Terms and Conditions

These Terms and Conditions (the "Terms") form a binding agreement between you and Helios Studio Limited, a company registered in New Zealand (NZBN 9429053665690) ("Helios Studio", "we", "us", "our"), governing your access to and use of the Fireball website, mobile apps, and related services (together, the "Service").

By creating an account or using the Service, you agree to these Terms, our Privacy Policy, and our Financial & AI Disclaimer. If you do not agree, you must not use the Service.

• You must be at least 18 years old to create an account.
• The Service is currently offered to residents of New Zealand. We may decline access from other regions or restrict features that depend on third-party providers (e.g. bank connections).
• You must provide accurate account information and keep it up to date.
• You are responsible for keeping your password secure and for all activity under your account.
• Two-factor authentication (TOTP): We offer optional time-based one-time password (TOTP) two-factor authentication. Your TOTP secret is stored encrypted in Supabase Auth. If you lose access to your authenticator app, you must contact support to recover access. Recovery may take several business days and require additional identity verification.
• You must notify us immediately if you suspect any unauthorised use of your account.

2.1 Collaborators (not currently available)

Collaborator access is not currently available to customers. If we make it available, the following terms will apply.

• An eligible account owner would be able to invite up to four trusted people to collaborate using their own verified Fireball logins. A collaborator would not need a separate subscription for that shared account.
• Collaborators would be able to view the owner's financial information and edit ordinary Fireball financial records within the permissions disclosed before acceptance. They would not be able to manage bank connections, imports, billing, membership, identity, security, consent, notifications, account deletion, or financial AI.
• The owner would be responsible for inviting only people they trust. Collaborator changes would be attributable to the signed-in collaborator and visible to the owner and other collaborators.
• Shared edits would require a live access check. Fireball could show a collaborator a sanitised app-sandboxed read-only copy of previously downloaded shared financial data for up to 24 hours after the last successful access check; shared media would be excluded. Access would depend on the owner's eligible Fireball access and be removed when Fireball receives an authoritative revocation or ineligibility result. A collaborator could leave at any time.
• Collaborators would be prohibited from misusing another person's financial information or sharing it outside the purposes authorised by the owner.

Fireball is offered as a paid subscription plan with monthly and yearly billing options. Pricing is shown on our pricing page and is in NZD unless stated otherwise. Web purchases are processed by Stripe; native-app purchases are processed by the Apple App Store or Google Play. Helios Studio never receives or stores your full card details.

3.1 Free trial

• New customers may be eligible to try Fireball free for 14 days.
• One trial per person. We enforce a one-trial-per-email-address rule. To do so, we retain a record of the email addresses that have started a trial, even if the account is later deleted, to prevent trial abuse. This processing is necessary for our legitimate interest in preventing fraud.
• You may need to add a payment method at the start of the trial. You will not be charged until the trial ends.
• You can cancel at any time before the trial ends to avoid being charged.
• We may withdraw, change, or refuse trial offers at any time.

3.2 Web introductory discount

• Eligible first time web subscribers receive 30% off for the first 12 months. The discount is applied automatically and begins when the subscription starts, including during any free trial.
• The discount applies to eligible monthly invoices issued during that period or to the first eligible yearly invoice. Stripe shows the exact discounted charge before confirmation.
• After the introductory period, the subscription automatically renews at the standard monthly or yearly price shown at checkout until cancelled.
• The offer is limited to one per person, cannot be combined with another promotion, and may be withdrawn or refused before redemption.

3.3 Auto-renewal and cancellation

• Subscriptions automatically renew at the end of each billing period at the then-current price until you cancel.
• You can cancel at any time from the Stripe billing portal accessible from your dashboard. Cancellation takes effect at the end of the current paid period, and you retain access until then.
• If you subscribe via the Apple App Store or Google Play Store, billing, renewals, and cancellation are handled by Apple or Google according to their own terms. You must manage and cancel those subscriptions through your Apple ID or Google account; cancelling via our app or Stripe will not stop a store-managed subscription.

3.4 Web waterproof guarantee, refunds, and price changes

• 30-day web waterproof guarantee: Your first paid monthly or yearly subscription charge made directly through Fireball's website is eligible for a full refund if you request it within 30 calendar days of that charge. The guarantee covers the amount actually paid for that initial charge, including where a valid promotion reduced the price.
• How to claim: Contact Billing Support from the email address associated with your Fireball account before the guarantee period ends. If your request is eligible, we will refund the initial charge to the original payment method, cancel the subscription, and end paid access when the refund is processed.
• Limits: The voluntary guarantee may be claimed once per person. It does not cover renewal charges, repeat or replacement subscriptions, partial billing periods, or purchases billed by the Apple App Store or Google Play. Store-billed refund requests must be made through the applicable store and are decided under that store's policies.
• Consumer rights: The voluntary guarantee is additional to, and does not limit, any non-excludable rights or remedies under the New Zealand Consumer Guarantees Act 1993 or Fair Trading Act 1986.
• Launch pricing: If you subscribe at a launch price, you keep that standard rate while your subscription remains continuously active on the same billing period. Cancelling and subscribing again, changing billing period, or moving to another billing provider may result in the price available at that time.
• Price changes: We may change prices for new subscriptions. For subscriptions that are not protected by launch pricing, we may change the renewal price with at least 30 days' notice. If you don't accept a new price, you can cancel before the next renewal.
• Taxes: Prices may include or exclude GST as displayed at checkout.

3.5 Referrals

• A referral code can be claimed only during an eligible free trial and before the referred customer's first provider-verified positive subscription payment.
• After that qualifying payment, the referred customer and an eligible referrer each receive one free calendar month after a 14-day hold. The exact payment is rechecked before fulfilment, and a refund or reversal during the hold cancels the related rewards.
• A shared payment method may qualify the first referral, including when the referrer previously used it. Once a payment method or provider transaction identity has qualified a referral, it cannot qualify another referral.
• There is no lifetime cap on qualifying referral months. Rewards have no cash value, are not transferable, and cannot be exchanged for a refund or account credit.
• A reward is applied only while the beneficiary has a renewable subscription. It waits if there is no eligible renewable subscription and is not applied during payment grace/retry or while cancellation is scheduled.
• How the month is delivered depends on the billing provider: Stripe moves the next billing date, Google Play defers the subscription expiry, and Apple requires the user to confirm the signed promotional offer presented by the App Store.
• We may withhold or cancel a referral where the eligibility, payment, ownership, or anti-abuse checks cannot be verified.

Bank account connections, balances, transactions, and account-holder identity data are provided through Akahu, New Zealand's open banking platform. By connecting a bank account you authorise Akahu to retrieve data on your behalf and share it with Fireball, and you agree to Akahu's own End User Terms and Privacy Notice, which apply in addition to ours.

4.1 What we receive

• Read-only access to your selected bank accounts. Akahu does not provide payment-initiation capability; Fireball cannot move money in or out of your accounts.
• Account names, types, masked account numbers, current and available balances, transaction history (date, amount, description, merchant, category code), account-holder name where provided, and account refresh status / timestamps.
• Transactions may be pushed to us via Akahu webhooks so your data stays up to date.
• We never receive your bank login credentials. Akahu either uses OAuth (you authenticate directly with your bank) or handles credentials securely on its own infrastructure.
• When starting or reconnecting an Akahu connection, Fireball sends an email address to Akahu as a login hint. On reconnect we first try to use the current email on your Akahu profile; for a first connection, or if that lookup is unavailable, we use the email on your Fireball account. Fireball does not retain the hint in its short-lived connection session.
• Your Akahu user access token is stored only on Fireball's server, with service-role-only access. It is never sent to or stored by the Fireball mobile app; authenticated server functions use it for bank-data requests and background syncs.

4.2 Revocation and disconnection

• You can disconnect all bank connections at any time from Settings → Bank Connections → Disconnect all banks, or manage and revoke access through Akahu.
• Fireball reports a connection as disconnected only after Akahu confirms revocation. If Akahu cannot confirm it, the connection remains active so you can retry.
• After provider-confirmed disconnection we stop receiving new data. Previously synced balances and transactions are retained in your account history so your past net worth and projections remain accurate, until you delete them or delete your account.
• To delete previously synced data, first disconnect the account, then use the in-app delete controls, or delete your Fireball account (see Section 13).

We rely on Akahu and your bank for accurate, complete, and timely data. We are not responsible for outages, missing transactions, miscategorisation, mismatched balances, or other issues caused by Akahu, your bank, or third-party data sources.

You agree not to:

• Use the Service for any unlawful, fraudulent, or harmful purpose, including money laundering, sanctions evasion, or processing data you don't have the right to share.
• Reverse-engineer, decompile, scrape, or attempt to extract source code or data from the Service except as permitted by law.
• Use the Service to develop a competing product.
• Resell, sublicense, or share your account with anyone.
• Interfere with or disrupt the Service, attempt to gain unauthorised access, or upload malicious code.
• Abuse the free trial (e.g. by creating multiple accounts to obtain repeated trials).

We may suspend or terminate accounts that breach these Terms, with or without notice.

Fireball is an information and budgeting tool — not financial advice. The FIRE projections, net worth calculations, savings rates, debt payoff timelines, KiwiSaver figures, insights, and AI-generated responses provided by the Service are general in nature and do not take into account your full financial situation, objectives, or needs.

Helios Studio is not a registered financial adviser or Financial Advice Provider (FAP) under the Financial Markets Conduct Act 2013. Nothing in the Service should be relied upon as a recommendation to buy, sell, hold, or otherwise deal with any financial product, including KiwiSaver schemes, managed funds, ETFs, individual securities, property, or insurance.

Past performance is not a reliable indicator of future results. Projections are estimates based on the assumptions and data you provide; small changes in inputs can produce large changes in outputs. All investments carry risk, including loss of principal. Before making any financial decision, you should consider seeking advice from a licensed financial adviser. Helios Studio accepts no liability for decisions you make based on information from the Service.

The full disclaimer is set out in our Financial & AI Disclaimer, which forms part of these Terms.

Fireball includes AI-powered features such as natural-language financial questions, an optional qualitative Weekly Review summary, auto-categorisation, bounded assumption extraction, support answers, and user-selected AI-assisted import mapping. Provider-backed responses are generated through an approved provider pool: OpenAI is the primary provider, and Google Gemini is a fallbackused only if OpenAI fails before producing visible text or a successful model/tool turn. Fireball does not send shadow or duplicate requests to both providers. AI output may be inaccurate, incomplete, biased, or out of date (so-called "hallucinations").

• General information only: AI Chat responses are general information and not financial advice. Always verify important figures and never treat AI output as advice.
• Data sent: We send only the minimum data needed for the selected task. Financial questions can include relevant balances, transactions, net worth, categories, budgets, goals, or debt facts. Support-only questions exclude financial context but can include the current question and up to three short excerpts of public Fireball FAQ or Help content. AI-assisted imports send a bounded sanitised profile rather than the full file. OpenAI receives a pseudonymous safety identifier derived from your user ID, not the raw identifier. We do not send your email, full account numbers, login credentials, government identifiers, or import filename.
• Consent and cross-border transfer: Before a provider-backed request, Fireball presents a prominent disclosure naming OpenAI and Google and requires current explicit consent. Processing can occur in the United States and other provider-controlled locations. Without current consent, the request fails closed.
• OpenAI data handling: Fireball uses the OpenAI Responses API with response storage disabled. OpenAI's current API data-controls documentation says API inputs and outputs are not used to train or improve its models unless the customer explicitly opts in. Default abuse-monitoring logs may contain prompts and responses and be retained for up to 30 days, or longer where legally required or reasonably necessary for protection. Fireball does not promise OpenAI Zero Data Retention or Modified Abuse Monitoring.
• Provider data handling: Google's current Gemini API terms distinguish paid and unpaid services. Paid-service prompts and responses are not used to improve Google's products, but may be logged for a limited period for abuse monitoring unless Zero Data Retention applies; unpaid-service terms may permit product improvement and human review. Fireball does not promise Zero Data Retention and does not use your data to train an internal model. Shared category signals described below are aggregate statistics, not a trained AI model.
• AI Weekly Review: if enabled with paid personal access, Fireball may send the selected provider bounded qualitative Budget, Goals, Net worth, FIRE, and Finish up aggregate states for a completed week. The payload excludes transactions, evidence IDs, account, merchant, category and goal names, notes, other user-authored text, figures, and currencies. Only the latest validated summary is retained and it is deleted when you turn the feature off, withdraw AI permission, or delete your account.
• Conversation history: AI conversations are stored in your account so you can return to them. You can delete individual conversations or all chat history at any time from inside the app.
• Optional feedback: You can rate an answer and provide a bounded reason. Sharing the triggering question and answer for human review is a separate, initially unchecked choice.
• Fair use: We track AI usage per account to prevent abuse and may apply reasonable rate limits.
• Shared categorisation intelligence: if you separately opt in, categories you accept or correct for eligible Akahu expense transactions may contribute to protected, aggregate category suggestions. We convert a normalised merchant name or screened description signature into a keyed one-way fingerprint and do not store raw merchant or description text, amounts, dates, account details, prompts, or notes in the shared-intelligence tables.
• Voluntary participation: declining or later opting out does not disable AI categorisation or prevent you from receiving shared suggestions. Opting out stops future contributions and deletes your contribution records.
• Aggregate suggestions: a suggestion is shared only after at least five different users contribute for the same protected fingerprint and a strong consensus threshold is met. Other users cannot see your identity, transaction, or individual category choice. Shared suggestions may still be inaccurate, so you remain responsible for reviewing them.

You may add manual data to the Service, including manual transactions, custom categories, manual asset holdings (e.g. private investments, real estate, vehicles), liabilities, and notes. You are responsible for the accuracy of this information. Net worth snapshots are persisted so historical charts remain meaningful; you can delete any snapshot or your full history from within the app or by deleting your account.

With your permission, the Fireball mobile app may send push notifications using Apple Push Notification service (APNs) on iOS and Firebase Cloud Messaging (FCM) on Android (FCM also relays iOS notifications to APNs). Notifications are used for things like new-transaction alerts, recurring-charge alerts, budget warnings, sync errors, trial reminders, security notices, and the optional Weekly Review. Ordinary notification payloads may contain transaction amounts, merchant names, and account references. Weekly Review notifications use generic copy and do not contain the review's financial facts or generated prose.

• You can disable push notifications at any time from your device settings or from within the app.
• Push device tokens are stored in our database so we can deliver notifications to your registered devices, and are cleared when you sign out, when the operating system invalidates the token, or when you delete your account.
• In-app notification records are retained for up to 90 days for delivery diagnostics, then automatically purged.
• Weekly Review delivery receipts may be retained for up to 400 days, capped at 64 weeks, and one-way transaction-alert replay codes for up to seven days. Both are removed on account deletion.
• We send a small number of unavoidable transactional emails (e.g. sign-up confirmation, billing receipts, security alerts). Marketing emails are sent only if you opt in at sign-up or in settings, and you can unsubscribe at any time.

The Service relies on third-party providers including Supabase (database, auth, storage — Sydney, Australia), Stripe (payments — US / Ireland), Akahu (open banking — NZ), OpenAI (primary AI inference — United States / provider-controlled processing locations), Google (fallback Gemini AI inference and Places address lookup — United States / Google-controlled processing locations), Firebase Cloud Messaging, Firebase Crashlytics, Firebase Analytics and Firebase Remote Config (push delivery, live-runtime crash diagnostics and device-level product analytics, and feature flags — Google-controlled processing locations), Google BigQuery (restricted production Analytics export — Sydney, Australia), Sentry (website error monitoring — European Union / United States and other Sentry sub-processor locations), Apple Push Notification service (iOS push transport — United States, invoked indirectly via FCM), Resend (transactional email — United States), Upstash (distributed website rate limiting — Sydney or the closest available APAC region), Loops (consent-based lifecycle and marketing email — United States), Sanity (blog content delivery and editorial CMS — global CDN / United States), and Vercel (web hosting and cookieless analytics — global / United States).

Your use of those services is subject to their own terms. A full sub-processor list and the data each one receives is in our Privacy Policy. Nothing in these Terms limits any responsibility we have for a provider's handling of personal information under the NZ Privacy Act or another non-excludable law. We will work in good faith to investigate and resolve issues involving our providers.

If you download Fireball from the Apple App Store or Google Play Store, your use is also subject to the applicable store's terms. The store is not a party to these Terms, but Apple is a third-party beneficiary of these Terms (to the extent required by the App Store Review Guidelines) and may enforce them against you.

The Service, including all software, designs, logos, copy, and branding, is owned by Helios Studio Limited and protected by intellectual property laws. We grant you a limited, non-exclusive, non-transferable, revocable licence to use the Service for your personal, non-commercial use in accordance with these Terms.

Your content: You retain ownership of any data you provide (e.g. transaction notes, custom categories, manual assets). You grant us a licence to store, process, and display that data solely to operate and improve the Service for you. If you separately opt in to shared categorisation intelligence, you also grant us a limited licence to use qualifying category decisions in the protected and aggregate manner described in Section 7 and the Privacy Policy to improve categorisation for Fireball users. This additional permission ends when you opt out; your contribution records are then deleted and no longer count towards aggregate signals.

You can delete your account from the in-app settings or web dashboard. If you cannot sign in, follow our public deletion instructions to request help. Deleting your Fireball account does not itself cancel a Stripe, Apple, or Google subscription; cancel the subscription through its billing provider to stop future renewal.

Account deletion removes your authentication record and user-owned records from Fireball's active systems, including transactions, budgets, categories, net-worth snapshots, AI chat history, shared categorisation contributions, push tokens, and profile details. Limited operational, legal, security, provider-integrity, and backup records can remain under the following rules:

• Service data while active: transactions, accounts, manual assets, budgets, categories, net-worth snapshots, and frozen balances remain while the account is active, subject to the in-app deletion controls described in the Privacy Policy.
• Short-lived operational records: subscription-email rate limits last one hour; HMAC-derived public website rate-limit counters and referral claim-attempt records last no more than 24 hours; billing-provider delivery records and ordinary notification-delivery attempts last 30 days; in-app notifications, crash reports, and bounded purchase diagnostics last 90 days. Transaction-alert replay codes last no more than seven days.
• AI records: chat conversations are removed 30 days after their last update, usage counters after about 13 weeks, and response-feedback metadata after 12 months. Only the latest validated AI Weekly Review summary is kept and it is removed when that feature or AI permission is turned off or the account is deleted. Weekly Review delivery receipts can remain for up to 400 days, capped at 64 weeks, while the account is active. Shared categorisation contributions are removed when you opt out or delete your account.
• Known-installation security records: a random installation UUID and bounded platform, app-version, seen-time, alert-state, and Weekly Review capability fields remain across sign-out so a returning installation can be recognised. Records are capped at 100 per user and removed on account deletion.
• Legal acceptance evidence: accepted Terms/Privacy version pairs, source, and server timestamp remain while your account is active and are removed when it is deleted.
• Security and subscription audits: authentication, subscription-transition, and pseudonymous abuse/security records can remain for up to 365 days.
• Anonymous mobile analytics: Firebase Analytics and BigQuery event data is retained for 14 months, including after account deletion, because it is not linked to your Fireball account.
• Terminal referral audit: rewarded, ineligible, or cancelled referral claims may be anonymised and retained for up to 7 years.
• Trial and billing records: Stripe trial history may be retained indefinitely for one-trial-per-person enforcement, and invoices/payment records may be retained as required by tax law (typically 7 years in New Zealand).
• Pseudonymous billing analytics: account deletion immediately removes the Fireball owner link from the private provider-neutral payment and completed-reversal ledger. Its versioned customer HMAC grouping is retained for up to 36 months and then cryptographically destroyed; non-identifying provider evidence and completed aggregate reports may remain.
• Native-store binding tombstones: an Apple or Google subscription identity can remain permanently with its Fireball owner removed so it cannot be rebound to another account.
• Stripe refund-integrity evidence: service-only refund, charge, payment and customer references, bounded refund facts, and a keyed hash of a reusable payment identity currently have no automatic expiry. Account deletion removes the Fireball owner link; the ledger contains no raw payment identity, email, address, or card details.
• Encrypted backups: residual copies may remain until the applicable provider-managed backup expires or is overwritten. They are unavailable through the Service and are not restored to recreate a deleted account.
• On-device data: authenticated session cleanup removes the local cache, secure session material, and widget payloads; uninstalling the app also removes app-sandbox data controlled by the operating system.

The complete data-category and retention schedule is in our Privacy Policy.

We aim to keep the Service available at all times but do not guarantee uninterrupted access. We may temporarily suspend the Service for maintenance, updates, or to address security issues. We may also add, change, or discontinue features at any time. If we make a material adverse change, we will give you reasonable notice.

To the maximum extent permitted by law, the Service is provided "as is" and "as available" without warranties of any kind, whether express or implied, including warranties of merchantability, fitness for a particular purpose, accuracy, or non-infringement.

To the maximum extent permitted by law, Helios Studio's total liability to you for any claim arising out of or relating to the Service is limited to the total amount you paid us in the 12 months immediately preceding the event giving rise to the claim. We are not liable for indirect, incidental, special, consequential, or punitive damages, including lost profits, lost savings, or investment losses, even if we have been advised of the possibility of such damages.

Nothing in these Terms limits or excludes any liability that cannot be limited or excluded under applicable law, including under the New Zealand Consumer Guarantees Act 1993 or Fair Trading Act 1986.

You agree to indemnify and hold Helios Studio harmless from any claims, losses, or expenses (including reasonable legal fees) arising out of your breach of these Terms, your misuse of the Service, your breach of any third-party rights (including Akahu and your bank's terms), or your violation of any law.

You may stop using the Service at any time and delete your account from within the app. We may suspend or terminate your account if you breach these Terms, if required by law, or if we discontinue the Service. On termination, your right to use the Service ends immediately. Sections that by their nature should survive termination (e.g. disclaimers, limitation of liability, indemnity, governing law) will continue to apply.

These Terms are governed by the laws of New Zealand. The courts of New Zealand have non-exclusive jurisdiction to resolve any disputes.

Before starting any formal proceedings, please contact us so we can try to resolve the issue informally.

We may update these Terms from time to time. When we do, we'll update the "Last updated" date above and, for material changes, notify you by email or an in-app notice. Continued use of the Service after the changes take effect means you accept the updated Terms.

Helios Studio Limited
NZBN: 9429053665690
Auckland, New Zealand
Email: support@heliosstudio.app
Support: fireball.finance/support