Ferndesk
Legal

Terms of Service

Effective September 24, 2026 Last updated September 24, 2026

1. About these Terms

These Terms of Service (the “Terms”) are an agreement between Work Paragon LLC, doing business as Ferndesk (“Ferndesk”, “we”, “us”), and the organization that uses Ferndesk (“you”).

By creating an account, clicking “I agree”, or using Ferndesk, you accept these Terms. If you accept them on behalf of an organization, you confirm that you have authority to bind it. If you do not agree, do not use Ferndesk.

Our Privacy Policy explains how we handle personal data. It forms part of these Terms.

2. The Service

Ferndesk is an AI-native help-center platform. It includes:

  • the dashboard, where your team writes, edits and publishes help content;
  • hosted help centers, on a Ferndesk address or your own domain, public or restricted to people you choose;
  • the help widget, which you can embed in your own product and website, including AI answers and a contact form;
  • Fern, our AI documentation agent. Fern reads the sources you connect (such as code repositories, support tickets, changelogs and product videos) and prepares changes to your help center;
  • integrations with third-party services you choose to connect, such as GitHub, Linear and helpdesks;
  • the API and MCP server, for programmatic access; and
  • related analytics, translations, support and documentation.

Together, these are the “Service”. We may change the Service over time, provided the changes do not materially reduce its core functionality.

3. Your account

  • You must be at least 18 and able to form a binding contract.
  • You are responsible for everyone you invite to your workspace, and for all activity under your accounts.
  • Keep your sign-in details secure. If you sign in with Google, we recommend requiring multi-factor authentication in your Google account.
  • You are responsible for your API keys and for the tools you authorize through our API or MCP server.
  • Tell us promptly at [email protected] if you believe your account has been compromised.

4. Subscriptions and fees

  • The Service is offered on a subscription basis. The fees, taxes and usage charges are those shown on your plan or order.
  • You authorize us, and our payment processor Stripe, to charge them to your payment method.
  • All fees are non-refundable, except where the law requires otherwise.
  • You can cancel at any time in your billing settings. Deleting your workspace also cancels its subscription immediately, without a refund.
  • If you do not pay, we may suspend or end your subscription (see section 14).

5. Your content

5.1 You own your content

“Customer Content” means the content and data that you, your team or your end users put into the Service, or that the Service collects from sources you connect. It includes articles, files, images, videos, support tickets, code, and end users’ questions and messages. You keep all rights in your Customer Content.

5.2 The licence you give us

You give us a worldwide, non-exclusive, royalty-free licence to host, store, copy, process, transmit and display your Customer Content, and to make back-up copies of it. This licence is only for providing, securing and supporting the Service for you, as described in these Terms and the Privacy Policy. It ends when your Customer Content is deleted.

We do not use Customer Content to train AI models. The Privacy Policy explains how we enforce this with our AI providers.

5.3 Usage data

We may collect data about how the Service is used, such as feature usage, performance and errors. We use it to operate, secure and improve the Service. We will only share it outside Ferndesk in aggregated form that does not identify you, your end users or your Customer Content.

5.4 Your responsibilities for your content

You are responsible for your Customer Content and for having the rights and permissions needed for us to process it under these Terms. This includes:

  • any notices and consents your end users need, for example about the help widget and analytics on your help center;
  • not uploading special categories of personal data (such as health data) unless you have a lawful basis and have agreed this with us in writing;
  • deciding which help centers and articles are public, and not publishing secrets or personal data you did not mean to make public.

6. Connected sources and integrations

Fern works by reading sources you connect, such as GitHub repositories, helpdesks (for example Intercom, Zendesk or Help Scout), Linear, Slack, videos and websites. When you connect a source:

  • you confirm you are allowed to give us access to it, and to the data in it, for use in the Service;
  • you choose what to connect and with what permissions. Connect only what Fern needs. You can disconnect a source at any time;
  • we access the source only to provide the Service to you, and we treat what we read as your Customer Content;
  • your use of that third-party service is governed by its own terms. We are not responsible for third-party services, or for how they handle data you share with them.

If a source contains credentials, secrets or personal data you do not want Fern to read, exclude it before you connect it.

7. AI features

  • Fern, AI answers and other AI features generate output automatically. AI output can be wrong, incomplete or out of date. Review it before you rely on it or publish it.
  • Fern prepares changes to your help center for your team to review. Changes are published when someone in your workspace publishes them, or when a tool you have authorized through our API or MCP server does.
  • You are responsible for the content published in your help center, including content produced with AI.
  • AI answers shown to your end users are generated from your help-center content and can make mistakes. You are responsible for how you present them to your end users.
  • To produce output, we send the relevant parts of your Customer Content to the AI providers listed in our subprocessor list.

8. Acceptable use

This section takes effect on October 24, 2026. Until then, the previous wording applies: you must not violate any applicable law; reverse-engineer or decompile the Service; resell or offer the Service to third parties without a written reseller agreement; or upload malicious code or infringe any intellectual-property or privacy right.

You must not, and must not let anyone else:

  • break any law, or infringe anyone’s intellectual property, privacy or other rights;
  • upload or distribute malware, or use the Service for phishing, spam or fraud, including through help-center contact forms or emails sent through the Service;
  • publish content that is illegal, deceptive, harassing, or that exploits or harms children;
  • access or attempt to access accounts, workspaces or data that are not yours;
  • probe, scan or test the security of the Service, except as our Vulnerability Disclosure Policy allows or with our written permission. Report vulnerabilities to [email protected];
  • interfere with or overload the Service, or get around usage limits, access controls or billing;
  • reverse-engineer or decompile the Service, except where the law allows it;
  • resell or offer the Service to third parties without a written reseller agreement with us;
  • use the Service in breach of export or sanctions laws (see section 19).

9. Personal data we process for you

When the Service processes personal data within your Customer Content, including data about your end users, we do so on your behalf. You are the controller (or “business”), and we are your processor (or “service provider”). In that role, we will:

  • process that personal data only to provide the Service to you, following your instructions as given through your use and configuration of the Service and these Terms;
  • not sell it, and not use it for our own purposes, including advertising or training AI models;
  • make sure people at Ferndesk who can access it are bound by confidentiality;
  • protect it with the security measures described in the Privacy Policy;
  • use only the subprocessors on our subprocessor list, and give at least 30 days’ notice before adding a new one, as the Privacy Policy describes;
  • help you respond to requests from your end users, for example to access or delete their data;
  • tell you without undue delay if we become aware of a security incident that affects your Customer Content;
  • delete it as described in section 15.

10. Security

We maintain reasonable administrative, technical and physical safeguards to protect Customer Content. The Privacy Policy describes them. No system is perfectly secure, and we cannot guarantee absolute security.

11. Ferndesk’s intellectual property

We and our licensors own the Service, including its software, design and technology. These Terms do not give you any rights in them except the right to use the Service under these Terms.

12. Confidentiality

Each party may receive non-public information from the other (“Confidential Information”). Your Customer Content is your Confidential Information. The receiving party will use reasonable care to protect Confidential Information, and will use it only to carry out these Terms.

13. Beta features

Some features may be labelled alpha, beta or preview. They are provided as is, may change or be withdrawn at any time, and may produce errors. You use them at your own risk.

14. Suspension

We may suspend all or part of your access to the Service if:

  • your payment is overdue and you have not paid within 10 days of our notice;
  • your use breaks section 8 (Acceptable use), or threatens the security, integrity or availability of the Service or of other customers; or
  • the law or a legal order requires it.

Where we can, we will tell you first and give you a chance to fix the problem. We will limit a suspension to what is needed and lift it once the reason for it is resolved.

The second and third reasons take effect on October 24, 2026. Until then, we may suspend your access only for non-payment.

15. Term, termination, export and deletion

Term. These Terms apply from when you first use the Service until your subscription ends and your workspace has been deleted.

Ending your subscription. You can cancel at any time. Either party may terminate these Terms if the other materially breaches them and does not fix the breach within 30 days of written notice (10 days for non-payment).

Exporting your content. When your subscription ends, paid features stop, but your workspace and Customer Content are not deleted automatically. You can still sign in and export your help-center content in Settings → Export Data, until you delete your workspace. If we terminated your access because of a serious breach of section 8, or the law prevents it, we may instead provide your export on request.

Deleting your content. You decide when your Customer Content is deleted:

  • a workspace owner can delete the workspace in Settings → Danger Zone;
  • each person can delete their own Ferndesk account in Settings → Profile; or
  • you can ask us through our privacy request form or at [email protected]. We will complete a verified request within 30 days.

Deletion is permanent and cannot be undone. Copies in our database backups expire within 30 days. We keep invoices, payment records and a record that the deletion took place, as the law requires. The Privacy Policy gives the details.

The two paragraphs above, on exporting and deleting your content, take effect on October 24, 2026. Until then, the previous wording applies: upon termination, access ceases and Ferndesk will delete or return your Customer Content within 30 days, unless legally required to retain it.

16. Warranty disclaimer

THE SERVICE IS PROVIDED “AS IS” AND “AS AVAILABLE”. TO THE MAXIMUM EXTENT PERMITTED BY LAW, FERNDESK DISCLAIMS ALL IMPLIED WARRANTIES, INCLUDING MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE AND NON-INFRINGEMENT. WE DO NOT WARRANT THAT THE SERVICE, OR ANY AI OUTPUT, WILL BE UNINTERRUPTED, ACCURATE OR ERROR-FREE.

17. Limitation of liability

TO THE MAXIMUM EXTENT PERMITTED BY LAW, FERNDESK’S TOTAL LIABILITY ARISING OUT OF OR RELATING TO THE SERVICE OR THESE TERMS WILL NOT EXCEED THE FEES YOU PAID TO FERNDESK IN THE 12 MONTHS BEFORE THE CLAIM OR USD 100, WHICHEVER IS GREATER. FERNDESK WILL NOT BE LIABLE FOR ANY INDIRECT, SPECIAL, INCIDENTAL, PUNITIVE OR CONSEQUENTIAL DAMAGES, OR FOR LOST PROFITS.

18. Indemnification

You will indemnify and hold harmless Ferndesk and its affiliates from any third-party claim arising out of (a) your Customer Content, (b) your use of the Service in breach of these Terms, or (c) your breach of applicable law.

19. Export and sanctions compliance

You may not use the Service in breach of export control or sanctions laws, including the U.S. Export Administration Regulations and sanctions administered by OFAC.

20. Changes to these Terms

We may update these Terms. For material changes, we will give you at least 30 days’ notice before they take effect, by email to your workspace owners. Each version shows its effective date on this page. If you continue to use the Service after the effective date, the updated Terms apply. If you do not agree to them, you can cancel before that date.

21. Notices

  • To you: we send notices to the email address of your workspace owners, or show them in the Service.
  • To us: email [email protected]. Legal notices may also be sent by post to the address in section 24.

22. Governing law and disputes

These Terms are governed by the laws of the State of Delaware, USA, excluding its conflict-of-law rules. Any dispute will be resolved by binding arbitration administered by the American Arbitration Association, in English, in Wilmington, Delaware.

23. General

These Terms, together with the Privacy Policy and any order form, are the entire agreement between the parties about the Service. Neither party may assign these Terms without the other’s consent, except that Ferndesk may assign them to a successor in a merger, acquisition or sale of substantially all of its assets. If any provision is found unenforceable, the rest remain in effect. A failure to enforce a provision is not a waiver.

24. Contact

Work Paragon LLC (Ferndesk)
1111b South Governors Ave, STE 34230
Dover, DE 19904, USA
[email protected]