Terms of Service

Last updated: September 9, 2026

1. Acceptance of Terms

By creating an account or using the OpenOCR API, you agree to these terms. If you do not agree, do not use the service.

2. Service Description

OpenOCR provides a unified API for accessing multiple OCR (Optical Character Recognition) engines. You submit documents or images, select an engine, and receive extracted text. Pricing varies by engine and is deducted from your credit balance.

3. Accounts

You must provide a valid email address.
Disposable and temporary-email addresses are not accepted for registration or email changes.
You are responsible for keeping your API keys secure.
You are responsible for all activity under your account.
One account per person or organization.

4. Billing & Credits

Credits are purchased in USD via Stripe. A 5.5% platform fee applies ($0.80 minimum).
Each OCR request deducts the engine's per-page cost from your balance.
Credits are non-transferable between accounts.
Refunds for unused credits are available within 24 hours of purchase (minus processing fees).
Free starter credits, trial allowances, and other promotional credits may be claimed only once per person or organization per offer, unless we expressly authorize otherwise. Creating or controlling additional accounts does not create additional eligibility.
You must confirm your email address before using any free or promotional credits. Starter credits become available only after email confirmation.

Failed requests. We bill a failed request the way the provider behind the engine bills us, so that using an engine through OpenOCR never costs you more than calling that provider directly.

If the request never reached an engine — invalid input, authentication, rate limits, an unavailable or misconfigured engine, or any failure on our side — you are not charged, and any provisional debit is refunded.
If the engine ran and then failed — errored partway, timed out mid-generation, or returned unusable output — you are charged the provider's cost for that attempt. It is passed through at cost, with no markup, and never exceeds the price quoted for that request.
We charge only what we can evidence. Where we hold no record of a provider charge for the attempt, there is no charge.
Successful requests are billed at the engine's published price, unchanged.

5. Acceptable Use

You agree not to:

Use the service for illegal purposes.
Submit documents containing malware or malicious content.
Attempt to circumvent rate limits, billing, authentication, email verification, CAPTCHA, signup restrictions, or account suspensions.
Reverse-engineer, resell, or redistribute the API without permission.
Use bots, scripts, or other automated tools to create accounts, or create accounts in bulk, without our express permission.
Farm free or promotional credits by creating, purchasing, sharing, or coordinating multiple accounts. This includes using different email addresses, aliases, identities, devices, IP addresses, proxies, or VPNs to claim an offer repeatedly or evade abuse controls.
Coordinate automated or manual activity to obtain credits you are not eligible for, evade payment, or disrupt the service.

Legitimate automated use of the OpenOCR API is permitted when it complies with these terms, your account permissions, billing requirements, and applicable limits.

6. Rate Limits

Free-tier accounts: 50 requests/day. Paid accounts ($10+ deposited): 1,000 requests/day. Cloud engines may have additional per-engine rate limits. Exceeding limits returns HTTP 429.

7. Availability & SLA

We aim for 99.9% uptime but do not guarantee it. OpenOCR-hosted engines depend on our infrastructure; cloud engines depend on third-party providers. We are not liable for downtime caused by third-party services.

8. Data & Privacy

See our Privacy Policy for details on how submitted documents, document URLs, request metadata, and extracted text are processed and retained by OpenOCR and the selected OCR provider.

9. Limitation of Liability

OpenOCR is provided "as is" without warranties. We are not liable for inaccurate OCR results, data loss, or damages arising from use of the service. Our total liability is limited to the amount you have paid in credits in the past 12 months.

10. Termination

When we reasonably suspect bot activity, coordinated account abuse, or promotional-credit farming, we may pause registrations, temporarily freeze affected accounts, revoke sessions or API keys, and restrict access while we investigate. We may suspend or terminate accounts that violate these terms and revoke free or promotional credits obtained through abuse. You may contact [email protected] to request a review of an account restriction.

You may delete your account at any time. Remaining credits are forfeited upon voluntary account deletion.

11. Changes to Terms

We may update these terms. Continued use after changes constitutes acceptance. Material changes will be communicated via email.

12. Contact

Questions about these terms? Email [email protected] or use our contact page.

4. Billing & Credits

Credits are purchased in USD via Stripe. A 5.5% platform fee applies ($0.80 minimum).

Each OCR request deducts the engine's per-page cost from your balance.

Credits are non-transferable between accounts.

Refunds for unused credits are available within 24 hours of purchase (minus processing fees).

Free starter credits, trial allowances, and other promotional credits may be claimed only once per person or organization per offer, unless we expressly authorize otherwise. Creating or controlling additional accounts does not create additional eligibility.

You must confirm your email address before using any free or promotional credits. Starter credits become available only after email confirmation.

Failed requests. We bill a failed request the way the provider behind the engine bills us, so that using an engine through OpenOCR never costs you more than calling that provider directly.

If the request never reached an engine — invalid input, authentication, rate limits, an unavailable or misconfigured engine, or any failure on our side — you are not charged, and any provisional debit is refunded.

If the engine ran and then failed — errored partway, timed out mid-generation, or returned unusable output — you are charged the provider's cost for that attempt. It is passed through at cost, with no markup, and never exceeds the price quoted for that request.

We charge only what we can evidence. Where we hold no record of a provider charge for the attempt, there is no charge.

Successful requests are billed at the engine's published price, unchanged.

5. Acceptable Use

You agree not to:

Use the service for illegal purposes.

Submit documents containing malware or malicious content.

Attempt to circumvent rate limits, billing, authentication, email verification, CAPTCHA, signup restrictions, or account suspensions.

Reverse-engineer, resell, or redistribute the API without permission.

Use bots, scripts, or other automated tools to create accounts, or create accounts in bulk, without our express permission.

Farm free or promotional credits by creating, purchasing, sharing, or coordinating multiple accounts. This includes using different email addresses, aliases, identities, devices, IP addresses, proxies, or VPNs to claim an offer repeatedly or evade abuse controls.

Coordinate automated or manual activity to obtain credits you are not eligible for, evade payment, or disrupt the service.

Legitimate automated use of the OpenOCR API is permitted when it complies with these terms, your account permissions, billing requirements, and applicable limits.

10. Termination

You may delete your account at any time. Remaining credits are forfeited upon voluntary account deletion.