# How to write terms and conditions for a website or app

> Write terms and conditions for your actual service. Work through accounts, payments, user content, consumer rights, acceptance, and version history.

Published 2026-10-09 by Jitoma Solutions s.r.o. · 10 min read

Write terms and conditions from the way your service works: who can use it, what users can do, what they pay, and what happens when access ends. Draft the relevant clauses, check them against mandatory consumer rights, and put a clear acceptance step in the signup or purchase flow. Keep the version each user accepted so you can identify the agreement later.

Canonical URL: https://legalpolicygenerator.com/blog/how-to-write-terms-and-conditions

## Key takeaways

- Good terms start from an inventory of how your service really works, not from someone else's template.
- In the EU and UK, **unfair or unclear terms do not bind consumers**, so aggressive clauses can backfire.
- A checkbox or button that clearly says the user agrees is far stronger than a footer link.
- Date every version, keep copies, and record which version each user accepted.

## Step 1: Map how your service actually works

Write down the product rules before turning them into contract wording. Use the live signup, checkout, subscription, content, and cancellation flows as evidence of what you offer. If a draft promises a feature the product does not provide, resolve that mismatch before publication. These questions give you the facts for the clauses that follow:

- **Operator:** what is your exact legal entity name, address, and contact email?
- **Users:** consumers, businesses, or both? Is there a minimum age?
- **Accounts:** do users register, how do they log in, and can they delete the account?
- **Content:** can users post, upload, or share content? Is it public? Do you moderate it?
- **Money:** one-time purchases, subscriptions, free trials, or in-app purchases? Who processes payments?
- **Regions:** do you serve the EU, UK, US states, Canada, Australia, Brazil, or New Zealand?
- **Third parties:** which outside services do users touch through your product?

Each answer switches clauses on or off. A brochure website with no accounts needs a short set of terms. A subscription app with user uploads needs most of the checklist below. Writing for features you do not have adds risk, because inaccurate terms confuse users and can mislead consumers.

If you prefer to work through these questions interactively, the [website terms and conditions generator](https://legalpolicygenerator.com/website-terms-and-conditions-generator) asks them one at a time and shows a free preview.

## Step 2: Use this terms and conditions checklist

Most online terms follow a similar order. Use this as your checklist and skip whatever does not apply:

1. **Introduction and acceptance:** who you are, what the terms cover, and how agreement happens.
2. **Eligibility:** age limits and whether business users act for their company.
3. **Accounts:** registration, accurate information, credential security, and closure.
4. **The service:** what you provide, feature changes, and availability.
5. **Acceptable use:** prohibited conduct, security abuse, scraping, and unlawful content.
6. **Intellectual property:** what you own and the limited license users receive.
7. **User content:** ownership, the license you need to host it, moderation, and notices.
8. **Payments and subscriptions:** prices, taxes, billing, renewal, cancellation, and refunds.
9. **Third-party services:** links, integrations, and payment providers.
10. **Suspension and termination:** when and how either side can end the relationship.
11. **Disclaimers and liability:** limits that respect mandatory law.
12. **Disputes:** governing law, courts or arbitration, and complaints.
13. **Changes:** notice periods and effective dates.
14. **Contact:** how to reach you.

Link your privacy policy from the introduction rather than folding privacy disclosures into the contract. Our comparison of a [privacy policy vs terms and conditions](https://legalpolicygenerator.com/blog/privacy-policy-vs-terms-and-conditions) explains why the two should stay separate.

## Step 3: Draft accounts, acceptable use, and user content clauses

These clauses do the daily work of running a service, so make them specific.

**Accounts:** state who may register, that users must keep credentials secure, what happens to an account when the terms are broken, and how users can close it. Describe deletion consistently with your privacy policy.

**Acceptable use:** list the conduct you will act on, such as malware, unauthorised access, spam, harassment, infringement, and unlawful content. Concrete examples beat vague words like “inappropriate”.

**User content:** let users keep ownership and take only the license you need, such as hosting, displaying, and transmitting content to operate the service. A sweeping perpetual license to commercialise everything users upload invites distrust and may be challenged as unfair to consumers.

**Moderation:** if you remove content or suspend accounts, say how. For services offered in the EU, the Digital Services Act requires intermediary service providers to describe content restrictions, moderation policies and procedures, any algorithmic decision-making and human review, and internal complaint handling in their terms, in clear and unambiguous language.

**Copyright notices:** US services hosting user content usually publish a DMCA notice process and a repeat infringer policy if they want to rely on the statutory safe harbour.

## Step 4: Get payments, subscriptions, and refunds right

Money clauses attract the most complaints, chargebacks, and regulator attention, so write them from your actual checkout rather than from memory.

- **Price and taxes:** where the price is shown, whether taxes are included, and the currency.
- **Billing channel:** Stripe, Apple, Google Play, or another processor. App store purchases follow the store's billing and refund processes.
- **Renewal:** billing period, renewal date, and how price changes are announced.
- **Cancellation:** how to cancel, when it takes effect, and what access continues afterwards.
- **Refunds:** your own policy, plus any statutory rights you cannot remove.

Several laws shape these clauses. In the US, the Restore Online Shoppers' Confidence Act requires clear disclosure of material terms before collecting billing information, express informed consent before charging, and a simple way to stop recurring charges. California's automatic renewal law adds specific disclosure, consent, acknowledgement, and cancellation duties. In the EU and UK, consumers generally have a 14-day right to withdraw from distance contracts, with special rules for digital content and services that start immediately.

For subscription products, the [SaaS terms of service generator](https://legalpolicygenerator.com/saas-terms-of-service-generator) activates renewal and cancellation wording from your answers.

## Step 5: Check what consumer law will not let you say

This is the step most do-it-yourself terms skip. In consumer contracts, you cannot simply write whatever protects you most.

In the EU, the [Unfair Contract Terms Directive 93/13/EEC](https://eur-lex.europa.eu/eli/dir/1993/13/oj) treats a standard term as unfair if, contrary to good faith, it causes a significant imbalance in the parties' rights to the consumer's detriment. Unfair terms do not bind the consumer, written terms must be in plain and intelligible language, and doubts about meaning are resolved in the consumer's favour.

In the UK, Part 2 of the [Consumer Rights Act 2015](https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2015/15/part/2) applies a similar fairness test, requires written terms to be transparent, interprets ambiguity in the consumer's favour, and blocks any term excluding liability for death or personal injury caused by negligence. Its Schedule 2 lists examples of terms that may be unfair.

Red flags to remove or rewrite:

- changing prices or the service at will, without notice or a right to cancel
- refusing all refunds regardless of statutory rights
- excluding all liability, including for your own negligence
- binding users to changes they could never see

Australia, Brazil, Canada, and New Zealand have their own consumer protections too, so qualify every limitation with “to the extent permitted by law” and draft it to stay within that limit.

## Step 6: Write liability limits and dispute clauses that hold up

Liability and dispute clauses protect you only if they survive scrutiny. A few principles:

- **Carve out what you cannot exclude.** Death or personal injury caused by negligence, fraud, and mandatory consumer guarantees should sit outside your cap.
- **Keep caps proportionate.** Tying a cap to the fees paid over a recent period is a common pattern for paid services.
- **Do not misdescribe warranties.** “As is” wording may suit business users, but it cannot remove statutory consumer rights where they apply.
- **Respect consumer forum rules.** Under EU rules, consumers can generally sue in the courts where they live and keep the mandatory protections of their home country, even when your terms choose another law.
- **Treat arbitration as a US-specific choice.** US terms often include arbitration and class action waivers, which need clear notice and frequently offer an opt-out window. Do not impose them on EU or UK consumers as if the same rules applied there.

Keep the wording readable. Courts and regulators look harder at fine print that seems designed not to be read, and a clear clause is easier to defend than a clever one.

## Step 7: Design how users accept your terms

Well-drafted terms still fail if nobody agreed to them. US case law shows the pattern. In Nguyen v. Barnes & Noble (9th Cir. 2014), terms linked only at the bottom of the website did not bind a customer who had no notice of them. In Berman v. Freedom Financial Network (9th Cir. 2022), the court required a reasonably conspicuous notice and an action, such as clicking a button or checking a box, that unambiguously shows agreement.

A strong acceptance flow looks like this:

1. Place the terms link directly next to the action that creates the agreement: signup, checkout, or subscribe.
2. Use explicit wording such as “By clicking Create account, you agree to the Terms of Service.” An unticked checkbox is clearer still.
3. Make the link visible: readable size, contrasting colour, obviously a link.
4. Record the user, the timestamp, and the terms version accepted.
5. Let users store and reproduce the terms. The EU e-Commerce Directive requires that for contract terms offered online.

Apps add store-specific placement rules, which our guide to [terms and conditions for apps](https://legalpolicygenerator.com/blog/terms-and-conditions-for-apps) covers.

## Step 8: Version, update, and archive your terms

Terms change as your product changes: a new pricing plan, a marketplace feature, a new country. Handle changes deliberately.

- **Put an effective date at the top** and keep previous versions archived or publicly accessible.
- **Give notice before material changes take effect,** for example by email or in-app message, and summarise what changed.
- **Ask for fresh acceptance** when a change significantly affects users, such as new fees or a new dispute process.
- **Avoid unilateral change clauses** that let you rewrite anything at any time without notice; the EU unfair terms directive lists unilateral alteration without a valid reason as an example of a potentially unfair term.
- **Track which version each user accepted,** so you can show the governing terms in a dispute.

If you generate your terms, regenerate them from updated answers rather than hand-editing a stale copy. That keeps related clauses consistent: a new subscription tier should update the payment, cancellation, and refund sections together, not just one paragraph.

## Write it yourself, copy a template, or generate it?

You have three realistic routes:

- **Write from scratch:** maximum control, but slow, and it is easy to miss mandatory consumer wording.
- **Copy another company's terms:** fast, but that text is likely protected by copyright and describes their business, their entity, and their risks. See [can I copy a privacy policy](https://legalpolicygenerator.com/blog/can-i-copy-a-privacy-policy) for why the same problems apply to terms.
- **Use a generator or template:** fastest, provided it adapts to your facts instead of leaving blanks.

Legal Policy Generator takes the third route with deterministic, versioned clauses selected from your answers. Its Terms of Service cover accounts, acceptable use, user content, moderation, subscriptions and auto-renewal, refunds, regional consumer rights, the EU Digital Services Act, US DMCA notices, US arbitration, liability, and disputes. The questionnaire, full preview, and simple HTML and PDF download are free without an account. Advanced regional or optional modules cost $5.

Whichever route you choose, generated or templated terms are not legal advice. For high-value contracts, regulated products, or unusual risks, have a lawyer review the result.

## Common questions

### Can I write my own terms and conditions?

Yes. No law requires a lawyer to write terms and conditions. You can draft them yourself, adapt a template, or use a generator. The risks lie in missing mandatory consumer wording, copying clauses that do not match your product, or relying on terms users never clearly accepted. For complex or regulated services, a lawyer's review is worth considering.

### What should be included in terms and conditions?

Most terms cover acceptance, eligibility, accounts, the service, acceptable use, intellectual property, user content, payments and refunds, third-party services, suspension and termination, disclaimers and liability, governing law and disputes, changes, and contact details. Include only what matches how your service works, and link to a separate privacy policy.

### How long should terms and conditions be?

As long as your service requires and no longer. A simple website may need a page or two, while a marketplace with subscriptions, user content, and several regions needs much more. EU and UK law expects consumer terms to be plain and intelligible, so clear headings and short sentences matter more than length.

### Are terms and conditions legally binding?

They can be, when users have reasonable notice and clearly agree, for example by clicking a button labelled as acceptance. Individual clauses can still be unenforceable if they are unfair or unclear under consumer law. No document can promise enforceability, because presentation, acceptance records, and fair drafting all affect the outcome.

### How do I update my terms and conditions?

Publish the new version with a new effective date, tell users before material changes take effect, and ask for fresh acceptance when changes significantly affect them, such as new fees or dispute rules. Keep earlier versions archived and record which version each user accepted, so you can identify the governing terms later.

## Official sources

- [EU Unfair Contract Terms Directive 93/13/EEC](https://eur-lex.europa.eu/eli/dir/1993/13/oj)
- [UK Consumer Rights Act 2015, Part 2 unfair terms](https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2015/15/part/2)
- [Current EU Consumer Rights Directive consolidation](https://eur-lex.europa.eu/eli/dir/2011/83/2022-05-28)
- [Official EU Digital Services Act, Regulation (EU) 2022/2065](https://eur-lex.europa.eu/eli/reg/2022/2065/oj)
- [15 U.S.C. § 8403 recurring-charge requirements](https://uscode.house.gov/view.xhtml?edition=prelim&num=0&req=granuleid%3AUSC-prelim-title15-section8403)

Generated wording reflects supplied facts. It is not legal advice or a guarantee of compliance or enforceability.