Terms of Service

By creating an account, using the demo, or using Trowel on behalf of a company, you agree to these terms. If you are agreeing for a company, you confirm you are authorized to bind that company, and “you” means that company.

If you do not agree, do not use the service.

Trowel is software for planning container garden and floral plantings: a design canvas, a plant library, AI-assisted review and image previews, an approval workflow, and spreadsheet exports for purchasing.

It is a planning tool. It does not supply plants, perform installations, or guarantee horticultural outcomes. Professional judgment about what to plant, where, and whether it will thrive remains yours.

You are responsible for the accuracy of your account details, for keeping passwords secure, and for everything done under your account. Tell us promptly at hello@trytrowel.com if you believe an account has been compromised.

Accounts belong to an organization. Administrators of your organization can invite and deactivate members, change roles and permissions, view and edit designs across the organization, reassign a member’s designs to another member, and manage billing. If you join an organization created by your employer, that organization — not you personally — controls the account and its data.

Each plan includes a number of user seats. Sharing a single login between people instead of adding seats is not permitted.

Paid plans are billed in advance, monthly or annually — you choose at checkout. Monthly: Starter $89, Professional $199, Business $399, Premier $799 per month. Annual is priced at 10 months for twelve and is charged once a year in advance: $890, $1990, $3990 and $7990 per year. Each plan includes set monthly allowances for AI actions, AI preview images, active designs and users — allowances refresh every month on an annual plan too, not once a year — shown on our pricing page.

Subscriptions renew automatically. At the end of each billing period — every month on a monthly plan, every twelve months on an annual one — we charge the card you have on file for another period at the same price, without asking again. This continues until you cancel. You can cancel at any time, yourself, from Plan & Billing in the app; it takes a few clicks and no email, phone call or explanation. Canceling stops the next charge and you keep the period you have already paid for.

Free trial. New organizations get a 7-day trial. We ask for a card to begin it, but we do not charge you for the plan during the trial — cancel before it ends and you pay nothing for it. When the trial ends we charge that card for the plan you chose, automatically, and the subscription then renews as described above. Doing nothing is how you become a paying customer. You can cancel at any time before the trial ends, from Plan & Billing in the app, and we email you a receipt for every charge we make. If you cancel during the trial your account drops to a limited state instead — you keep reading and editing everything you already have, and your data is never deleted for not paying.

One thing is charged during a trial: the expert setup session. If you add it at checkout, that one-time fee is taken straight away rather than at the end of the trial, because we schedule and prepare the session immediately. It is refundable in full at any time before the session takes place.

One trial per customer. If the same email address has already started a trial within the last 12 months, we offer you the plan without a further trial and your first payment is taken at checkout. We keep only a one-way hash of the address to enforce this, never the address itself. It is one of four things that survive deleting an account; the others are the billing record held by our payment processor, which tax and accounting law require us to keep, the notice emails our own inbox receives when an account is created, a plan starts or is canceled, or an account is closed, and the emails you send us, which stay in our mailbox. All four are explained in the Privacy Policy.

Boosts. A Boost is a recurring $29/month add-on that raises your monthly allowances and adds a user. It renews with your subscription and is not a one-time top-up. You can add or remove Boosts at any time, except that during a free trial a subscription can have no more than 5 Boosts. You can add more once the trial has ended.

Increases are immediate; decreases apply at renewal. Upgrading a plan or adding Boosts takes effect straight away, and we charge only the prorated difference for the days left in the billing period. During a free trial there is no prorated charge: your first payment, when the trial ends, is for the plan and the Boosts you hold then. Moving to a smaller plan or removing Boosts takes effect at your next renewal instead — you keep the capacity you have already paid for until the period ends, and there is no mid-period credit. You can cancel a scheduled decrease at any time before it takes effect.

Changing your billing interval takes effect at your next renewal, in both directions. Moving between monthly and annual neither charges nor credits you mid-period: you keep the plan and price you have paid for until that period ends, and the new interval begins then. This is the one case where paying us more does not take effect immediately.

Cancellation and refunds. You can cancel at any time and keep access until the end of the period you have already paid for. You pay for the time you have had, at the ordinary monthly rate, and part-months are not refunded — whether you cancel, deactivate or delete — with one exception. If you cancel after a new billing period has begun but before its payment has gone through (including your first payment after a free trial, and a payment that is overdue), that payment is not taken and your plan ends when you cancel instead of at the end of that period, so you do not pay for the short time you had of it; if the payment goes through after you canceled, before we can stop it, it is refunded in full. This does not apply once anything else for that period has been paid, such as an upgrade or a Boost: the period has then been bought, its payment is taken, and canceling keeps the plan to the end of the period. Deleting or deactivating ends your access immediately rather than at the end of the period, so if you simply want to stop paying, cancel and use the time you have bought. We always refund anything you have paid for that we have not delivered, such as an expert setup session that has not taken place. On an annual plan, deactivating or deleting before the year is up also returns part of what you paid for the year: each month you have started is charged at the ordinary monthly rate and the rest is returned, which is nothing once the tenth month of that year has started. Canceling after the year’s payment has gone through does not refund it: you keep access until the year ends instead. Nothing here limits rights you have under applicable law.

Renewals. A renewal is the charge for a new billing period, taken shortly after that period begins on your renewal date. A renewal whose renewal date is November 12, 2026 (Central Time) or later is not reversed once it has been charged, unless you had canceled after that period began and before it was charged (and had paid for nothing else in that period, such as an upgrade or a Boost). It is a payment like any other: canceling afterward keeps your access to the end of the period it paid for and does not refund it, and deactivating or deleting afterward returns only what the rules above return, which on a monthly plan is nothing for the renewal itself. If you do not want another period, cancel before your renewal date; to be safe, cancel at least a day ahead. If you were charged for a renewal you meant to cancel, email hello@trytrowel.com as soon as you can. We read every request and may refund the charge, but that is our decision in each case and these terms do not promise it. If we do refund a renewal, your subscription and your access for that period end when we do. A renewal whose renewal date is before November 12, 2026 (Central Time) keeps the earlier rule, even if the payment is collected later: it is reversed in full if you deactivate or delete your account within 48 hours of being charged, unless you have added Boosts or upgraded your plan since that renewal. Your first charge after a free trial is not a renewal, because the trial was your opportunity to decide.

Taxes. The price you see at checkout is the price you pay: we do not currently add sales tax to it. Prices are stated exclusive of sales, use, VAT and similar taxes, and if we become required to collect any, we will add it to future charges and show it separately before you are billed. You remain responsible for any tax you owe on your own account of buying the service.

Failed payments. If a payment fails, your account is limited straight away until it goes through: AI tools pause, and you can’t add designs past five or add team members, but everything you already have stays open to read and edit. We show this in the app and email your account admins, and Stripe keeps retrying the card. When a payment succeeds, full access returns. If the retries run out, the subscription ends, and your data is still never deleted for not paying. If you cancel while the payment for a new billing period is overdue, we stop trying the card, that payment is not taken, and your plan ends when you cancel instead of at the end of that period, unless something else for that period had already been paid (see Cancellation and refunds above). A charge for an upgrade or a Boost added partway through a period you have already paid for is different: canceling does not cancel it, and it may still be collected.

Card payments are processed by Stripe. We never receive or store your full card number.

AI features consume monthly allowances: AI actions (deep analysis and AI design generation) and AI preview images.

Anything the software does on its own is free. The quick design review that appears when you open a design runs automatically, so it never draws on an allowance. Everything that does draw on one is something you press a button for, and the cost is shown on the button before you press it.

An allowance is drawn down only when the request succeeds. A review that comes back, or an image we generate for you, counts — whether or not you keep it, save it, or like the answer, because the work was done either way. A request that fails does not come off your allowance, and neither does one we never sent: refused before it started, such as a design with no plants, or blocked because the allowance was already used up.

When an allowance runs out, the affected AI feature pauses until your allowance next refreshes, or until you add a Boost or upgrade. Allowances refresh monthly, on every plan — if you pay annually you do not wait a year, you wait until the next monthly refresh (section 4). The rest of the product — designs, canvas, exports, approvals — keeps working.

Active designs, and the archive. Your plan includes a number of active designs. Archiving a design frees its slot: an archived design is kept in full — you can open it, read it, print both sheets, duplicate it into a new design, and it is always included in your full data download (a season export includes archived designs when you ask it to) — but it becomes read-only, so it cannot be edited, reviewed by AI, or given a new preview image. A design can be archived once it is a year old. Restoring one needs a free active slot, and for 7 days after archiving a batch you can put that whole batch back in one action. We do not delete a design because you archived it, and we do not archive designs on your behalf.

You own your content. Designs, client names and notes, plant library entries, and everything else you put into Trowel remain yours. We claim no ownership of it.

You grant us a limited license to host, process, transmit and display that content strictly to operate the service for you — for example storing a design, sending a notification, or passing design notes to our AI provider to generate a preview. That license ends when you delete the content or close the account.

We own the platform. The software, interface, branding and documentation are ours. These terms do not transfer any of it to you.

Images we generate for you are yours to use commercially — in client presentations, proposals and marketing — subject to section 7 and to our AI provider’s terms.

You are responsible for having the right to enter the information you upload, including any personal information about your clients.

AI reviews, scores and suggestions are advisory only. They can be wrong, incomplete, or contradict good horticultural practice for your climate. They do not replace the judgment of a qualified designer, and you remain responsible for what you plant.

AI output is generated by third-party models. Similar prompts can produce similar results for other customers, so we cannot promise any output is unique. We do not claim ownership of what the AI generates for you.

Our seasonal emails to account administrators are drafted with AI from our own instructions; no content of yours is sent to draft them (see the Privacy Policy, section 4).

We send design specifications and your AI Design Notes to our AI provider to produce these results. AI design generation additionally sends plants from your plant library and the Special Requests box, so that it recommends what you stock. We do not send your client’s name, the site location, or your Client Notes — see the Privacy Policy for the full breakdown.

You agree not to:

• break the law, infringe others’ rights, or upload content you have no right to use;
• attempt to access another organization’s data, or probe, scan or test our security without written permission;
• reverse engineer, resell, or white-label the service without our agreement;
• use automated means to consume AI features beyond normal interactive use, or to work around allowances;
• upload malware, or use the service to send unsolicited email;
• generate content that is unlawful, hateful, or depicts real identifiable people without consent.

We may suspend accounts that put the platform, other customers, or our email reputation at risk. Where practical we will contact you first.

We aim to keep Trowel available and reliable, but we do not promise uninterrupted service. We may perform maintenance, change or remove features, and depend on third-party providers (hosting, database, AI, email) whose outages affect us.

We do not currently offer a contractual uptime guarantee or service credits. If that changes we will say so here.

You can cancel your subscription at any time from Settings. Deleting the account is an administrator action, and it removes the entire organization — every design in it and every member’s login, not just the person who clicks it. To remove one person, an administrator deactivates them instead. Deletion options and what each one does are described in the Privacy Policy.

We may suspend or terminate an account for material breach of these terms, non-payment, or where required by law. Except for serious or repeated breach, we will give you notice and a reasonable chance to fix the problem.

Export your data before you close an account. Exports → Download everything gives you your designs, plant placements, plant library and every AI preview image — on every plan, any time. A large library is split across several downloads, and the screen tells you how many before you begin. After a full deletion we cannot recover any of it.

What survives. Ending the agreement does not end the sections that are meant to outlast it: your content ownership (6), the AI disclaimers (7), the limits on liability (11), the indemnity (12), governing law (14), and any amount already owed.

To the fullest extent the law allows, the service is provided “as is” without warranties of any kind, express or implied, including merchantability, fitness for a particular purpose, and non-infringement. We do not warrant that AI output, review scores, or exports will be accurate or suitable for any particular planting.

To the fullest extent the law allows, neither party is liable for indirect, incidental, special, consequential or punitive damages, or for lost profits, revenue, or data. Our total liability for any claim relating to the service is limited to the amount you paid us in the 12 months before the event giving rise to the claim.

What the cap does not cover. The limit above does not apply to: your obligations under section 12 (Indemnity); either party’s breach of confidentiality; your liability for amounts you owe us for the service; or either party’s fraud, gross negligence or willful misconduct. Without these carve-outs the cap would apply to the indemnity as well, which would limit what you owe us for a claim caused by your own content to roughly one year of your subscription — that is not what either of us means by an indemnity.

Some jurisdictions do not allow certain exclusions, so parts of this section may not apply to you.

You agree to indemnify Trowel LLC against third-party claims arising from content you put into the service, your use of AI output with your clients, or your breach of these terms — except to the extent the claim results from our own wrongdoing.

We may update these terms as the product changes. For material changes we will give reasonable advance notice by email or in the app. Continuing to use Trowel after a change takes effect means you accept the updated terms; if you do not, you may cancel.

These terms are governed by the laws of the State of Minnesota, United States, without regard to its conflict-of-law rules, and the state and federal courts located there will have exclusive jurisdiction over any dispute.

If any provision is found unenforceable, the rest stays in force. Failing to enforce a provision is not a waiver of it.

Some of what you put into Trowel is personal information about other people — your clients’ names, and locations that identify a property. For that information you are the controller and we are your processor: we handle it only to run the service for you and on your instructions, never for our own purposes, and we do not sell it or use it to train AI models.

We keep our subprocessors to a short list, name each one and what it receives in the Privacy Policy, and will tell you before adding one that handles your customer data. We require confidentiality from each of them, keep the security measures described in the Privacy Policy, and will help you respond if one of your clients exercises a privacy right or if there is a breach affecting your data. On request we will delete or return your data — the product does this for you already through Exports and account deletion.

If your own contracts require a separate data processing agreement, contact us at hello@trytrowel.com.

Events outside our control. Neither party is liable for failure to perform caused by something genuinely beyond its reasonable control — outages at a hosting, database or AI provider, network failures, natural events, or government action. This does not excuse paying what you owe.

Assignment. You may not transfer these terms without our written consent. We may transfer them to a successor in a merger, acquisition or sale of substantially all our assets; your subscription and your data go with it on the same terms, and we will tell you.

Notices. We give notice by email to your account address or in the app. You give notice to us at hello@trytrowel.com. Keep your address current — it is how we reach you about billing and security. Unsubscribing from tips and check-ins does not stop these notices or any other account email.

The whole agreement. These terms and the Privacy Policy are the entire agreement between us about Trowel and replace anything said before. Nothing in them makes us partners, and nobody other than you and Trowel LLC has rights under them.

Questions about these terms: hello@trytrowel.com.