Terms of Service

Last updated: 2026-04-25 · Plain English first, then the lawyer parts.

The short version. Run as many free scans as you want, on stores you own or stores you have permission to audit. Don't use the service to attack other stores, scrape at scale, or republish our scoring engine as your own. The score is our best estimate of agentic-readiness — it's a guide, not a guarantee of search ranking. If you ever feel something has gone wrong, email and we'll fix it.

1. What CatalogScan does

CatalogScan reads the public surface of a Shopify (or compatible) store — /sitemap.xml, /products.json, the storefront HTML — and returns a 0–100 readiness score, a top-5 list of recommended fixes, and a public scorecard URL. The Pro tier (when launched) adds authenticated bulk-fix and weekly re-scans against your own store.

2. Acceptable use

You may use CatalogScan to:

Audit your own Shopify store as many times as you like.
Audit a competitor's publicly accessible store for benchmarking. The data we read is the same data ChatGPT and Perplexity crawlers already read — it's public by definition.
Embed your own public scorecard URL anywhere you'd like (blog post, slide deck, X thread).

You may not use CatalogScan to:

Run automated scans at a rate intended to circumvent our rate limits or denial-of-service the underlying stores. Per-IP rate limits exist for a reason.
Reverse engineer, copy, or rebrand the scoring engine. The scoring weights, signal definitions, and grading bands are our IP.
Attempt to authenticate as another merchant via the Pro tier.
Scan stores in bulk for the purpose of selling lead lists. Talk to us first if you want a partnership.

3. The score & report

The 0–100 score is our best estimate of how readable a store's catalog is to today's AI shopping agents (ChatGPT Shopping, Perplexity Shopping, Google AI Mode, Shopify Global Catalog). It is a heuristic — based on the 18 signals we describe at /signals/ and re-weighted as those agents evolve. It is not a guarantee of search ranking, traffic, or revenue.

Recommendations are general guidance. They are not legal, financial, or marketing advice. Test changes on a staging theme before pushing them live to your storefront.

4. Public scorecards

Each scan generates a public scorecard at /scorecard/{domain}/. Because the scan itself reads only public catalog data, the scorecard is a public-data summary — analogous to a SEO audit or a Lighthouse report. If you operate the scanned store and want the scorecard removed, see the contact section in our Privacy Policy and we will remove it within 7 days of receiving a verifiable request from a domain admin.

5. Free tier vs. paid tier

The free tier is offered as-is, with no SLA. We expect to keep it free indefinitely but reserve the right to introduce per-IP daily caps if we detect abuse. The Pro and Agency tiers (when launched) are billed monthly via Stripe, cancellable at any time with a full unused-month refund within the first 14 days of any given billing cycle.

6. Service availability

CatalogScan runs on a single VPS. We aim for 99% uptime in any given month but do not contractually guarantee it for the free tier. Planned maintenance windows, when needed, are announced on @bitinvestigator.

7. Intellectual property

Your data is yours. Any product information, store URLs, or descriptions you submit remain your IP. The scoring engine, signal definitions, weighting model, page templates, and brand assets are ours. The MIT-licensed code for the embeddable widget (when released) is the only part we license openly.

8. Warranty disclaimer

The service is provided "as is" without warranty of any kind, express or implied, including merchantability, fitness for a particular purpose, and non-infringement. While we genuinely care about getting the score right, we make no promises that scan results will reflect your performance in any particular AI agent's results.

9. Limitation of liability

To the fullest extent permitted by law, our total liability for any claim arising from your use of the free tier is capped at $0 (it's free). For paid tiers, our total liability is capped at the amount you paid us in the 90 days preceding the claim. We are never liable for indirect, incidental, consequential, or punitive damages — including lost revenue, lost rankings, or lost search traffic.

10. Indemnification

You agree to indemnify and hold us harmless from claims arising out of your misuse of the service or your violation of these Terms — for example, scanning a store you don't have permission to audit and using the result improperly.

11. Termination

You can stop using CatalogScan at any time by closing the tab. We can terminate or suspend access for any account violating these Terms — typically by IP-banning abusive scanners or revoking Pro-tier OAuth tokens. We'll explain why if you ask.

12. Changes to these Terms

We may update these Terms periodically. The "Last updated" date at the top reflects the current version, and any material change will be noted in the build-in-public log the day it ships. Continued use after a change means you accept the updated Terms.

13. 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. Any dispute that can't be resolved by email (see Privacy for contact) goes to binding arbitration seated in Wilmington, Delaware.

14. Contact

Questions about these Terms, partnership requests, or notices: DM @bitinvestigator on X.