Terms of Service

Last updated: 8/7/2026

These terms are an agreement between you and NetRivet Inc. (“Gertrude,” “we,” “our,” or “us”) covering your use of the Gertrude apps, the parent dashboard, the supervision tool, and everything else we make. By creating an account or using any Gertrude software, you agree to them.

We've tried to write this in plain English. If something here is unclear, or if you're not sure whether what you want to do is allowed, contact us and ask. We'd much rather answer the question early.

Who Gertrude Is For

Gertrude is for people protecting themselves and the people close to them. That includes:

• Parents and guardians filtering, supervising, or monitoring devices used by children in their household.
• Adults protecting themselves. Putting Gertrude on your own devices — for self-control, for recovery, or simply to build a healthier relationship with the internet — is a first-class use of this product, not a workaround. A lot of our customers use Gertrude exactly this way.
• Accountability partners. Two adults who have agreed to it, where one holds the keys and sees the activity for the other.
• Spouses and partners who have decided together to put Gertrude on one or both of their devices.
• Schools and similar communities protecting devices they provide to their students, where the students and their families know Gertrude is there. This isn't our main use case, but we're glad to support it — contact us first so we can make sure your account is set up sensibly.

What all of those have in common is that the people Gertrude protects know it's there, and it's there out of care for them. That's the line. Gertrude is not a tool for controlling someone who hasn't agreed to it, and it's not a tool for managing devices as business assets.

You must be at least 18 years old to create a Gertrude account, and you're responsible for everything done under it.

Acceptable Use

You may use Gertrude to:

• Filter, supervise, or monitor devices used by children in your household, as their parent or guardian.
• Protect your own devices from content you've decided you don't want access to.
• Hold accountability for another adult — or let another adult hold it for you — where both of you know about it and have freely agreed to it.

You may not use Gertrude to:

• Install, run, or configure any Gertrude app on someone's device without their knowledge. Gertrude is never to be used secretly. Everyone protected by Gertrude has a right to know it's there.
• Restrict or monitor an adult's device without their free and informed consent, including covert monitoring of a spouse, partner, or other adult. Consent given under pressure isn't consent.
• Enforce a loan, lease, rent-to-own, installment plan, or any other financing arrangement — including locking, restricting, or disabling a device because a payment was missed or late.
• Hold a device as collateral, or repossess, brick, or remotely disable a device on behalf of a lender, retailer, creditor, or collections operation.
• Manage devices belonging to employees, contractors, or other workers, or to run a commercial device fleet.
• Resell, rebrand, or bundle Gertrude as part of a product or service you provide to others.
• Create multiple accounts, or otherwise work around a limit we've placed on your account.
• Break the law, or help anyone else break it.

Gertrude is not an MDM. It is not a mobile device management platform, an asset-tracking system, or a repossession tool, and we don't support using it as one. If you need to manage devices for a business, please use a product built for that.

If you're doing something unusual but legitimate — a ministry running accountability relationships between consenting adults, say, a recovery group, or a large family — contact us. We're glad to make room for real cases.

Accounts And Devices

You're responsible for keeping your password safe and for the activity on your account. Tell us right away if you think someone else has access to it.

Each plan includes a limit on how many iOS devices you can supervise. If you legitimately need more than your plan allows, contact us and we'll sort it out with you directly.

Plans, Billing, And Cancellation

Gertrude offers a free plan and several paid plans. Current prices and what each plan includes are on our pricing page.

• Paid plans renew automatically — yearly or monthly, depending on the plan — until you cancel.
• You can cancel anytime from the parent dashboard. Cancellation takes effect at the end of the period you've already paid for.
• Free trials don't require a card and don't turn into a paid subscription on their own. When a trial ends, your account simply drops back to what you were on before, and stays there until you decide to subscribe.
• We can change prices, but not in the middle of a period you've already paid for.

If Gertrude didn't work out for you, contact us. We're not interested in keeping money from someone who isn't using the product.

Suspension And Termination

We may suspend or terminate an account that violates these terms, particularly the acceptable use policy above. Usually we'll reach out first and give you a chance to fix it. For clear-cut abuse, or where someone is at risk, we may act immediately.

You can stop using Gertrude and close your account at any time. If you have supervised devices, please read the section above first.

The Software

We grant you a personal, non-transferable license to use the Gertrude apps for the purposes described in these terms. Much of Gertrude is open source; that code is governed by its own license, and nothing here restricts rights you have under it.

Privacy

How each app handles data is covered by its privacy policy: Gertrude for iOS, Gertrude Podcasts, and Gertrude Music.

No Warranty, And Limits On Our Liability

Gertrude is provided as-is. We work hard on it, but no filter is perfect: content Gertrude blocks can still get through, and content it allows may not be something you'd want. Gertrude is one layer of protection, not a substitute for a parent's attention or an honest accountability relationship. We don't warrant that it will be uninterrupted, error-free, or catch everything.

To the extent the law allows, we aren't liable for indirect, incidental, or consequential damages, and our total liability is limited to what you've paid us in the twelve months before the claim.

Changes To These Terms

We may update these terms. When we make a meaningful change, we'll update the date at the top of this page, and we'll notify account holders by email if the change materially affects them. Continuing to use Gertrude after a change means you accept it.

Contact

Questions, edge cases, or anything else: contact us.