Terms of Service

These Terms of Service ("Terms") govern your access to and use of the Bhala AI website, APIs, and services ("Services"). By accessing or using our Services, you agree to be bound by these Terms.

1. Use of Services

You may use our Services only in compliance with these Terms and all applicable laws. You are responsible for maintaining the confidentiality of your API key and account credentials. You agree not to use the Services for any unlawful purpose or in any way that could damage, disable, overburden, or impair the Services. You may not share, transfer, or sublicense your API credentials to any third party without our prior written consent.

2. API Usage

Access to Bhala APIs is subject to usage limits based on your subscription plan. You agree not to exceed your allocated rate limits or attempt to circumvent any usage restrictions. We reserve the right to throttle or suspend access to accounts that violate these restrictions.

3. Prohibited Uses

You agree not to use the Services to:

  • Build a competing product or service: You may not use the Bhala APIs, models, embeddings, translations, reranking outputs, or any other Service output to develop, train, fine-tune, distill, or improve any product, model, or service that competes with Bhala AI's offerings — including but not limited to language models, embeddings APIs, translation services, reranking services, keyboard applications, or NLP tools for African or Bantu languages — without Bhala AI's prior written approval.
  • Reverse engineer or extract models: You may not reverse engineer, decompile, disassemble, or otherwise attempt to extract the source code, underlying algorithms, model weights, training data, or architecture of any Bhala AI model or system. This includes systematic extraction of API outputs to reconstruct or approximate our models ("model scraping").
  • Resell or redistribute API access: You may not resell, redistribute, sublicense, or provide pass-through access to the Bhala APIs or their outputs as a standalone service without entering into a separate reseller or partnership agreement with Bhala AI.
  • Scrape or bulk-harvest: You may not use automated means to systematically extract, scrape, or bulk-download data, outputs, or content from the Services beyond normal API usage within your rate limits.
  • Generate harmful content: You may not use the Services to generate, translate, or distribute content that is illegal, hateful, discriminatory, defamatory, harassing, sexually exploitative, or that promotes violence or harm.
  • Misrepresent output origin: You may not present Bhala AI's model outputs as human-generated content in contexts where such misrepresentation would be deceptive, harmful, or violate applicable laws.
  • Circumvent security or access controls: You may not attempt to bypass authentication, rate limits, usage restrictions, or any other security measures implemented by Bhala AI.

4. Data and Privacy

We do not store or retain the text content you submit through our APIs beyond what is necessary to process your request. API usage metadata (request counts, token usage) is retained for billing and service improvement purposes. For the Bhala Keyboard, typing patterns are anonymized before being used for model improvement. For full details, see our Privacy Policy.

5. Intellectual Property

The Services, including our language models, APIs, embeddings, documentation, training methodologies, and all related technology, are the exclusive property of Bhala AI and are protected by intellectual property laws. Nothing in these Terms grants you any right, title, or interest in the Services except for the limited right to use them in accordance with these Terms.

You retain ownership of the content you submit to our APIs. Subject to the restrictions in Section 3, you own the output generated from your content. However, you acknowledge that identical or similar outputs may be generated for other users submitting similar inputs, and no exclusivity is implied.

6. Account Termination

We reserve the right to suspend or terminate your account and access to the Services, without prior notice or liability, if we reasonably believe that you have violated these Terms — including but not limited to the prohibited uses described in Section 3. Upon termination, your right to use the Services will immediately cease. Any outstanding balance or credits in your account are non-refundable upon termination for cause.

7. Indemnification

You agree to indemnify, defend, and hold harmless Bhala AI, its officers, directors, employees, and agents from and against any claims, liabilities, damages, losses, costs, or expenses (including reasonable legal fees) arising out of or in connection with your use of the Services, your violation of these Terms, or your infringement of any third-party rights.

8. Limitation of Liability

Our Services are provided "as is" and "as available" without warranties of any kind, whether express or implied, including but not limited to implied warranties of merchantability, fitness for a particular purpose, and non-infringement. Bhala AI shall not be liable for any indirect, incidental, special, consequential, or punitive damages arising out of or in connection with your use of the Services. In no event shall Bhala AI's total aggregate liability exceed the amount you paid to Bhala AI in the twelve (12) months preceding the claim.

9. Governing Law

These Terms shall be governed by and construed in accordance with the laws of the Republic of South Africa, without regard to its conflict of law provisions. Any disputes arising under these Terms shall be subject to the exclusive jurisdiction of the courts of South Africa.

10. Changes to Terms

We may update these Terms from time to time. We will notify you of any material changes by posting the updated Terms on our website. Your continued use of the Services after such changes constitutes your acceptance of the revised Terms.

11. Contact

If you have any questions about these Terms, please contact us at legal@bhala.ai.

Last updated: February 2026