These are the terms for using Steady, in plain words. By using Steady, you agree to them.
What Steady is
A tool for making a spending pact with someone you trust. Purchases you make through Steady that match your pact's rules go on hold, not taken, until one of you decides.
Steady is not:
- medical advice, a diagnosis or a treatment
- a bank, a lender or a payment provider (PayPal handles the payments)
- financial or legal advice
- a lock. You can change or end your pact, as set out below.
An early product
Steady is new. It was first built for the PayPal AI Hackathon in November 2026, and we're still improving it. Things may change, and things may break. In the demo, payments use PayPal's sandbox and no real money moves.
Your account
- You sign in with Google, and you must be 18 or older.
- Keep your Google account safe. You're responsible for what's done from your account.
- You can download or delete everything in Settings. Backup copies of our database are kept for 12 hours, then deleted.
Pacts
- A pact is made by two people, and starts when both have signed.
- You set the rules together. Steady applies them as written.
- A pact runs 3, 6 or 12 months, then ends on its own.
- Stricter changes apply at once. Looser changes, a new partner, or ending early apply 72 hours after they're asked for. The partner is told, and can't block them. Making a pact longer needs both people.
- Make a pact only if you both agree to it freely. Nobody may use Steady to watch or control someone without their agreement.
Holds and payments
- Purchases through Steady are PayPal authorizations. Normal ones are captured right away.
- A purchase on hold is captured only when a person keeps or approves it. If nobody decides within the pact's hold limit, it's released and nothing is taken.
- PayPal releases a hold at once, but your bank may take a few days to show it.
- Steady only covers purchases made through Steady. It can't see or stop payments anywhere else.
- PayPal's own terms cover your PayPal account and your payments.
- Questions about an item, a delivery or a return are between you and the shop, through PayPal's usual processes.
The AI
- On the $8 plan, AI writes reasons, notes and answers. For a summary, the AI chooses what to highlight, and Steady writes the words. AI can be wrong, so check anything important.
- The AI never moves money, and never lets through a purchase your rules would hold.
- A summary is not a diagnosis.
The $8 plan
- Protection is free. The plan adds the AI help for $8 a month, billed through PayPal Subscriptions.
- It's free for 14 days, with up to 60 AI tasks. No card needed to start. Starting the plan ends the free trial, and the first payment is taken then.
- One plan covers both people in a pact. Either can pay.
- Payments are for whole months only, so the last one comes before the pact ends. The AI help stays on until the pact ends, and nothing renews.
- You can cancel any time, in Settings or in PayPal. No more payments are taken after you cancel, and the AI help keeps working until the end of the month you paid for. We don't give refunds for part of a month.
- If a plan starts that the pact didn't need, such as a second plan for the same pact, we stop it and refund its first payment.
- If a payment fails, the AI help pauses. Protection keeps working.
- If you think you were charged by mistake, tell us, as set out under Questions below.
Fair use
Please don't try to reach other people's data, overload the service, or use Steady to control someone against their will. We may close accounts that do. Demo households are limited and are deleted after 7 days.
Open source
The code behind Steady is open source under the AGPL-3.0 license. See the code
Our responsibility
We work hard to keep Steady accurate and running, but we can't promise it will always work, or that it will catch every risky purchase. Steady is provided as it is. As far as the law allows, we're not responsible for purchases made outside Steady, for decisions made using it, or for losses from a hold, a release or an outage. Nothing here takes away rights you have by law.
If Steady closes
If we ever close Steady, we'll tell you first, release any open holds, and give you time to download your data.
Questions
Open an issue on GitHub. Issues are public, so please leave out personal and health details.
Not medical advice.