Terms of service

Effective date: October 18, 2026

Grow offline ("we", "us") provides the Grow offline app and this website.

1. Who may use Grow offline

You must be 18 or older to use Grow offline. By using the app you confirm that you are at least 18. If you are under 18, do not use the app. Grow offline is offered in the United States only.

2. What Grow offline is

Grow offline lets you pause the apps you choose on your own phone and ask friends you picked, or Fern, our AI, for more time. Friends are adults who agreed to take part. It is a voluntary accountability tool between adults. It is not a parental control app, and it must not be used to monitor, control or restrict another adult or any child.

3. Your account

You sign in with your phone number and a one-time code. Google Firebase sends and checks the code for us.
You are responsible for keeping your phone secure and for what happens on your account.
One phone is active on your account at a time. Signing in on a new phone signs the old one out.
There is no email or password on your account, so keep access to your phone number. If you lose it, email us and we will help you delete the account.

4. Friends

You add friends by name and phone number or email address. A friend who has the app joins by accepting in the app. A friend who does not have the app can take part by replying YES to a text, or by answering your requests from the emails we send (see section 5).
Add only people who have agreed to be your friend, or who you have good reason to think will agree. Do not add someone who has told you not to. A person you add can decline, block you, reply STOP, or use the stop link in an email.
You can remove a friend at any time. Removing a friend does not approve a pending request.
Friends decide for themselves whether to approve a request. We do not supervise them, they are not our employees or agents, and we do not promise that any friend will answer, approve, or answer in time.
You need at least one friend who has accepted before you can send a request. The app currently allows up to three friends.

5. Texts and emails to friends who do not have the app

If you add a friend by email address, we email them your requests on your behalf. Each email lets them answer in one tap: Yes, No, or offer you half the time. Every email has a link to stop getting requests, and we stop as soon as it is used.
You must have the friend's permission to give us their address, and you must not add an address that is not your friend's.
If you add a friend who does not have the app, we send their number one invitation text on your behalf. We may send one more if they have not replied. We never send more than two invitations to the same number in 30 days.
We send that friend request texts only after they reply YES. Until then, requests you send do not reach them.
A friend can reply STOP at any time to stop all texts from us to their number, and HELP for help. Message and data rates may apply.
You must have the friend's permission to give us their number, and you must not add a number that is not your friend's. Do not use texts to harass, threaten or pressure anyone.
We send these texts through Twilio, only to deliver these messages. We store the friend's number and a record of their consent, and we do not share mobile numbers or consent with third parties or affiliates for marketing or promotional purposes. The privacy policy has the details.
We may limit or stop texts to keep the service working or to follow the rules of phone carriers. We do not promise that a text will arrive.

6. Requests, approvals and countdowns

A request asks all of your friends for a set amount of time, 10, 20 or 30 minutes, with a reason of up to 280 characters. One request covers all of your paused apps.
You can ask Fern, our AI, instead of or before your friends. Fern reads your reason and answers yes or no, usually in about 20 seconds. After a no you can add context once, and Fern answers again. You can get up to 30 minutes a day through Fern. Fern's answer is automated and may be wrong; we do not promise any particular answer.
A friend who answers by email can offer half the time you asked for instead of a plain yes or no.
Every friend has to approve. One denial ends the request, and you can ask again after 8 hours.
A request nobody answers ends on its own after 24 hours.
Our server decides when a request starts, ends and expires. The clock on your phone does not change that.
Current limits, shown in the app: up to three requests in any 24 hours, and a reminder goes to your friends an hour after you ask. We may change limits to keep the service working for everyone.
Write reasons you would be comfortable with your friends reading. Do not write anything abusive, threatening, hateful or sexual, and do not include another person's private information.

7. Escape hatches

An escape hatch opens all of your paused apps for 3 minutes without asking anyone.
You have three. Each one comes back 24 hours after you use it.
Using an escape hatch is recorded on your account. Your friends are not told.

8. Protection

Blocking depends on your phone's settings and permissions, which you control. We cannot promise that an app stays paused if you change those settings, turn off a permission, uninstall Grow offline, restart in safe mode, use another user profile, or lose power or connection.
Our server keeps light contact with your phone. Friends who have the app may be told when that contact is lost and when it returns. Loss of contact can have many causes, and the message says so.
Grow offline does not read the content of your screen, your notifications or your messages.

9. Your responsibilities

You agree to use Grow offline lawfully and in good faith, and not to:

use it to harass, threaten or pressure anyone;
try to get around a friend's answer or approve your own request, for example with a second number or account;
reverse engineer, copy, scrape or interfere with the app or the server;
use automated tools or scripts to send requests or invitations;
share your sign-in codes or let someone else use your account.

We may suspend or close an account that breaks these rules.

10. Deleting your account

You can delete your account in the app: open Account, tap "Delete my account", type the confirmation and confirm. You may be asked to sign in again first. Deletion starts right away and we do not delay it to let you cancel. It ends your partnerships, and friends who have the app are told that you closed your account. What we remove and what we keep is described in the privacy policy.

11. Price, free period and subscription

Free for 21 days. Your first 21 days are free. You do not enter a card to start, and nothing is charged during the free period.

We ask before you pay. When the free period ends, the app asks whether you want to subscribe. No subscription starts, and nothing is charged, until you say yes in the App Store or Google Play.

$2.99 a month, renewing monthly. The subscription costs $2.99 (US dollars) per month. It renews automatically each month, and your store charges you at the start of each new month, until you cancel.

Billing is by Apple or Google, not us. You buy the subscription through the Apple App Store or Google Play, and their terms apply to the purchase. We never see your card. Refunds and billing disputes are handled by Apple or Google under their rules.

Cancel any time. Cancel in your Apple or Google account settings, like any app-store subscription. Your subscription stays active until the end of the month you already paid for, then ends, and you are not charged again.

Price changes. If we change the price, we will tell you in advance through the app or your store, and the new price applies only to renewals after that notice.

11a. Changes to the app and these terms

We may change or stop the app, or any feature, at any time. We may change these terms. We will post the new version and update the effective date. If a change matters to you, the app will show you a notice before it applies. For smaller changes, continuing to use the app after the new date means you accept them.

12. Disclaimers

Grow offline is provided "as is" and "as available", without warranties of any kind, to the fullest extent the law allows.
It is not a medical, psychological or therapeutic service. It does not diagnose, treat or prevent any condition, and it is not a substitute for professional help. If you are in crisis, contact local emergency services or a crisis line.
We do not promise that every app will stay paused, that a notification, text or email will arrive, that a friend will respond, or that Fern will answer, answer quickly, or answer the way you hoped.
Protection depends on your phone and its operating system, which can change how it works at any time.

13. Limitation of liability

To the fullest extent the law allows, we are not liable for indirect, incidental, special, consequential or punitive damages, or for lost data, lost time or lost opportunity, arising from your use of Grow offline. Our total liability to you for any claim is limited to the greater of $100 or the amount you paid us in the 12 months before the claim. Some laws do not allow these limits; where that is so, they apply only as far as the law permits.

14. Governing law and disputes

These terms are governed by the laws of the State of Washington, without regard to its conflict-of-laws rules. If you have a problem, email us first at support@getgrowoffline.com and give us 30 days to sort it out. If we cannot, any dispute goes to the state or federal courts located in Washington, and you and we agree to that location. There is no mandatory arbitration and no class action waiver in these terms.

15. General

If a part of these terms is found unenforceable, the rest stays in force.
These terms and the privacy policy are the whole agreement between you and us about Grow offline.
You may not transfer your account or these terms to anyone else. We may transfer them to someone who takes over Grow offline, and we will tell you if that happens.
We send notices to you in the app or to the phone number on your account. You send notices to us at support@getgrowoffline.com.
Our not enforcing a term is not a waiver of it.

16. Contact

Email: support@getgrowoffline.com. We reply to the address you write from.