Terms of Service
Last updated 3 November 2026
These Terms of Service ("Terms") govern your use of CleanRanking, available at cleanranking.com (the "Service"), operated by Ben Elers, Schoelerpark 17, 10715 Berlin, Germany ("we", "us"). By using the Service you agree to these Terms. If you are using the Service on behalf of an organisation, you agree on its behalf and confirm you have the authority to do so.
1. The Service
CleanRanking is a tool for structured group decision-making, ranking, surveys, and feedback. You can use parts of the Service without an account (for example, responding to a session or creating a one-off session as a guest). Creating an account lets you save sessions, run group sessions, and access paid features.
2. Accounts
You must provide accurate information when registering and keep your login credentials secure. You are responsible for activity under your account. You must be at least 16 years old (or the age of digital consent in your country) to create an account.
3. Plans, billing, and trials
Plans. The Service is offered on a free plan and on paid subscription plans. The features and limits of each plan are described on our pricing page and may evolve over time. Prices are in euros and include any VAT that applies.
Billing. Paid plans are billed in advance, monthly or annually, through our payment provider, Stripe. The billable entity is your account. Subscriptions renew automatically at the end of each billing period until cancelled.
Usage allowances. Monthly usage allowances reset at the start of each billing month. Unused allowance does not carry over.
Trials. Paid plans do not currently include a free trial; instead, your first payment is covered by the 14-day money-back guarantee below. If we offer free trials in future, you will not be charged until the trial ends and can cancel during it through the billing portal and pay nothing.
Cancellation. You can cancel your subscription at any time through the billing portal linked from your account page. Cancellation takes effect at the end of the current billing period: you keep your paid features until then, after which your account moves to the free plan. Nothing is deleted when a paid plan ends: your sessions within the free plan's limits carry on, a session that needs the paid plan to keep collecting answers closes, and everything stays readable and exportable. From then on the retention rules in Section 8 apply, counted from the day the plan ended.
Refunds. If you are unhappy with your first paid subscription, you can claim a full refund within 14 days of your first payment, on the Billing tab of your account or by contacting us. We refund everything you paid for that subscription, including VAT, and end it immediately — no questions asked; your account then moves to the free plan, as under Cancellation above. Renewal payments are non-refundable, but you can cancel at any time so that no further renewal occurs. Nothing in this section limits your statutory rights.
Price changes. We may change prices with at least 30 days' notice. Changes apply from your next billing period. If you don't agree, cancel before the new price takes effect.
4. Your content
Ownership. You retain all rights to the content you create in the Service — sessions, items, questions, uploaded images and documents, and the responses you collect ("Your Content"). We claim no ownership over it.
Licence to us. You grant us a limited licence to host, store, process, display, and transmit Your Content solely as needed to provide the Service (for example, showing a session to its participants, generating results, producing exports, or generating AI summaries you request).
Your responsibility. You are responsible for Your Content and for having the rights to use it. If you collect personal data from participants (names, emails, or other attributes), you are responsible for having a lawful basis to do so and for how you use it.
5. Participant data and privacy
For personal data of participants that you collect through your sessions, you act as the data controller and we act as your processor: we process that data only to provide the Service to you. For your own account data, we are the controller. Details are in our Privacy Policy.
Participants may request deletion of their individual response through the delete-my-data function on their results page; such deletion is anonymisation of their submission and is not reversible.
Participant responses are kept with the session they belong to and deleted with it, as Section 8 describes. An email address a participant gives to receive their results is deleted after 30 days, and a participant's own results link ends 90 days after the session closes. An event's attendees' personal data is deleted 30 days after the event or its networking ends, whichever is later.
6. Acceptable use
You agree not to use the Service to:
- break the law or infringe others' rights;
- collect personal data without a lawful basis or in breach of privacy law;
- distribute malware, spam, or unsolicited bulk messages;
- upload content that is unlawful, hateful, or harasses others;
- attempt to gain unauthorised access to the Service, other accounts, or our infrastructure, or to disrupt the Service;
- circumvent plan limits or usage caps;
- resell or white-label the Service without our written agreement.
We may suspend or terminate accounts that violate these rules. Where practical, we will warn you first.
7. AI features
Some plans include AI-generated summaries and answers about your results. AI output can be inaccurate or incomplete; it is provided to assist your own judgement, not replace it. You are responsible for reviewing AI output before relying on it or sharing it.
8. Data retention and deletion
How long we keep your data does not depend on your plan. While your paid plan is active, nothing in your account is closed or deleted for inactivity.
Otherwise, a session with no activity for 12 months is deleted. Activity is a change you make to a session or an answer someone starts or submits; viewing or exporting is not activity. An open session with no closing date that has had no answers and no changes for 90 days is closed; we tell you, and you can reopen it. An account with no sign-in and no session activity for 12 months is closed. After a paid plan ends, each of these periods counts from the later of the last activity and the day the plan ended. Archived sessions are included.
Before a session is deleted or an account is closed for inactivity, we email the account 30 days and 7 days before, and any activity in that time cancels it. A sign-up whose email address is never confirmed can be used fully until it is removed, 30 days after it was made at the earliest; we email a reminder 3 days after it was made and a final one 7 days before it is removed, and confirming the address cancels the removal.
Anything deleted, by you or under this section, can be restored from Trash for 30 days, and is then permanently removed with its files. You can export your results at any time using the built-in export features.
You can close your account from your account page, which removes your access at once. A closed account, whether you closed it, we closed it under this section or Section 11, or its last owner was removed, is permanently removed 30 days after it closed, with everything it holds, its logs included. Your invoices remain with our payment provider, Stripe. A member's closed login is removed 30 days after it closed; the sessions and projects it created stay with the account. Our Privacy Policy lists every period.
If you stop paying or downgrade, your account moves to the free plan as Section 3 describes; nothing is deleted at that moment.
9. Availability and changes to the Service
We aim to keep the Service available and reliable, but it is provided "as is" and "as available", without uptime guarantees. We may modify, add, or remove features at any time. If we discontinue the Service entirely or remove a core paid feature, we will give paying customers reasonable notice and a pro-rata refund of any prepaid, unused period.
10. Liability
To the maximum extent permitted by law:
- we are not liable for indirect or consequential damages, loss of profits, loss of data, or loss of business arising from your use of the Service;
- our total liability for any claims arising out of the Service is limited to the amount you paid us in the 12 months before the event giving rise to the claim (or €50 if you have paid nothing).
Nothing in these Terms excludes liability that cannot be excluded by law, including liability for intent or gross negligence, or your statutory consumer rights.
You agree to indemnify us against third-party claims arising from Your Content or your breach of these Terms.
11. Termination
You can stop using the Service and close your account at any time. We may suspend or terminate your account for material breach of these Terms; where the breach is curable, we will give you notice and a chance to fix it first. A terminated account is a closed account, and Section 8 says when its data is removed. On termination for our convenience or for discontinuation of the Service, Section 9's refund commitment applies.
12. Changes to these Terms
We may update these Terms from time to time. For material changes we will notify account holders by email or an in-app notice at least 14 days before they take effect. Continued use after that date constitutes acceptance. If you do not agree, cancel your subscription and stop using the Service before the changes take effect.
13. Governing law
These Terms are governed by the laws of Germany. Disputes are subject to the courts of Berlin, Germany, without prejudice to mandatory consumer protections that entitle you to bring proceedings in your country of residence.
14. Contact
Ben Elers
Schoelerpark 17
10715 Berlin
Germany
Email: info@cleanranking.com
VAT ID: DE340102524
See also our Privacy Policy and Imprint.