminders: turn them off in your account settings, or reply STOP to any reminder. For help, reply HELP or email support@verbalta.com.

Messages sent outside WhatsApp's 24-hour customer service window use Meta-approved template messages. WhatsApp is operated by Meta Platforms and its availability is outside our control (see Sections 14 and 15).

6. Free practice, subscription, and billing

Free practice allowance. New users receive 20 minutes of coaching free. No payment method is required to use it, and nothing is charged automatically when it runs out — when your free practice is used up, the coach will tell you, and you choose whether to subscribe.

Automatic renewal disclosure. If you subscribe, Verbalta is a paid subscription that renews automatically at the price and interval disclosed at checkout until you cancel. Before you provide payment details you will be shown, clearly and conspicuously, the price, the billing interval, that the subscription continues until cancelled, and how to cancel. You consent to those terms separately from your acceptance of these Terms, and we keep a record of that consent.

  • Merchant of record. Purchases are processed through Stripe, using Stripe's Managed Payments. Stripe acts as the merchant of record, which means Stripe is the seller of the subscription for payment, tax, and invoicing purposes, and applicable taxes are calculated and collected by Stripe. These Terms otherwise govern your use of the Service.
  • Renewal. Your subscription renews at the interval disclosed at checkout and is charged automatically until you cancel.
  • Price changes. We will notify you at least 30 days before a price change takes effect, and it applies only to renewals after that notice. If you do not agree, cancel before it takes effect.
  • Cancellation. Cancel at any time in your account on verbalta.com, or by sending a message with the word CANCEL (or CANCELAR) to the Verbalta WhatsApp number, or by emailing support@verbalta.com. Cancellation is always available through the same medium you used to subscribe, and is never harder than signing up. We will confirm your cancellation in writing and tell you the date your access ends. Cancellation takes effect at the end of the current billing period and you keep access until then.
  • Pausing. You may ask us to pause your subscription; we will confirm the pause and the restart date in writing.
  • Refunds. Except as required by law, by Section 20, or by Stripe's merchant-of-record refund policies, payments are non-refundable and we do not prorate partial periods. Statutory withdrawal and cancellation rights in your country always apply and are described in Section 20.
  • Failed payments. If a renewal charge fails, the charge may be retried and we may suspend the Service until payment succeeds.
  • Fair use. The Service is for normal individual practice. We may apply reasonable limits to prevent abuse, automated use, or use that is far outside ordinary human practice patterns. We will tell you before any limit affects you, and account and billing functions always remain available.

7. Acceptable use

You agree not to:

  • Use the Service for any unlawful purpose or in violation of these Terms;
  • Record any other person without their consent. You are responsible for making sure that anyone whose voice may be captured in a message you send has agreed to being recorded. Several jurisdictions — including Illinois, California, Florida, Pennsylvania, and Washington — require the consent of every party to a private conversation. Practice alone or with people who have agreed.
  • Attempt to extract, scrape, or systematically record the AI coach's outputs to build a competing product or to train another AI system;
  • Probe, disrupt, reverse engineer, decompile, overload, or circumvent the security, rate limits, or safeguards of the Service, or attempt to bypass the coach's safety behaviour;
  • Use the Service to generate or solicit content that is harassing, hateful, sexually explicit, that promotes violence or self-harm, or that exploits minors;
  • Use the Service to create synthetic or deceptive voice content, to impersonate any person, or to misrepresent your identity;
  • Use the Service, or its output, to evaluate, screen, hire, admit, promote, discipline, or grade any person (see Section 12);
  • Submit other people's personal information, government identification numbers, financial account numbers, or credentials;
  • Resell, sublicense, rent, or provide the Service to third parties;
  • Permit anyone under 13 to use the Service, or anyone under 18 to use it other than under the supervision of the adult account holder.

We may suspend or terminate accounts that violate this section (see Section 18). Verbalta is not responsible for any loss, claim, or liability arising from your unauthorised or improper use of the Service, from your use of it in breach of this section, or from your recording of any third party without consent, and Section 17 applies.

8. License to use the Service

Subject to these Terms and payment of applicable fees, we grant you a limited, personal, non-exclusive, non-transferable, revocable licence to use the Service for your own language learning. We reserve all rights not expressly granted.

9. Your content: recordings, transcripts, and licence

What we collect. When you practice, we receive and store your voice messages, text messages, the transcripts generated from them, and the assessments and Learning Profile derived from them ("Your Content").

Your ownership. You own your voice messages, text messages, and transcripts.

Licence to us. You grant Verbalta a worldwide, non-exclusive, royalty-free licence to host, store, transcribe, process, analyse, reproduce, and display Your Content solely to: (a) operate and provide the Service to you, including generating coaching responses, your error dictionary, review exercises, and progress tracking; (b) maintain safety and security; (c) produce aggregated or de-identified statistics that do not identify you and are not used to train any model; and (d) comply with law. This licence ends when you delete Your Content or your account, except for the short wind-down and backup-purge periods described in our Privacy Policy.

10. No AI training on your content

We do not use your voice recordings, transcripts, or conversations to train, fine-tune, or otherwise improve AI models. We do not build our own models. We use third-party AI providers through APIs, and we contract only with providers whose terms prohibit training on our customers' data. We do not sell, lease, trade, or otherwise profit from your voice or biometric data, and we never disclose Your Content to advertising partners.

If we ever wanted to change this, we would ask for your separate, opt-in consent first. Continuing to use the Service would not be treated as agreement.

Voice recordings receive the additional protections described in the Voice Data and Biometric Information section of our Privacy Policy, including:

  • written consent before your first recording, given through our consent screen, which states what we collect, the specific purpose, and how long we keep it;
  • a published retention and destruction schedule — recordings deleted from active systems within 30 days of transcription, backups purged on a rolling 35-day cycle;
  • no sale, lease, trade, or profit from voice or biometric data, ever;
  • no use of voice to identify or authenticate you, and no cross-account voice matching.

Your electronic acceptance of that consent screen is your written release for the purposes of the Illinois Biometric Information Privacy Act and equivalent laws. You may withdraw it at any time; because voice is how the coaching works, withdrawing it ends the practice part of the Service and we will delete your recordings and stop future charges.

12. AI terms: accuracy, limits, and human oversight

AI output can be wrong. Corrections, translations, pronunciation guidance, grammar explanations, and any factual statement made by the AI coach may contain errors. Your Learning Profile and any proficiency estimate are informal, automatically generated estimates, not certified evaluations. Verify important information independently and do not rely on the Service for high-stakes decisions.

No consequential decisions. You may not use the Service, or anything it produces, as a basis for decisions about any person's employment, education, admission, credentialing, immigration status, housing, credit, insurance, or access to any service or benefit. The Service is not validated for those uses, and using it that way breaches these Terms.

Profiling and personalisation. The Service automatically analyses your speech to estimate fluency, track recurring errors, and choose what to practice with you. This is how personalisation works. It produces no legal or similarly significant effect for you. You can obtain your full Learning Profile at any time under our Privacy Policy.

Human oversight and quality control. We periodically review samples of AI output for quality and safety, we maintain internal guidelines for the coach's behaviour, and we act on reports of harmful or inappropriate output. Reviews are performed by authorised staff under confidentiality obligations. Individual coaching messages are generated automatically and are not reviewed by a person before you receive them.

Report a problem. If the coach produces something inaccurate, offensive, or harmful, tell us at support@verbalta.com. We investigate reports and, where necessary, adjust the Service.

Third-party AI providers. The Service is built on third-party AI models. We do not control their internal workings, and their capabilities and limitations may change. We select providers whose terms prohibit training on your data and we require appropriate contractual protections, but we cannot guarantee any particular model behaviour.

Feedback. If you send us suggestions or feedback about the Service, we may use them without restriction or compensation.

13. Verbalta's intellectual property

The Service — including its software, prompts, coaching methodology, curriculum structures, error-tracking systems, brand, and design — is owned by Verbalta or its licensors and protected by intellectual property laws. "Verbalta" and our logos are our trademarks; do not use them without written permission. These Terms grant you no rights in our intellectual property except the licence in Section 8.

14. Third-party services

The Service depends on third parties we do not control, including Meta Platforms (WhatsApp), Stripe (payments), and our authentication, hosting, database, analytics, AI model, speech-to-text, and text-to-speech providers. The specific providers in these categories may change from time to time; a current list is available on request from support@verbalta.com. Your use of WhatsApp is also governed by WhatsApp's own terms and privacy policy. We are not responsible for the acts, omissions, or availability of third-party services, and interruptions caused by them are addressed by Section 15.

15. No warranty; no uptime guarantee

THE SERVICE IS PROVIDED "AS IS" AND "AS AVAILABLE." TO THE MAXIMUM EXTENT PERMITTED BY LAW, VERBALTA DISCLAIMS ALL WARRANTIES, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE, NON-INFRINGEMENT, AND ANY WARRANTY ARISING FROM COURSE OF DEALING.

We do not warrant that the Service will be free from defects, errors, or interruptions. While we strive for high availability, we do not guarantee any level of uptime, and the Service may be unavailable due to maintenance, technical issues, or the unavailability of third-party services (including WhatsApp) outside our control. We do not warrant that AI output will be accurate or that use of the Service will produce any particular learning outcome.

Nothing in this section affects rights you have under consumer protection law that cannot be excluded. Some jurisdictions do not allow disclaimers of implied warranties, and Section 20 applies.

16. Limitation of liability

TO THE MAXIMUM EXTENT PERMITTED BY LAW: (a) VERBALTA WILL NOT BE LIABLE FOR ANY INDIRECT, INCIDENTAL, SPECIAL, CONSEQUENTIAL, OR PUNITIVE DAMAGES, OR FOR LOST PROFITS, DATA, OR GOODWILL; AND (b) VERBALTA'S TOTAL LIABILITY FOR ALL CLAIMS RELATING TO THE SERVICE WILL NOT EXCEED THE GREATER OF THE AMOUNTS YOU PAID FOR THE SERVICE IN THE 12 MONTHS BEFORE THE CLAIM AROSE OR $100.

These limits apply regardless of the theory of liability and even if a remedy fails of its essential purpose.

Nothing in these Terms limits or excludes liability that cannot lawfully be limited, including liability for death or personal injury caused by negligence, for gross negligence, for wilful misconduct, or for fraud. Some jurisdictions do not allow certain limitations, and Section 20 applies.

17. Indemnification

To the extent permitted by law, and except where you are a consumer whose local law does not permit it, you will indemnify and hold Verbalta harmless from third-party claims arising out of Your Content, your violation of these Terms (including Section 7), your recording of any person without their consent, or your violation of law or third-party rights, including reasonable attorneys' fees. We will notify you promptly of any such claim and may participate in the defence with counsel of our choosing.

18. Suspension and termination

You may stop using the Service and delete your account at any time in your account settings; Section 6 governs the billing effects of cancellation.

We may suspend or terminate your access immediately if you materially breach these Terms, create risk or legal exposure for us, or if we discontinue the Service — in which case we will refund any prepaid fees for the undelivered period. Where practical and lawful, we will tell you why and give you a way to respond.

Sections 9 (licence, for the period needed to wind down), 10, 12, 13, 15, 16, 17, 19, 20, 21, and 23 survive termination.

19. Dispute resolution: mediation, then arbitration, then court

Please read this section carefully. It affects your legal rights. If you live outside the United States, read Section 20 first — it may replace this section entirely for you.

Disputes between you and Verbalta follow a three-step ladder: (1) notice and mediation, (2) binding individual arbitration, (3) court only for the limited matters described below.

19.1 Step one — dispute notice and mediation. Before filing any arbitration or court proceeding, the party raising a dispute must send written notice describing the claim and the relief sought to support@verbalta.com or to our address above (for notices from us, to the email on your account). The parties will first try in good faith to resolve the dispute directly for 30 days from the notice. If it remains unresolved, either party may initiate non-binding mediation administered by the American Arbitration Association (AAA) under its mediation procedures, conducted by videoconference unless the parties agree otherwise. Verbalta will pay the mediator's fees for consumer disputes. Neither party may commence arbitration or litigation until the earlier of (a) completion of one mediation session, or (b) 90 days after the dispute notice. All applicable statutes of limitation are tolled during this process. Settlement communications during this step are confidential and inadmissible.

19.2 Step two — binding individual arbitration. If the dispute is not resolved under Section 19.1, any dispute, claim, or controversy arising out of or relating to these Terms or the Service will be resolved by binding arbitration on an individual basis rather than in court. Arbitration will be administered by the American Arbitration Association (AAA) under its Consumer Arbitration Rules, which are available at adr.org, and which include the AAA's Consumer Due Process Protocol. The Federal Arbitration Act governs the interpretation and enforcement of this Section 19. The arbitrator is selected under AAA rules; hearings may be conducted by videoconference or, at your election, in the county where you live. The arbitrator has exclusive authority to resolve disputes about the interpretation, applicability, or enforceability of this arbitration agreement, except that a court decides the enforceability of the class waiver in 19.4. Judgment on the award may be entered in any court of competent jurisdiction.

Fees. Payment of filing, administration, and arbitrator fees is governed by the AAA rules. For claims of $10,000 or less, Verbalta will pay all arbitration fees other than your initial filing fee, unless the arbitrator finds the claim frivolous.

19.3 Step three — court, for limited matters only. Either party may: (a) bring an individual claim in small claims court; (b) seek injunctive relief in court for actual or threatened infringement or misuse of intellectual property or unauthorised access to the Service; and (c) go to court to compel arbitration, confirm or enforce an award, or where this arbitration agreement is found not to apply or has been properly opted out of under 19.8. Any such court proceeding is subject to Section 21 and the waivers in 19.4 and 19.5.

19.4 Class action waiver. YOU AND VERBALTA EACH WAIVE THE RIGHT TO BRING OR PARTICIPATE IN ANY CLASS, COLLECTIVE, CONSOLIDATED, OR REPRESENTATIVE ACTION, WHETHER IN ARBITRATION OR IN COURT. The arbitrator may award relief only to the individual party seeking relief and may not consolidate claims of more than one person without all parties' written consent.

19.5 Jury trial waiver. To the extent any claim proceeds in court, YOU AND VERBALTA EACH WAIVE THE RIGHT TO A JURY TRIAL.

19.6 Mass filings. If 25 or more demands for arbitration are filed against Verbalta by the same or coordinated counsel raising similar claims, the AAA's Mass Arbitration Supplementary Rules will apply and claims will be resolved in staged batches of 50, with a global mediation after resolution of the first batch.

19.7 Severability of this section. If the class action waiver in 19.4 is found unenforceable as to a particular claim, the arbitration agreement is null and void as to that claim, which will proceed in court under Section 21 — not as a class arbitration. The remainder of this Section 19 survives for all other claims. If any other part of this section is found unenforceable, it will be severed and the rest remains in effect.

19.8 30-day right to opt out. You may reject this arbitration agreement and class waiver within 30 days of the date you first accept these Terms, by either:

  • email to support@verbalta.com with the subject line "Arbitration Opt-Out", or
  • mail, postmarked within the 30 days, to: Verbalta, Inc., Attn: Arbitration Opt-Out, 16690 Collins Avenue, Suite 1004, Sunny Isles Beach, FL 33160, United States.

Your notice must include your name, the phone number and email on your account, and a statement that you opt out of arbitration. We will acknowledge your opt-out in writing. Opting out does not affect any other part of these Terms (including Section 19.1's mediation step and the waiver in 19.5) or your ability to use the Service.

19.9 Changes to this section. If we change this Section 19 after you accept these Terms, you may reject the change by written notice to support@verbalta.com within 30 days, in which case the prior version applies to disputes between us.

20. Consumers outside the United States

Nothing in these Terms takes away rights you have under the mandatory consumer protection law of the country where you live. Where those laws conflict with these Terms, those laws win. In particular:

20.1 European Economic Area, United Kingdom, and Switzerland. Section 19 (arbitration and class waiver) and the exclusive venue in Section 21 do not apply to you. You may bring proceedings in the courts of the country where you live, and the mandatory consumer law of that country applies. You have a 14-day right of withdrawal from a distance contract; if you ask us to start the Service immediately, you may still withdraw within 14 days and we will refund the amounts paid, less a proportionate amount for the Service already supplied. To withdraw, email support@verbalta.com. The warranty disclaimer in Section 15 and the liability limits in Section 16 apply only to the extent permitted by your national law, and do not limit our liability for death or personal injury, gross negligence, or wilful misconduct.

20.2 Brazil. Section 19 does not apply to you: under Article 51(VII) of the Código de Defesa do Consumidor, compulsory arbitration is not imposed on consumers. You may bring proceedings in your own domicile. Under Article 49 of the CDC you may cancel within 7 days of subscribing and receive a full refund of amounts paid; email support@verbalta.com or send CANCELAR on WhatsApp. A Portuguese version of these Terms and of our Privacy Policy is available on request from support@verbalta.com and prevails for consumers located in Brazil.

20.3 Mexico. Your rights under the Ley Federal de Protección al Consumidor and the Ley Federal de Protección de Datos Personales en Posesión de los Particulares are unaffected. A Spanish version of these Terms and of our Privacy Policy is available on request from support@verbalta.com and prevails for consumers located in Mexico. You may bring a complaint to PROFECO, and Section 19 does not prevent you from doing so.

20.4 Canada. Your rights under applicable provincial consumer protection legislation are unaffected. If you live in Quebec, Section 19 does not apply to you and you may bring proceedings in Quebec; a French version of these Terms and of our Privacy Policy is available on request from support@verbalta.com and prevails for consumers located in Quebec. Nothing in these Terms waives any right under Quebec's Consumer Protection Act or Law 25.

20.5 Everywhere else. If the mandatory consumer law of your country makes any provision of Section 19, 15, 16, or 17 unenforceable against you, that provision does not apply to you and the rest of these Terms continues in effect.

20.6 Language. These Terms are written in English. Spanish, Portuguese, and French versions are available on request from support@verbalta.com. Where a translation is provided and you are a consumer in a country whose law requires contracts in your language, that translation governs your relationship with us.

21. Governing law and venue

These Terms are governed by the laws of the State of Delaware, without regard to conflict of laws rules, except that the Federal Arbitration Act governs Section 19 and except as provided in Section 20.

For any claim not subject to arbitration, you and Verbalta consent to the exclusive jurisdiction of the state and federal courts located in New Castle County, Delaware — except that you may bring small-claims cases where you live, Section 20 applies to consumers outside the United States, and nothing in this section overrides a consumer protection law of your home state or country that cannot be waived.

22. Changes to these Terms

We may update these Terms. For material changes, we will notify you at least 30 days in advance by WhatsApp message and email, and the changes will apply prospectively from the effective date. Your continued use after the effective date constitutes acceptance; if you do not agree, cancel before the changes take effect. We will not make material changes retroactively, and we will not treat silence as agreement to a change that materially reduces your rights without giving you a way to reject it and stop. The current version will always be posted at https://www.verbalta.com/terms/ with its effective date, and previous versions are archived and available on request from support@verbalta.com.

23. General

These Terms, together with the Privacy Policy, are the entire agreement between you and Verbalta about the Service. If any provision (other than as addressed in 19.7) is unenforceable, it will be modified to the minimum extent necessary or severed, and the rest remains in effect. Our failure to enforce a provision is not a waiver. You may not assign these Terms; we may assign them in connection with a merger, acquisition, or sale of assets. Notices to you may be sent to the email or WhatsApp number on your account.

We comply with applicable export control and sanctions laws, and you may not use the Service if you are located in, or ordinarily resident in, a country or region subject to comprehensive sanctions, or if you appear on a restricted-party list.

24. Contact

Verbalta, Inc. 16690 Collins Avenue, Suite 1004 Sunny Isles Beach, FL 33160 United States

support@verbalta.com — support, notices, cancellation, and arbitration opt-out