Terms of Use
These Terms of Use (“Terms”) govern your access to and use of the website boldbobbin.com, the Boldbobbin embroidery design software, and related services (together, the “Service”), operated by Boldbobbin GmbH, a limited liability company incorporated in Switzerland (UID: CHE-368.246.596) with its registered seat in Zürich. By creating an account or using the Service, you agree to these Terms.
1. Eligibility
You must be at least 18 years old, or the age of majority in your jurisdiction, to create an account or use the Service.
2. User Accounts & Security
You are responsible for safeguarding your login credentials. You agree to provide accurate information and to notify us immediately of any unauthorized access to or use of your account.
3. Founding Member Program
Selected users who received a formal written invitation to our Founding Member program, and who fulfilled their feedback obligations (e.g., bug reports, feedback calls), receive a permanent 30% discount on paid plans. This commitment applies only to users who received such a written invitation. We reserve the right to modify or discontinue the program for users who do not meet the participation requirements.
4. Plans, Subscriptions & Billing
Boldbobbin offers a free tier (Personal) and one or more paid subscriptions (Pro), as well as a discretionary Lifetime grant (see Section 12). Paid plans are recurring subscriptions, billed in advance and automatically renewing for successive periods until cancelled.
- Fees. The fees for paid plans are those displayed at the time of purchase. Current or introductory pricing may differ from our standard pricing and is subject to change. We will give existing subscribers reasonable advance notice of any change to the recurring fee that applies to them.
- Cancellation. You may cancel at any time. Your access to paid features continues until the end of the current paid period, and the subscription will not renew thereafter.
- Reversion to Free. When a cancelled paid plan expires, your account reverts to the Free-tier terms. You retain the designs you previously created, but you will not be able to create or store new cloud designs beyond the Free cloud limit, and local saving remains available. Downgrading or cancelling ends your ability to make new commercial (Pro) exports; however, any designs you exported while on the Pro plan keep their commercial-use licence permanently, and that licence does not require you to maintain an active subscription (see Section 9).
- Storage cleanup. For accounts that have reverted to Free and that exceed the Free cloud limit, we reserve the right to remove excess stored designs no earlier than six (6) months after reversion. We will give you prior notice by email and the opportunity to export your designs before any removal.
5. Payments and Merchant of Record
Payments for paid plans are processed by Stripe, which acts as the merchant of record (seller of record) for those transactions. Stripe handles billing and the collection and remittance of applicable taxes (such as VAT or GST). Your contract for the software and the Service is with Boldbobbin GmbH; the payment transaction itself is processed by the merchant of record.
6. Refunds
Except where required by applicable law, fees are non-refundable. Where you are a consumer in the EU/EEA, your statutory withdrawal and cancellation rights are honoured and are handled through the merchant of record.
7. Intellectual Property of Boldbobbin
The Boldbobbin name, logo, software code, UI design, and original technology are the exclusive property of Boldbobbin GmbH and are protected by Swiss and international intellectual property laws.
8. Your Content & Ownership
You retain full ownership of all embroidery designs and files you create using Boldbobbin. We do not claim any intellectual property rights over your designs. By uploading or creating content, you grant us a limited, non-exclusive license to host, store, and render that content solely for the purpose of providing the Service to you. We will never sell or distribute your designs to third parties without your explicit consent.
9. Licence & Permitted Use
Your permitted use of designs created with Boldbobbin depends on your plan:
- Personal (Free) tier. For personal, non-commercial use only. You may create and export designs for your own personal use. The native project format (.vemb) may be shared (see Section 11) but, under the Free plan, must not be sold or otherwise commercially exploited in any form. Any Boldbobbin watermark applied under the Personal plan appears on rendered PNG image previews only, not on your machine embroidery files.
- Pro (Paid) tier. Grants a commercial-use licence for the designs you export while on the Pro plan: you may sell physical goods bearing embroidery produced with Boldbobbin, and sell the exported machine files (such as .DST, .PES, and other standard export formats) that you created. This commercial grant is per export and permanent: each design you export while on the Pro plan keeps its commercial-use licence for that export indefinitely, and that licence does not require you to maintain an active subscription (see Section 4).
You retain full ownership of your designs and your native .vemb project files (see Section 8). You may also publish designs to the community gallery, where you choose the terms on which other people may use them. See Section 10.
10. Community Gallery
Boldbobbin operates a public community gallery in which users may publish designs they have created. Publishing is optional and entirely user initiated. No design becomes public unless you choose to publish it.
10.1 What you confirm when you publish. By publishing a design you confirm that you created it, or otherwise hold all rights necessary to publish it and to grant the permissions you select; that it does not infringe the intellectual property, privacy, or other rights of any third party; and that it contains nothing unlawful or offensive. You remain responsible and liable for what you publish. Your decision to publish is the explicit consent referred to in Section 8.
10.2 What becomes public. Publishing a design makes the following publicly accessible, without an account and without payment: a preview image of the design; its title, description, and technical details such as stitch count, colour count, and dimensions; the public name shown on your maker profile; and the design's native project file (.vemb). Anyone may view and download these.
10.3 The licence you choose is yours, not ours. When you publish, you choose whether other people may use the design commercially, and whether they must credit you. Those choices are your declaration to the people who download it, and the resulting licence is between you and them. Boldbobbin is not a party to it, does not technically enforce it, and does not monitor compliance with it. If somebody uses your design outside the terms you set, that is a matter between you and that person, although you may report it to us under Section 10.6. The terms you offer other people are separate from the licence your own plan grants you under Section 9, and are not limited by it.
10.4 If you download from the gallery. Designs in the gallery are published by other users, not by Boldbobbin. You must comply with the terms the publisher chose, as shown on the design's page. Gallery designs are provided “as is”, and Section 11 applies to them.
10.5 A published design is a snapshot. Publishing creates an independent copy, taken at the moment you publish. Editing the original in your account does not change the published copy, and deleting the original does not remove it from the gallery. To take a design out of the gallery, unpublish it: that removes the public copy, and your original stays in your account. We cannot recall copies that other people have already downloaded.
10.6 Reporting and removal. We host what users submit, and we do not review or approve designs before they appear. If you believe a published design infringes your rights, or is otherwise unlawful or inappropriate, tell us at alexandre [ at ] boldbobbin . com or through our contact form. Please include the address of the design's page, an explanation of the problem and of the right you are asserting, and a way to reach you.
We will review the report and remove or disable access to content that infringes rights or breaches these Terms. When we remove a published design, we tell the publisher that we have removed it and why.
We may also remove content at our discretion. We may suspend or terminate an account that has published infringing content on three or more occasions, and we decide whether an occasion counts; in egregious cases we may suspend or terminate an account immediately.
10.7 No bulk downloading or scraping. You may download individual designs for your own use, in accordance with the terms their publishers chose. You must not use automated means to download, copy, index, or harvest the gallery or any substantial part of it, and you must not republish, redistribute, or mirror the gallery, or any collection taken from it, whether or not you do so commercially.
10.8 Deleting your account. If you delete your account, the designs you published are removed from the gallery and the published copies of those files are deleted from our storage. See Section 13.
11. File Sharing & Third-Party Files
You own your designs and may share your own files, including .vemb files. We do not prohibit you from sharing files you created.
However, Boldbobbin is not responsible for files obtained from sources other than Boldbobbin's official features. Designs obtained through the community gallery are an exception: although the gallery is an official Boldbobbin feature, the designs in it are submitted by other users, are not reviewed by us before publication, and are subject to Section 10. You should only open files (including .vemb files) from sources you trust. Opening files from untrusted or third-party sources is at your own risk, and Boldbobbin disclaims liability for any damage, data loss, or errors arising from files shared, obtained, or opened outside Boldbobbin's official channels. User-shared content is provided “as is”; we do not vet or endorse it.
12. Lifetime Plan
Lifetime access is granted at Boldbobbin's sole discretion, by invitation or grant; it is not a publicly purchasable plan. Lifetime access covers the application and the standard Pro features that do not incur an ongoing, per-use operating cost.
Lifetime access does not cover features that rely on ongoing cloud computation or resources, including but not limited to heavy server-side rendering, GPU-based automatic digitization, and cloud storage beyond a stated limit. Such features may require separate paid credits or a separate subscription, even for Lifetime holders. We reserve the right to determine and adjust which features are compute-dependent and therefore fall outside the scope of Lifetime access.
13. Termination
We reserve the right to suspend or terminate your access for violations of these Terms. Upon voluntary account deletion, all of your personal information (such as your email, name, and country) is permanently deleted. Any designs you published to the community gallery are removed from it, and the published copies of those files are deleted. Your remaining design files are disassociated from your identity; once they have been unlinked, we can no longer identify or recover which designs belonged to you. In the event of a service-wide shutdown, we will provide at least 30 days' notice to allow you to export your designs.
14. Disclaimer of Warranties
The Service, including the Boldbobbin web application and the desktop applications, is provided on an “as is” and “as available” basis. To the maximum extent permitted by applicable law, we make no warranties of any kind, whether express or implied, and we do not warrant that the Service will be uninterrupted, timely, secure, or error-free. This does not affect any statutory rights you may have as a consumer that cannot be excluded under applicable law.
15. Limitation of Liability
To the maximum extent permitted by applicable law, Boldbobbin GmbH shall not be liable for any indirect, incidental, or consequential damages (including loss of data or profit). In no event shall our total liability exceed 50 CHF or the total amount paid by you in the last six months, whichever is higher.
16. Privacy & Data Protection
Your use of the Service is governed by our Privacy Policy. We comply with the Swiss Federal Act on Data Protection (nFADP) and, where applicable, the GDPR. Your data is stored securely and processed in accordance with these standards.
17. Governing Law & Jurisdiction
These Terms are governed by the substantive laws of Switzerland. The exclusive place of jurisdiction for all disputes arising out of or in connection with these Terms is the registered seat of Boldbobbin GmbH in Switzerland.
18. Changes to These Terms
We may update these Terms to reflect changes in our service or legal requirements. Registered users will be notified of significant changes via email. Last updated: August 28, 2026.
19. Contact
For legal inquiries, please contact us here or email us at alexandre [ at ] boldbobbin . com.