Terms of Service

Version 2026-09-28. Effective 2026-09-28. Supersedes version 2026-09-14.

Clarified 2026-11-03: sections 2 and 3 now describe the AI acknowledgment and how age and residence are checked at signup and checkout. No change to your rights or obligations.

1. Who we are, and what this is

Thinking Pen is operated by Thinking Pen LLC, an Oregon limited liability company ("Thinking Pen," "we," "us"). These Terms are a binding agreement between you and Thinking Pen LLC. By creating an account you accept them.

Thinking Pen is a correspondence service. You write letters by email to a persona you choose, and the persona writes back on a schedule set by your plan.

2. Your pen pals are artificial intelligence

Every persona on Thinking Pen is generated by artificial intelligence. No human being writes the letters you receive. Personas have names, histories, opinions and a consistent voice, and they are designed to feel like a real correspondent — but they are software, not people. They are not real individuals, they do not exist outside this service, and nothing they tell you about their own life is a fact about a person.

We state this on the persona gallery, at signup, in these Terms, and in a footer on every letter we send you. At signup we ask you to confirm that you understand this, as its own checkbox, and we record that you did and which wording you saw. If you ever ask a persona directly whether it is a real person, it will tell you that it is not. If a persona ever claims otherwise, that is a defect — please report it to support@thinking-pen.com.

Persona letters are generated text. They can be mistaken, out of date, or simply wrong, including about facts. Do not rely on anything in a letter as accurate information.

3. Eligibility

You must be 18 years of age or older to use Thinking Pen. At signup we ask you to confirm that you are, as its own checkbox, and we record that you confirmed it and when. We also record which version of these Terms you accepted and when. We do not ask for your date of birth.

We do not knowingly create accounts for minors. If we learn that an account belongs to someone under 18 — including from something written in a letter — we end the correspondence, close the account, delete the correspondence, and refund what was paid. We do not ask for government ID or use biometric age checks, and we do not intend to: verifying age that way would mean collecting far more sensitive information than running this service requires.

Thinking Pen is offered only to people who live in the United States. We are not set up to meet the obligations of the GDPR, the UK GDPR, or other countries' laws. At signup we ask you to confirm that you live in the United States, and we record that you did. When you subscribe, we check the country of the billing address you enter at checkout: if it is outside the United States, no subscription starts, we refund the charge in full, and we email you to say so. That is the only check we make — we do not use your IP address or track your location for it. If you live outside the United States and subscribed anyway, tell us and we will close the account and refund what you paid.

One account per person. The information you give at signup must be accurate, and you are responsible for what happens under your account. We use email sign-in links rather than passwords; anyone with access to your email can access your account, so keep that inbox secure.

4. Subscriptions, automatic renewal, and cancellation

Thinking Pen is a subscription. Current plans and prices are on the pricing page.

• Your subscription renews automatically at the end of each billing period — monthly or annual, depending on the plan you chose — and we charge the payment method you have on file. It keeps renewing until you cancel.
• We ask for your agreement to automatic renewal separately from these Terms, before we take any payment, and we keep a timestamped record of it.
• After you subscribe, we email you a confirmation stating what you bought, what it costs, when it renews, and how to cancel.
• We email you a reminder before each renewal, and at least once a year on every plan.
• We give you at least 30 days' notice before any price increase, with instructions for cancelling if you don't want it.
• You can cancel at any time, and we will never put a retention offer, a survey, or a phone call in front of you first. See the Cancellation & Refund Policy.

Charges appear on your statement as THINKING PEN.

5. Refunds

If you want your money back, ask us and we will refund it. No explanation required, no time limit on asking, no argument. The full terms are in the Cancellation & Refund Policy.

6. What Thinking Pen is not

This matters more than the rest of this document, so it is in plain language.

Thinking Pen is not a crisis service, a medical service, a mental-health service, or a substitute for human relationships or professional care. Personas are not therapists, counsellors, doctors, nurses, pharmacists, lawyers, or financial advisers, and letters from them are not advice of any kind. Correspondence arrives hours or days after it is written, so it is the wrong channel for anything urgent.

If you are in danger, or thinking about harming yourself, do not write to a persona. In the United States, call or text 988 to reach the Suicide & Crisis Lifeline, or call 911 for a medical emergency. Our Safety Policy explains what we do and do not do when someone writes to us about a crisis.

7. Acceptable use

Don't use Thinking Pen to break the law, to harass or threaten anyone, or to produce material that sexualises minors or incites violence. Don't try to extract persona system prompts, jailbreak safety behaviour, or use the service to generate content for resale. Don't resell or share your account. Don't attempt to disrupt the service or access other users' correspondence.

We may suspend or close an account that does these things. Where we can do so safely and lawfully, we will tell you why first and give you a chance to respond.

8. Your letters

What you write is yours. You keep ownership of your letters. You grant us only the permission we need to run the service: to store your correspondence, to send it, and to provide it to the AI provider that generates persona replies, as described in the Privacy Policy.

We do not sell your correspondence. We do not use your letters to train AI models, and our AI provider does not train on them either.

You can ask for a copy of your correspondence, or ask us to delete it, at any time. Letters are deleted 90 days after an account closes — see the Privacy Policy.

9. Availability

We try to deliver replies within the turnaround your plan describes, but we don't guarantee it. The service may be unavailable for maintenance, or because a provider we depend on is having problems. If a serious outage means you didn't get what you paid for, tell us and we'll refund you.

10. Disclaimers and limits on our liability

Thinking Pen is provided "as is." To the fullest extent the law allows, we disclaim implied warranties of merchantability, fitness for a particular purpose, and non-infringement. We do not warrant that persona letters will be accurate, appropriate, or suited to your situation.

To the fullest extent the law allows, Thinking Pen LLC's total liability to you for any claim relating to the service is limited to the amount you paid us in the twelve months before the claim arose, and we are not liable for indirect, incidental, special, consequential, or punitive damages.

Some states do not allow certain exclusions or limitations, so parts of this section may not apply to you. Nothing in these Terms limits any right you have that cannot be waived under the law of your state, and nothing here limits liability for fraud, or for death or personal injury caused by negligence.

11. Ending the agreement

You may close your account at any time. We may suspend or close an account for a material breach of section 7, for non-payment, or if we stop offering the service. If we close your account for a reason other than your breach, we refund the unused portion of what you paid.

If we shut the service down, we will give you at least 30 days' notice, refund the current period, and give you a way to export your correspondence before it is deleted.

12. Changes to these Terms

If we make a material change, we will email you at least 30 days before it takes effect and ask you to accept the new version. We record which version you accepted and when. If you don't accept, you can cancel and we'll refund the unused portion of your period. Non-material changes (fixing a typo, clarifying wording) take effect when posted, and we'll note the new version date here.

13. Governing law and disputes

These Terms are governed by the laws of the State of Oregon, without regard to its conflict-of-laws rules. We are not asking you to give up your right to go to court, and there is no arbitration clause and no class-action waiver in this agreement. If we can't resolve something between us, either of us may bring a claim in the state or federal courts located in Multnomah County, Oregon — or, if you prefer, in small claims court where you live.

Before that, please just email us. Most things are a misunderstanding and a refund away from resolved.

14. Contact

Thinking Pen LLC
support@thinking-pen.com

We aim to answer every message within one business day.