Terms of service
last updated · September 10, 2026
By creating an account or calling the API you agree to these terms. They are written to be read.
The service
Spaw provides verification APIs and dashboard tools for email addresses and domains, phone numbers, IP addresses, postal addresses and company identifiers, and an endpoint that compares several of those signals against each other. Responses are best-effort signals derived from live DNS, open datasets, official registers and mailbox-level checks; they describe the state of an identifier at the moment of the query. The comparison endpoint returns which fields agreed and which did not — it produces no score, no risk level, no verdict and no recommendation about a person, and a difference between two fields is a fact about the fields rather than a judgement about whoever supplied them.
Accounts and API keys
You are responsible for activity under your account and keys. Keep secret keys server-side and out of client code; publishable keys are designed for the browser and are restricted to the domains you configure. Revoke any key you believe is exposed — revocation is immediate.
Credits
Usage is metered in credits, and a credit buys one answer. A fresh lookup that produces a usable answer costs one credit; a non-answer costs nothing — invalid input, an identifier no dataset or register can place, an undeliverable verdict, a rejected or failed request. A repeat of the same identifier on the same account within seven days is free. A company lookup bills only when a register answers, and a cross-signal comparison bills the signals it ran, never the comparison. The per-signal rate card on the pricing page is the full statement of what costs a credit, together with the optional checks named beneath it — they cost more than one credit on a call that asks for them, and each is switched off until a licensed partner is configured. Nothing bills that is not published on that page. Every account gets a free grant of credits at the start of each calendar month, with no card on file — the size of the grant is published on the pricing page. Credits do not expire: what you buy, what a plan deposits and what the grant adds all sit on one balance until they are spent, and what you do not use accumulates from month to month. They have no cash value, cannot be moved between accounts, and are not exchangeable for money. When the balance reaches zero the API answers a typed 402 INSUFFICIENT_CREDITS before the lookup runs, so nothing is verified and nothing is charged: a hard stop, never a surprise bill.
Auto-renewing plans
A monthly plan is a subscription. It renews on its renewal date every month until you cancel it, and each payment deposits that plan’s credits onto the same balance a one-time pack tops up. Card numbers are typed into our payment processor’s own hosted checkout and never reach our servers; what we keep is the card’s brand and last four digits, so the billing page can tell you which card is on file. Moving up to a larger plan is charged immediately, deposits the larger plan’s credits at once, and restarts the monthly cycle from that day; moving down changes the price only and takes effect at the next renewal. If a renewal payment fails, the plan is marked past due and no further credits are deposited until it is paid — the credits already on your balance are untouched, and lookups keep running until they are spent. Automatic top-ups are a separate authorisation and are off until you switch them on. When they are on, a balance that falls to the line you set buys the pack you chose on the card on file, never beyond the ceiling you set for the calendar month. A top-up we see succeed deposits its credits, writes the entry you can read on the usage page, and emails you. One case is not covered by that, and we would rather name it than let you assume otherwise: when the payment processor’s answer never reaches us we do not know whether the card was charged, so the charge is re-sent under the same key rather than made a second time, and if it is still unsettled when the processor stops honouring that key we stop and leave it alone. A charge that did take money can therefore end with no credits, no entry on the usage page and no email. It counts against the ceiling regardless, because a ceiling that might be passed would be worse than a top-up that does not happen; if you find such a charge on your statement, write to [email protected] with its date and amount. At the ceiling nothing further is charged and the API answers the ordinary 402 instead, which is the whole point of the ceiling: a hard stop, never a surprise bill.
Cancellation
Cancel a plan from the billing page at any time. Cancelling stops future charges rather than ending the month you have paid for: the plan stays active until that period runs out, you can resume it from the same page at any point before then, and credits already deposited stay on your balance. Automatic top-ups are switched off from the billing page, the same page they are switched on from, and stop immediately. Closing your account is a different and more final thing: from the settings page it cancels any live subscription at once rather than at the end of the period, and deletes the account with everything attached to it as described in the privacy policy, including whatever credits were on the balance. If other people are members of your account, closing your own login is refused instead of taking their balance, keys and history with it — remove them first. Transferring ownership of an account to someone else is not built yet.
Refunds
There is no refund process, and this page will not invent one. Credits have no cash value and are not converted back into money: a pack is a purchase of credits, not a deposit held against future use. Cancelling a plan stops the next charge rather than refunding the period you are in, and closing an account does not refund credits left unspent on it. If you believe you were charged in error — a duplicate charge, an automatic top-up past the ceiling you set, a plan that billed after you cancelled it — write to [email protected] with the invoice number, or, for an automatic top-up, which raises no invoice, the date and the amount that appear on the usage page and on your card statement, and a person will look at it. That is an undertaking to answer, not a promise to pay money back. Nothing in this section takes away a right you have under the law where you live.
Taxes and invoices
The prices published on the pricing page are the amounts charged. No tax is calculated or added at the checkout, so the figure you see is the figure taken; where a tax is due on the purchase in your own jurisdiction, accounting for it is yours to do. The checkout asks for a billing address and offers an optional field for a VAT or company tax number, which puts that number on the invoice — what a business in the UK or the EU needs in order to self-account for the reverse charge. It is optional because a private buyer has no such number to give. A plan invoices itself each month, a pack raises an invoice at the till, and the billing page lists your last twelve paid invoices with the processor’s PDF to download. An automatic top-up is the exception and the one to know about if you reclaim tax: it is charged straight to the card rather than invoiced, so it raises no invoice and appears in no list — it shows on your card statement and on the usage page. Write to [email protected] if you need one invoiced.
Acceptable use
Use the service only in ways that are lawful where you operate. You may not use verification results to send unsolicited bulk mail in violation of anti-spam laws (such as CAN-SPAM or GDPR), to harass or harm individuals, or to validate credential lists or otherwise support unauthorized access. You may not probe, overload, or interfere with the service, resell raw access to it, or misrepresent your identity when using it.
Fair use and availability
Rate limits published in the documentation apply to all accounts. We work to keep the service available and accurate but provide it "as is", without warranty: mail systems are external and change constantly, and a verdict is a signal, not a guarantee that any particular message will be delivered.
Liability
To the maximum extent permitted by law, Spaw is not liable for indirect or consequential damages arising from use of the service, and our aggregate liability is limited to the amounts you paid us in the three months before the claim arose.
Suspension and termination
We may suspend or terminate accounts that violate these terms, abuse the free tier, or create risk for the service or other customers. You may close your account at any time from the settings page, which deletes your data as described in the privacy policy.
Changes
We may update the service and these terms; material changes will be announced on this page with an updated date. Continued use after a change takes effect constitutes acceptance.
Contact
Questions about these terms: [email protected].