# API terms of service

These terms are the agreement between you and Much Media Inc. ("Watermark", "we") for the Watermark API at `api.watermark.ws`, the developer account that goes with it at [watermark.ws/developers](https://watermark.ws/developers), and the official libraries and command-line tool (together, the "API").

Version `2026-10-15` · Last updated: October 15, 2026

You accept these terms when you open an API account or create an API key. If you accept them for a company, you confirm that you may bind it, and "you" means the company. You must be at least 18 years old, or the age of majority where you live.

The [watermark.ws Terms of Service](https://watermark.ws/terms) govern the watermark.ws website and app. Where the two disagree about the API, these terms apply.

## 1. Your account

- An API account is opened from a watermark.ws account. Keep the account's email address current: it is where we send notices about your account, your credit and changes to the API.
- You may add team members to your account. You are responsible for what they do with it.
- Keys are secret. Keep them on your server, do not put them in client-side code, public repositories or shared documents, and revoke a key as soon as you suspect it has leaked. Every request made with your key is yours, and any credit it spends is spent.
- Test keys are for building and testing. They are free within their limits and may not be used to process files for production, for customers or in bulk.

## 2. What the API does, and what you may build

You may call the API from your own software, including software you sell or run for others, and build it into products, services and agents. You may not resell or sublicense access to the API itself: a product that does nothing but pass requests through to the API under your key is not allowed. You may not use the API to build a service that competes with it by copying its features from our output.

We give you a limited, revocable, non-exclusive licence to use the API, its documentation and its libraries for these purposes while you follow these terms. Everything about the API that is ours stays ours, including the docs, the operation catalog and the libraries' code, under the licence each library ships with.

We decide which customers, uses and industries the API is offered to. We may decline to open an account, limit what an account may do, or end service to anyone, at our discretion.

## 3. Your content

- You keep every right to the files you send and the files the API makes from them. We get only the right to receive, store, process and deliver them as your requests ask.
- You confirm that you have the rights needed to process each file in the way you ask, including the rights of anyone who appears in it or made it.
- We do not look at your files except to run your requests, to help you when you ask us to, to investigate abuse or a security problem, or when the law requires it. We do not use your files for advertising or to train machine learning models. The [privacy section](https://api.watermark.ws/docs/privacy.md) says what we store and for how long.
- You are responsible for your content. The [acceptable use policy](https://api.watermark.ws/docs/acceptable-use.md) lists what may not be sent through the API.

## 4. Prices and credit

- The API is prepaid. You buy credit at [watermark.ws/developers](https://watermark.ws/developers); each request that succeeds costs the price on the [pricing page](https://api.watermark.ws/docs/pricing.md) at the moment the request was accepted, and that price is shown on the request itself. Failed and aborted requests are free.
- A new account starts with free credit. Some endpoints, marked on the pricing page, can only be used once the account has bought credit.
- Prices are in US dollars and exclude tax. Where we must charge tax, it is added to the purchase.
- We may change prices at any time. A change takes effect when it appears on the pricing page and in `pricing.json`, and applies to requests accepted after it. Prepaid credit keeps its dollar value: a price change neither adds to nor takes from your balance. We tell you about increases by email where we reasonably can, but a price is set by the pricing page, not by the email.
- Credit does not expire while your account is open. When an account is closed, credit left on it is forfeited, except as section 5 says.
- Accounts we have agreed to invoice are billed monthly in arrears for what they used, with the credit limit and payment terms in that agreement. An unpaid invoice may suspend the account once we have reminded you.
- You pay for what your keys spend, including requests you did not intend to make. Watch your usage on the dashboard and keep your keys safe.

## 5. Refunds

Credit you bought and have not used is refunded in full if you ask within 30 days of buying it, to the card it was paid with. Credit that has been spent on requests is not refunded, because the processing it paid for has been done. Free credit is never paid out. To ask for a refund, write to the address in section 12 from the account's email address.

## 6. Limits and fair use

Every key has limits: requests a minute, requests a day for test keys, source file size, and requests running at once. They are listed on the pricing page and returned by `GET /v1/account`. We set the limits of every key and account and may change them at any time, including lowering them, and we may refuse particular kinds of requests, sources, destinations or uses for an account or for everyone. A request over a limit is refused with `429` or `422`, costs nothing, and can be retried. If your project needs more, ask us; we raise limits for accounts in good standing. Do not work around a limit by opening more accounts or by spreading one application over many keys.

## 7. Availability and changes

- We run the API with care but offer it as it is, without a promised uptime. Requests sometimes fail for reasons outside your control; the API tells you when they do, and you are not charged.
- We may change, limit or withdraw any part of the API at any time. We try not to break what works, and we try to warn you by email before a change that would break a correct integration, but we do not promise a notice period. Adding fields to a response, adding operations, parameters or endpoints, and changing error messages are not breaking changes; write your integration so that it tolerates them.
- The libraries and the command-line tool are provided under their own open-source licences, as they are.

## 8. Suspending and closing accounts

- You may close your account at any time by writing to us from the account's email address. Leaving the developer program on watermark.ws does not close the account or revoke its keys. When the account is closed, open requests finish or fail; files the API kept for you are deleted on their normal schedule; the account's records are kept as the privacy section says.
- We may suspend or close any key, request or account at any time, for any reason or none, with or without notice. We usually tell you why and give you the chance to put it right when the reason is something you can fix, but we do not have to. If we close your account for a reason other than a breach of these terms, the acceptable use policy or the law, or an unpaid balance, we refund the credit you paid for and had not used.
- We may stop offering the API as a whole at any time. We tell the account email when we do, and refund the credit you paid for and had not used.

## 9. Warranties

The API, the documentation, the libraries and everything else we provide are given "as is" and "as available". We do not promise that the API will be uninterrupted or error-free, that its output will suit a particular purpose, or that it will meet a particular quality, legal or regulatory standard. You are responsible for checking that its output is right for your use before you rely on it. To the extent the law allows, we disclaim every other warranty, express or implied.

## 10. Liability

To the extent the law allows, we are not liable to you for indirect, consequential or special loss, for lost profits, revenue or data, or for the cost of substitute services, however caused. Our total liability to you for everything arising out of the API in any twelve months is limited to the greater of the fees you paid us for the API in those twelve months and 100 US dollars. Nothing in these terms limits a liability that cannot be limited by law.

You agree to cover us against claims by others that arise from your content, from your use of the API in breach of these terms or the acceptable use policy, or from a product you built on it.

## 11. Changes to these terms

We may change these terms at any time. A change takes effect when the new version is published on this page, unless it says otherwise; we tell the account email about changes we consider material. The version at the top of this page changes with every change, and your account records which version it accepted and when. If you keep using the API after a change takes effect, you accept it. If you do not accept it, stop using the API and write to us to close your account; we then refund the credit you paid for and had not used.

## 12. General

- These terms are governed by the laws of the Province of Ontario and the laws of Canada that apply there, and disputes are heard in the courts of Ontario.
- If part of these terms cannot be enforced, the rest still applies.
- These terms, the acceptable use policy and the privacy section are the whole agreement about the API, and replace anything said before. An invoicing agreement with us adds to them for that account.
- We may transfer this agreement to a company that takes over the API; you may not transfer it without our written agreement.
- Notices to you go to the account's email address. Notices to us go to [support@watermark.ws](mailto:support@watermark.ws).

Much Media Inc. operates Watermark and the Watermark API.