Risk Score
0 = very fair · 100 = very risky
Summary
This is a SaaS Terms of Service agreement for Vercel Inc., a web deployment and hosting platform. The document is moderately one-sided in Vercel's favor, containing mandatory arbitration, class action waiver, broad content licensing, and significant data usage rights for System Data. Free (Hobby) plan users face notably more aggressive terms, including having their content used to train AI models and shared with third parties by default. Paid Pro users have some opt-out rights, while Enterprise users have the best protections. Overall, the agreement is fairly typical for enterprise SaaS but contains several clauses that meaningfully restrict user rights.
Flagged Clauses
If you use the free Hobby plan or a trial Pro plan, Vercel can take your code, content, and data and share it with outside companies to train their AI systems. This is opt-in by default for paid Pro users, but free users are automatically enrolled with no easy opt-out except upgrading to a paid plan or adjusting Team account settings.
“If you are on a Hobby plan or trial Pro plan, you agree that we may use Your Content to train our artificial intelligence and machine learning models, and we may share Your Content with third parties for the purpose of developing and improving their products, including training and improving their AI and machine learning models.”
Vercel owns all usage data, traffic data, telemetry, and logs generated by your use of the platform. They can use this data for any business purpose they choose, even after your account is terminated. This data is not your Account Information and you have no rights over it.
“Vercel may collect, and retains all right, title and interest in and to, data or information created, analyzed, generated, or derived in connection with the provision, use, and performance of the Services... including traffic data, telemetry, logs generated from the Services, and usage statistics (collectively, 'System Data'). Vercel may use System Data for any business purposes in its sole discretion.”
You keep ownership of your content, but you grant Vercel a very broad license to use it in almost any way related to the service, including creating derivative works and sublicensing it to others. This goes beyond what is strictly necessary to host your content.
“By submitting Your Content on or through the Services, you grant Vercel a worldwide, non-exclusive, royalty-free, fully paid, sublicensable and transferable license to use, copy, modify, adapt, reproduce, distribute, display, publish, store, perform, and create derivatives of Your Content to provide and improve the Services, develop new products and services, secure and protect the Services and third parties.”
Any feedback, suggestions, or feature requests you give to Vercel become theirs to use forever, for free, in any way they want. You cannot revoke this, and you receive no compensation even if your suggestion becomes a major product feature.
“To the extent you or any of your users provide any suggestions to Vercel regarding the functioning, features, and other characteristics of the Services... you hereby grant Vercel a perpetual, irrevocable, non-exclusive, royalty-free, fully-paid-up, fully transferable, worldwide license... for Vercel to use and exploit in any manner and for any purpose.”
Disputes with Vercel cannot be resolved in court through a traditional lawsuit. You must go through private arbitration, and you cannot join other users in a class action lawsuit. This significantly limits your ability to seek legal remedies, especially for smaller claims where arbitration costs may be prohibitive.
“PLEASE REVIEW THE MUTUAL ARBITRATION CLAUSE AND CLASS ACTION WAIVER SET FORTH BELOW CAREFULLY, AS IT WILL REQUIRE YOU (A) TO RESOLVE DISPUTES WITH VERCEL THROUGH FINAL AND BINDING ARBITRATION AND (B) TO WAIVE YOUR RIGHT TO PARTICIPATE IN CLASS ACTIONS.”
There is an opt-out option for the arbitration clause, which is a user-friendly feature. The document references this opt-out but users should locate the specific opt-out window and process in the full arbitration section.
“The document includes an opt-out provision for arbitration.”
If your account is terminated for any reason — including exceeding usage limits — all of your content and data can be permanently deleted with no recovery option. Exceeding resource limits (storage, compute, bandwidth) can trigger immediate termination with no notice.
“All of Your Content on the Services (if any) may be permanently deleted by Vercel upon any termination of your account. Vercel may terminate your account and this Agreement immediately if you exceed any Vercel limits concerning use of the Services.”
Free Hobby plan users can have their projects or deployments shut down at any time, for any reason, without any advance notice. This makes the Hobby plan unsuitable for anything requiring reliability.
“We reserve the right to disable or remove any Project or website deployment on the Hobby plan with or without notice at our sole discretion. We may shut down and terminate projects or deployments using the Hobby plan without notice for any reason or no reason.”
Vercel can change the features, storage limits, compute limits, and other conditions of your plan at any time without needing your agreement. For the Hobby plan, they can even discontinue it entirely without notice.
“We may change the features, limitations, or other conditions applicable to the Hobby plan or discontinue offering the Hobby plan at any time. Vercel reserves the right to change these general practices and limits at any time, in its sole discretion.”
Your subscription automatically renews and your payment method is automatically charged. You must proactively cancel before the renewal date to avoid being charged for another full term. A downgrade is also not effective until the next renewal date.
“The self-service subscription and any additional Services added to your self-service subscription will automatically-renew for the same term as the initial term. You acknowledge and agree that Vercel will automatically charge your credit card or other payment method on record.”
Fees are generally non-refundable. Vercel can raise prices, and your continued use of the service after a price change is treated as acceptance of the new pricing. You are notified of price changes in writing before they take effect.
“All fees are non-refundable, except as expressly stated otherwise in this Agreement. Vercel may change its fees and payment terms at its discretion; provided however, that such changes will not take effect for you until the start of the next payment period.”
To cancel, you must contact Vercel Support rather than using a simple self-service button. Additionally, cancellation does not take effect immediately — it takes effect at the start of the next renewal period, meaning you may continue being charged after deciding to cancel.
“You have the right to terminate your account at any time by sending a cancellation request to Vercel Support via the Help page provided that such termination will be effective at the start of the next renewal period.”
If your data is lost, corrupted, or accessed by unauthorized parties due to a misconfiguration on your part, Vercel bears no responsibility. Given the complexity of cloud infrastructure, even partial user misconfiguration could shield Vercel from liability for significant data loss.
“Vercel will have no liability to you for any unauthorized access or use of any of Your Content or any corruption, deletion, destruction or loss of any Your Content to the extent that is attributable, in whole or in part, to your misconfigurations or an insecurity in your website or project.”
If someone sues Vercel because of something related to your content or your use of the service, you are responsible for covering Vercel's legal costs and any damages. This is a broad indemnification obligation.
“You will indemnify and hold harmless Vercel against any claims, actions or demands, including without limitation reasonable legal and accounting fees, arising or resulting from your breach of this Agreement, any claim of infringement or misappropriation arising out of your websites or any of Your Content.”
If you work under someone else's Team on Vercel, the Team owner can claim ownership of your content and projects. This is significant for employees or contractors using an organization's Vercel account — your work may belong to them.
“If you are invited to a Team or a Project, Your Content created in that Team or Project may be shared with that Team and may be accessed, modified, claimed ownership of, or deleted by the Team owner or administrator.”
Missing Protections
- No explicit data deletion / right to erasure guarantee upon account termination — deletion is described as something Vercel 'may' do, not a guaranteed right
- No SLA (Service Level Agreement) or uptime guarantee referenced in the main terms for non-Enterprise plans
- No defined retention period for user content or account data after termination
- No explicit right to data portability or export before account deletion
- No clear price lock or advance notice period specified for price increases beyond 'before the next payment period'
- No transparency about which specific third parties content may be shared with for AI/ML training purposes
- No cooling-off or trial cancellation period for new paid subscribers
- Opt-out process for arbitration is referenced but not fully detailed in the provided text
Fair Terms
- Users explicitly retain ownership of their Account Information ('You own and retain all right, title and interest in and to Account Information')
- Paid Pro users have AI/Model Training disabled by default and must opt in, rather than being automatically enrolled
- If Vercel terminates your account without cause and you have a paid subscription, they will refund the pro-rated unused portion
- The arbitration clause includes an opt-out option, giving users a path to retain traditional legal rights
- Fee changes do not take effect until the start of the next payment period, providing some billing predictability
- The document provides EEA (European Economic Area) users with additional protections, including a complaints/review process for content removal decisions
- Vercel provides written notice before fee changes that affect purchased Services
- The mutual arbitration clause means Vercel is also bound by arbitration, not just users
- Vercel provides 30 days notice for account termination without cause
Document information only — not legal advice.