Terms and conditions (also called terms of service) are the rules for using your website and buying from you. They set what happens with pricing mistakes, who owns your content, how much you can be held responsible for, and which law and courts apply if something goes wrong. Customers rarely read them, but when there is a dispute, a chargeback or a copycat, they are the first thing you, a payment provider or a court will look at.
This generator writes terms in plain English from a short form. It has three versions: an online store, a SaaS or app business, and a blog or content site. It runs in your browser, saves your answers on your device only, and gives you HTML and plain text to paste into Shopify, WooCommerce or any other platform.
How to generate your terms and conditions
- Choose the site type. Online store, SaaS or app, or blog or content site. The form shows only the questions that matter for that type.
- Enter your business details. The legal business name (the person or company that owns the site), the website name and URL, a contact email, a postal address and the effective date. UK and EU law expect a geographic address for businesses that sell online, so fill it in if you sell there.
- Set governing law. Choose your country, then your state, province or legal system where the form asks for one. US stores can choose individual arbitration instead of courts.
- Pick a liability limit: what the customer paid in the last 12 months, the greater of $100 or that amount, or the price of the order in question.
- Tick what your site does. Accounts, reviews and comments, digital downloads, preorders, international shipping, subscriptions, affiliate links, or advice content. SaaS businesses also set billing, a free trial, a refund rule and how much notice they give before a price change.
- Link your other policies. Add the URLs of your privacy, refund and shipping policies so the terms point to them. On Shopify these are /policies/privacy-policy, /policies/refund-policy and /policies/shipping-policy.
- Read the preview. Change any answer and the terms update. Edit wording that does not match how you actually work.
- Copy or download. Use the HTML for your website editor or the plain text for Shopify's policy editor. Both can be downloaded as files.
What each version includes
| Section | Online store | SaaS or app | Content site |
|---|---|---|---|
| Who can use the site, accounts | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Products, prices and pricing errors | Yes | No | No |
| Orders, payment, shipping and returns links | Yes | No | No |
| Plans, auto-renewal, cancellation, free trial | If you sell subscriptions | Yes | If you sell memberships |
| Your data, availability and support | No | Yes | No |
| Use of content, affiliate links, no professional advice | No | No | Yes |
| Reviews, comments and uploads | Optional | Optional | Optional |
| Acceptable use, IP, disclaimer, liability, indemnity, termination | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Governing law, disputes, consumer rights, changes, contact | Yes | Yes | Yes |
The clauses an online store needs
Orders and acceptance
The store version says that placing an order is an offer, your confirmation email only confirms you received it, and the contract is formed when the order ships. That gives you room to cancel orders for stock problems or suspected fraud with a full refund, instead of being bound by an automatic email.
Pricing errors
Every store eventually lists something at $4.99 instead of $49.99. The terms say that if a price is wrong, you contact the customer before shipping and let them buy at the right price or cancel, and you refund in full if you cannot reach them. That is fairer, and easier to defend, than silently canceling.
Returns and shipping
The terms do not repeat your return and shipping rules. They link to your refund and shipping policies and say those policies are part of the terms, so you only update the details in one place. If you need those pages, use the refund policy generator and the shipping policy generator.
Intellectual property
Your photos, descriptions, logo and design belong to you or your licensors, and the terms say visitors may not copy them. That gives you a clear basis for takedown requests when another store copies your product photos.
Disclaimer and limitation of liability
These sections limit what you can be held responsible for, for example lost profits, and cap the total at the amount you chose. They also say plainly that nothing limits liability the law does not allow you to limit, such as injury caused by negligence or fraud, and that product warranties and consumer guarantees still apply. Courts in many countries ignore limits that go further than that, so the generator does not pretend otherwise.
Disputes
Every version asks the customer to contact you first and gives 30 days to sort things out, which resolves most problems. After that, disputes go to the courts where you are based, or, for US businesses that choose it, to individual arbitration under the American Arbitration Association's consumer rules, with a small claims exception, a class action waiver and a 30-day opt-out.
Notes for SaaS and content sites
The SaaS version focuses on money and data. It says the subscription renews automatically until cancelled, how to cancel (from account settings or by email), that access continues to the end of the paid period, how much notice you give before a price change, how a free trial converts to paid, and your refund rule. It also says customers keep ownership of the data they put into your product, and that you do not promise uptime you cannot guarantee. If you sell an uptime commitment, link to a separate service level agreement rather than editing that section.
The content site version is shorter. It lets readers share and quote your articles with a link, and forbids republishing or feeding your content into automated systems without permission. It discloses affiliate links and ads, which the FTC expects to be clear to US readers, and it includes a "no professional advice" section when you tick that you publish health, money or legal content. Put a short affiliate disclosure near the links in each article as well; a line in the terms alone is not enough.
Governing law: choosing a country and state
Pick the place where your business is legally based. A Texas LLC usually picks Texas, a Delaware corporation often picks Delaware, and a UK sole trader picks England and Wales, Scotland or Northern Ireland. The generator writes the law and the courts for you: for example "the laws of the State of Texas, United States, and applicable US federal law" and "the state and federal courts located in Texas".
Choosing your own law does not take away the protections consumers have where they live. For UK and EU countries, the terms say so openly, because consumer law there gives customers the right to rely on their home country's mandatory rules and to sue in their local courts. Arbitration is offered only for US businesses, because consumer arbitration clauses are restricted or unenforceable in many other places.
Rule changes to know in 2026
As of October 2026, these changes affect terms for online businesses:
- EU withdrawal function. From June 19, 2026, businesses that sell online to EU consumers must offer an easy online way to withdraw from a contract during the 14-day withdrawal period, often called a withdrawal button. The store version for EU countries mentions it and lets you add the link to your withdrawal page.
- No more ODR platform link. The EU's Online Dispute Resolution platform closed on July 20, 2025, so EU stores no longer need to link to it. The generator does not add that link, and you can remove it from older terms.
- Auto-renewal in the US. The FTC's 2024 "click to cancel" rule was vacated by a federal appeals court in July 2025, and the FTC started a new rulemaking in March 2026. The Restore Online Shoppers' Confidence Act (ROSCA) still requires clear disclosure of subscription terms and a simple way to cancel, and California's expanded automatic renewal law has applied since July 1, 2025. The SaaS version states the price, renewal, cancellation method and trial terms in plain words for that reason.
Where to put your terms, and how to make them count
- Shopify: go to Settings > Policies, open Terms of service and paste the plain text, or switch the editor to HTML and paste the HTML code. Shopify links your policies in the checkout footer. Shopify also offers an automated template; turning it on replaces your own text, so keep a copy.
- WooCommerce: create a page under Pages > Add New, paste the HTML into a Custom HTML block, then select the page under WooCommerce > Settings > Advanced > Page setup > Terms and conditions. The classic checkout then shows a checkbox for the terms. The block checkout shows a line saying that by placing the order the customer agrees to your Terms and Conditions and Privacy Policy, with links.
- Any other site: publish the terms as a page, link it in the footer, and link it next to the button customers click to sign up or pay.
Terms are much easier to enforce when people actively agree to them, for example by ticking a box or clicking a button that says "By placing your order you agree to our Terms", than when they sit only in the footer. Put the link where the decision happens.
Note: If you are setting up a new store, terms are one of several pages you need before launch, along with privacy, refund, shipping and contact pages. Once those are live, the AM Jarvis Product Importer brings products from public Shopify and WooCommerce stores into yours with variants, images and prices, ready to edit.
Do you need terms and conditions?
In most countries no law says every website must have a page called terms and conditions. But several things push you to have one: consumer laws require you to tell buyers certain things (who you are, how to contact you, cancellation rights, how renewals work), payment providers expect clear terms when they review disputes, and app stores and ad platforms ask for them. A short, honest set of terms that matches how you really work does all of that.
A privacy policy is a different document and is required by law in many places when you collect personal data. Make one with the privacy policy generator and link it in your terms.
What this generator does not do
It is a plain-English template, not legal advice, and it does not know your business. It writes in English only. It does not cover regulated businesses such as financial services, health care, alcohol, firearms, gambling or marketplaces where third parties sell, which need specialist terms. It cannot tell you whether an arbitration clause or liability cap will hold up in a particular court. If your business carries real legal risk, have a lawyer in your country review the result. Your answers are kept in this browser only so you can come back and change them.