BlackLab

Terms of service

Version 1 · 8 October 2026

Draft text, still to be checked by a lawyer.

1. About these terms

This is the agreement between you and the seller in section 2 (“we”) for using BlackLab: the app at https://app.blacklab.chat, its free messages, and the API at https://api.blacklab.chat. Using BlackLab means you accept it. Every top-up also asks you to accept the version number shown above.

If you are a consumer, the law where you live may protect you more than this text does. Where it does, that protection applies.

2. The seller

Seller: BlackLab

The seller is a private individual who trades as BlackLab. There is no company behind it.

To reach us, use the contact in the seller line. If your question is about your account, include your wallet address. We will never ask for your recovery phrase or private key.

3. Who can use BlackLab

• You must be 18 or older.
• You must be allowed to use a service like this where you are.
• You can't buy credits from a country we may not sell to under sanctions rules, or with a wallet that is on a sanctions list.
• The consumer protections described here are for consumers. Business users are bound by every other part.

4. What BlackLab is

BlackLab gives you access to open AI models made by other organisations. We don't train or own them. They run in trusted execution environments, also called hardware enclaves, which we reach through a provider called RedPill.

• Chat in the app. Some models are marked Encrypted: your browser encrypts what you send before it leaves your device.
• Agent mode in the app. The model can use tools for you: search the web, read pages, search Wikipedia and look up crypto market data. It needs a signed-in wallet.
• The API, which follows the OpenAI chat format and works with a key you create in the app.

Which models we offer, what they can do and what they cost can change over time.

5. Signing in with a wallet

• To sign in, your wallet signs a one-time text. Signing costs nothing and moves no funds.
• Your account is your wallet address. Whoever controls that wallet controls the account, with its credits, API keys and synced chats.
• We have no way to move an account to a different wallet. Lose the wallet, and its credits and synced chats are lost with it.
• Treat API keys like passwords: they spend from the same balance. If one leaks, delete it in the app.

6. Free messages

• Without a wallet you get a few free messages a day on one model. Instead of a sign-up form, your browser first solves a short puzzle (a proof of work), then keeps a free-message token.
• With a wallet you also get some free messages each day on that model, used before your credits. They apply in the app only: not to API keys, and not to agent steps.
• Free answers have a lower length limit than paid ones.
• All free messages share one daily budget. When it is used up, they pause until midnight UTC.
• Adult content is always off for free messages without a wallet.
• The app shows how many free messages you have left. We may change or end them at any time.

7. Credits and prices

• Credits are a prepaid balance you can spend only on BlackLab.
• Every 1 USDT you pay adds 100 credits.
• Each model has a price in credits per million tokens, one for input and one for output. The app shows it next to the model before you send anything. A web search in agent mode has a small fixed price per search.
• When you send a request, we set aside the most it could cost. When it ends, we charge what it actually cost and put the rest back.
• A request the safety check refuses costs nothing. Neither does a web search that fails.
• A new price only applies to requests made after the change.
• Credits have no expiry date.
• You can't move credits to someone else, sell them or cash them out. The one exception is the refund of unused credit in section 9.
• Free credit we hand out, for example for testing or support, is never refunded.

8. Buying credits

• Payment is made in USDT on BNB Chain, sent from the wallet that is signed in. The token's contract address is listed on the app's top-up screen.
• We don't issue or control USDT. Its value, and whether transfers work, depend on its issuer and on the network.
• The network charges a fee in BNB for each transfer. That fee goes to the network and is not part of our price.
• Before you pay, the app shows the amount, the credits you will get, the seller and how cancelling works. The pay button says “Start now”. Pressing it is your express request that we start the service at once (see section 9). Your wallet then asks you to approve the transfer.
• That request covers one payment sent within 24 hours.
• Credits arrive once the network has confirmed the payment, 20 blocks later. You can then download a written confirmation of the purchase.

We put a payment on hold instead of crediting it when:

• the paying wallet is on a sanctions list. We then deal with the funds as sanctions law requires;
• our sanctions list hasn't loaded yet. The check runs again by itself;
• you haven't made the request to start at once. Starting a top-up in the app releases it;
• it takes the wallet over a 30-day top-up limit, if one is set. We review it, then credit it or return it to the wallet it came from.

Credits always go to the account of the wallet that sent the payment. Pay from a different wallet, and the credits land on that wallet's account once it signs in. Other tokens, or USDT sent on a different network, are not credited, and we may be unable to return them.

9. Cancelling within 14 days

As a consumer, you may cancel a purchase of credits within 14 days of paying, without giving a reason.

You asked us to start at once, so the credits work straight away. If you cancel, you get back the credit you haven't used. Credit you already spent stays paid for.

• How: in the app, open Account and press “Request refund” under “Refund of unused credit”. You can also send a clear message to the contact in section 2 saying you cancel, with your wallet address.
• How much: your unused credit, up to what this wallet paid in the last 14 days, minus refunds already asked for. That amount leaves your balance the moment you ask.
• Where: we pay it in USDT, at the rate in section 7, to the wallet that paid and to no other address. We cover the network fee.
• When: no later than 14 days after your request.
• We can't pay anything to a wallet that is on a sanctions list.

Once the 14 days have passed, unused credit stays in your balance to use, but it can no longer be paid out.

10. Content rules

BlackLab answers lawful requests directly. Three things are blocked for everyone, on every model, whatever your settings:

• sexual content involving minors;
• sexual or degrading content showing a real, identifiable person, deepfakes included;
• real help with weapons that can kill large numbers of people: nuclear, radiological, biological or chemical.

On models not marked Encrypted, each request goes through a keyword check and then a separate safety model that reads the recent conversation. If the safety check can't run, requests are refused until it is back.

Requests to Encrypted models are unreadable to us, so we don't check them; those models rely on their own safety training. The three rules above bind you all the same.

Adult content is off unless you switch it on in Account, which confirms you are 18 or older. Even then it works only on models whose licence permits adult use.

Don't try to get past these checks, for example by splitting a request into pieces or dressing it up as fiction.

11. Using BlackLab responsibly

• Follow the law, and respect other people's rights, including their privacy and intellectual property.
• You answer for what you send, and for how you use the replies.
• Don't attack or overload BlackLab, don't probe its security without our written permission, and don't work around rate limits or free-message limits.
• We may refuse requests, revoke API keys, or stop serving an account that breaks these terms or the law.

12. About AI answers

Answers come from AI models. They can be wrong, outdated, incomplete or offensive, and models that refuse less will say more of what you ask for. Check anything important before acting on it, above all on health, law, money or safety. Agent results include material from websites and data sources we don't control.

13. Privacy

Our server doesn't save the text of your messages, and synced chats are encrypted in your browser before we receive them. The privacy notice sets out what we do keep and why.

14. Changes and availability

• We aim to keep BlackLab up, but it will sometimes be down. Models and providers can fail or be withdrawn.
• We may add, change or remove models and features.
• When these terms change, the version number at the top goes up. The app shows the new version at your next top-up, and paying accepts it. Credits you already hold stay usable.
• If we decide to close BlackLab, we will announce it in the app well ahead of time.

15. Liability

We are liable for loss we cause by breaking these terms, where that loss was foreseeable. We are not liable for loss caused by events outside our control, such as faults in the blockchain, in your wallet, or at the providers that run the models.

Where the law allows a cap, our total liability to you is capped at the total you paid us for credits during the year before the loss occurred.

This section doesn't reduce liability for death or personal injury caused by negligence, for fraud, for gross negligence or intent, or any consumer right that can't be waived.

16. Complaints and disputes

Tell us about any problem through the contact in section 2. We will look into it and reply.

As a consumer, you can also turn to the consumer authority or a dispute resolution body in your country, and you can bring a claim before the courts where you live. The mandatory consumer law of your country of residence keeps applying to you.