Terms of Use

Last updated October 30, 2026

These terms are an agreement between you and Pacey Vorderstrasse, an individual in California who runs Ex-Tax ("Ex-Tax", "we", "us"), about using the Ex-Tax app and this website. You agree to them by checking the box for them in the app before you sign in, or by using this website if you only visit the website. If you don't agree, please don't use Ex-Tax.

1. Who can use Ex-Tax

• You must be at least 18 years old.
• Ex-Tax is offered only in the United States at launch.
• Your account is for you alone. Keep your Apple sign-in secure, and give accurate information, including your birth year.

2. What Ex-Tax is

Ex-Tax is a self-help tool you set up on your own iPhone. With your permission it puts the Ex-Tax line on your ex's contact card in place of their numbers, a friend you choose (your "keyholder") sets a Screen Time passcode on your iPhone, and you can see your streak of days without contact.

• Your pact is not a promise to us or to anyone. It's a setting you choose for yourself. You can end it whenever you like, as described in Ending your pact.
• There are no penalties. Ex-Tax never charges you because you contacted someone, tried to, or a friend reported it. Trying to text or call your ex never costs anything.
• The only things you can buy are an Ex Pass and a Streak Saver, and Ex-Tax Pro once we offer it. Each is a service with a published price that you choose to buy.
• The lock, the line, your day count, ranks, check-ins, every storyline scene and widget, your history (up to your latest 50 line hits, which are kept for up to a year) and up to 8 friends are free. App shields (Screen Time pause screens on apps you pick) are free and are never sold or unlocked by payment.

3. What Ex-Tax can't do

• Ex-Tax can't see DMs, other apps, other phones, or meeting someone in person. It only gets texts and calls that reach the Ex-Tax line.
• It can't see changes on your iPhone while it isn't running. If your ex's number is saved again, Ex-Tax switches it back the next time it runs.
• Erasing your iPhone, or removing the Screen Time passcode with your keyholder's help, undoes the lock.
• Contacts Only, the Screen Time setting that blocks texts and calls to numbers that aren't saved as contacts, needs iCloud Contacts on. How it behaves on an adult's own iPhone on iOS 26 and 27 is still being confirmed on real devices, so setup includes a wall test.
• Your ex's card is shared by every Ex-Tax account on your iPhone. While a pact from another account on your iPhone may still be on, you can't sign a pact, buy a pass or start a free pass other than the safety pass with your account on that iPhone, until Ex-Tax sees that pact has ended.
• Ex-Tax depends on Apple's Contacts and Screen Time systems, mobile networks and Twilio. Any of them can change or fail, and notifications can be delayed.
• We can't promise any particular result, including that you'll keep no contact.

4. The Ex-Tax line

• The Ex-Tax line is a phone number we own. Texts and calls you make to your ex's card reach the line, not your ex. Ex-Tax never sends, forwards or delivers anything to your ex, and never contacts your ex.
• The line answers texts from your linked number with an automatic reply that says your ex never got it. Replies and call messages never include a price. The line never texts you first.
• A call counts as yours only when your mobile carrier has verified the caller ID. Other calls hear a short message and aren't recorded.
• If a text has crisis words in it, from any number, the reply lists help lines only. If an automatic emergency alert from your iPhone (like Emergency SOS, Check In or a crash alert) reaches the line from your linked number, the reply says it reached Ex-Tax, not your ex, and how to update emergency contacts. Nothing about it is recorded for your friends.
• Ex-Tax never charges for a text or call to the line. Your mobile plan's usual terms still apply to texts and calls you make.
• When a text or call reaches the line, your friends may get a heads-up with the time. They never see what you wrote.
• The number stays ours. We won't give up the line's number while Ex-Tax runs. If Ex-Tax ever shuts down, we'll update the app so it puts your ex's real numbers back on their card and tell you to open it before we stop. We'll keep the number for at least 12 months after that, so texts to it don't reach a stranger. Before you delete the app, use Delete account so your ex's card goes back.

5. Ex Passes

An Ex Pass is a digital service delivered immediately. The moment Apple confirms your purchase, Ex-Tax puts your ex's original numbers and email addresses back on their contact card on your iPhone for 30 minutes. When the 30 minutes are up, Ex-Tax switches the card back to the Ex-Tax line the next time it runs, and reminds you to open it. You send any message yourself. You can't save, pause or move a pass to later, and ending one early doesn't give time back.

Prices

The price of a paid pass depends on how many days your current streak has lasted:

• Price memory. When your streak starts over, your price can't drop below its level at that moment for 60 days. That level is the price you paid, if a paid pass started your streak over, or otherwise your price just before the reset.
• Repeat passes. If you bought a paid pass in the last 7 days, the next one costs the next step above your last paid price. The steps are $1, $2, $5, $10 and $20. It never costs less than your usual price.
• Limits. We don't sell a paid pass after 3 paid passes in the last 7 days, or 2 in the last 24 hours. Ending your pact stays free.
• The app always shows the price of your next pass, and the App Store shows the exact amount, before you pay. The whole price list and these rules are shown before you sign your pact. Refunded passes don't count toward repeat prices or limits.

What a pass does to your streak

• A paid pass, or a free pass a friend approves, starts your streak over and sets your price memory. Contact is contact.
• Co-parenting, legal and safety passes keep your streak.

Free passes

• Approved by a friend: up to 2 in any 30 days. It has to be started within 30 minutes of the yes.
• Co-parenting or legal: only if you turned that exemption on, with a reason, up to 3 in any 7 days. Friends see only that you used a free pass, never which kind or your reason.
• Safety: from Get help, once in any 24 hours. Friends aren't told.
• Only one pass can run at a time.

6. Streak Savers

• A Streak Saver covers one missed daily check-in, so your check-in streak stays unbroken. It never covers contact and never changes your day count or your Ex Pass price.
• You earn one each time your check-in streak reaches a multiple of 7, and you can hold up to 3 earned savers. You can also buy one for $0.99. A bought saver is a digital item delivered immediately. Savers you buy never expire, and they carry over to your next pact. If one you paid for isn't added, see Payments and refunds.

7. Ex-Tax Pro

• Ex-Tax Pro isn't on sale yet. When it is, it will be an optional auto-renewing subscription, and the app will show its price, its period and what it adds before you buy. Nothing listed as free in section 2 will move to Pro.
• Payment is charged to your Apple Account when you confirm. Pro renews automatically for the same period unless you cancel at least 24 hours before the current period ends. Your Apple Account is charged for the renewal within the 24 hours before the current period ends.
• Cancel any time in Settings > Apple Account > Subscriptions on your iPhone, or with Manage subscription in the app. Pro stays on until the end of the period you paid for. Deleting the app doesn't cancel it.
• You never need Pro to start a pact, and friends never need it.

8. Payments and refunds

• Ex Passes, Streak Savers and Pro are sold through the App Store and billed by Apple. We never see your card details.
• Refunds are handled by Apple under Apple's policies. You can ask Apple at reportaproblem.apple.com. We can't issue refunds ourselves.
• If Apple refunds a pass, the streak it reset stays reset.
• Once we've verified a purchase with Apple, you get what you paid for, even if your price or a limit changed in the meantime or the purchase took a while to reach us. If you paid for a pass and it didn't start, or for a Streak Saver and it wasn't added, open Ex-Tax again: the app retries with your receipt.
• We turn a purchase down only if it was already used, Apple refunded it, or, for an Ex Pass, your pact isn't running (for example, it has ended). If that happens, ask Apple for a refund, or contact us with the date and time.
• Prices may change. A new price applies only to purchases made after the app shows it to you.

9. Ending your pact

• You can end your pact any time in Settings. It's free. A pact you haven't signed ends right away.
• A signed pact ends 24 hours after you start ending it. Your friends are told, and you can cancel during those 24 hours.
• If your keyholder removes the Screen Time passcode and confirms your release in the app, ending takes effect right away: if you've already started ending your pact, it ends then, and otherwise it ends as soon as you tap End.
• When the pact ends, Ex-Tax puts your ex's original numbers and email addresses back on their card on your iPhone. If a pact from another account on your iPhone may still be on, it does this once Ex-Tax sees that pact has ended.
• Ending a pact doesn't cancel Pro. Cancel Pro with Apple.

10. Friends and keyholders

• Friends use Ex-Tax free. Friends never pay anything and are never paid anything, and Ex-Tax never moves money between users.
• Friends must be 18 or older and must agree to join. Only invite people who want to help, and never your ex or a current or recent partner.
• Your keyholder sets a Screen Time passcode on your iPhone in person. Ex-Tax never sees it. Ask your keyholder to use their own Apple Account for passcode recovery.
• A friend can leave a pact at any time, and you can remove a friend at any time.
• A friend may report a slip only if they believe it happened. You can own it or dispute it within 24 hours of seeing it. A report never costs you money.
• If an urge, reply or slip note breaks these terms, tap Report on it in the app. That emails us, and we can close the sender's account.

11. Not legal, medical or mental health advice

• Ex-Tax, including its AI coach, doesn't give legal, medical, psychological or other professional advice, and it isn't therapy or a crisis service.
• The AI coach is software running on your iPhone. It can be wrong. Use your own judgment.
• If you're in danger, call 911. You can call or text 988 any time. The National Domestic Violence Hotline is 1-800-799-7233, or text START to 88788. Our crisis protocol explains what the app and the line do with crisis words.
• If you have court orders, custody arrangements or other legal duties about contact, follow them. Co-parenting, legal and safety passes exist so your pact doesn't stand in the way of contact you need to have. While a pact from another account on your iPhone may still be on, co-parenting and legal passes for your account are off on that iPhone, and the safety pass stays available (see What Ex-Tax can't do).

12. Acceptable use

Use Ex-Tax only on your own iPhone, or to help a friend with their pact. You agree not to:

• harass, threaten, stalk, shame or intimidate anyone, including your ex, your friends or the person whose pact you joined;
• use Ex-Tax to control, contact, monitor or track another person, or set it up on someone else's iPhone without them;
• pressure anyone into a pact, a purchase or being a keyholder;
• invite someone without their agreement, or pretend to be someone else;
• send hateful, sexually explicit, violent or illegal content in urges, replies, reasons, notes or texts to the line;
• make false slip reports, or misuse disputes, to hurt someone;
• break the law, or help anyone else break these terms;
• reverse engineer, scrape, overload or interfere with Ex-Tax or the line, or get around its security, prices or limits.

13. Your content

Messages, reasons and notes you write in Ex-Tax belong to you. You give us permission to store, process and deliver them only as needed to run Ex-Tax for you and your friends. You're responsible for what you send.

14. Ending your account

• You can stop using Ex-Tax at any time. Use Delete account in Settings to delete your account. It also puts your ex's real number back on their card. If it can't, the number stays saved on your iPhone, so you can put it back later.
• We may suspend or close an account that breaks these terms, puts others at risk, or where the law requires it. If we do, we'll try to tell you why, unless that would be unsafe or unlawful.
• When an account is closed, its pacts end and its friends are told. The sections listed under Survival in General continue to apply.

15. Disclaimer

Ex-Tax is provided "as is" and "as available". To the fullest extent the law allows, we disclaim all warranties, express or implied, including merchantability, fitness for a particular purpose and non-infringement. We don't promise that Ex-Tax, the line, app shields or notifications will be uninterrupted, error-free or secure, or that using Ex-Tax will lead to any result. This doesn't limit your rights to a pass or saver you paid for.

16. Limits on liability

To the fullest extent the law allows:

• We aren't liable for indirect, incidental, special, consequential or punitive damages, or for lost profits, data or goodwill, arising from Ex-Tax or these terms.
• We aren't liable for anyone's conduct inside or outside the app, including disagreements between friends.
• Our total liability for any claim about Ex-Tax is limited to the greater of the amount you paid for Ex-Tax in the 12 months before the claim, or $50.

None of these limits apply to liability for fraud, gross negligence, willful misconduct, or violation of law, to claims for personal injury, or to any right that can't be limited under applicable law, including the California Consumers Legal Remedies Act. Some states don't allow some of these limits, so they may not all apply to you.

17. Governing law and disputes

California law governs these terms and any dispute about Ex-Tax, without regard to conflict-of-laws rules.

Talk to us first

Before you or we start a claim, the one bringing it emails the other (us at support@extax.app) with their name, anything that identifies their account, what happened and what they want. We both then try in good faith to resolve it for 60 days. Any time limit for bringing the claim pauses during those 60 days. This step doesn't apply to small claims court. Most problems end here.

Courts

• Either of us can take a claim to small claims court, if it qualifies.
• Otherwise, any dispute goes to the state or federal courts in California, and you and we agree to their jurisdiction.
• Nothing in these terms waives your right to bring or join a class action.

18. Apple

If you downloaded Ex-Tax from the App Store:

• These terms are between you and Ex-Tax, not Apple. Apple isn't responsible for Ex-Tax or its content.
• We grant you a personal, non-transferable, non-exclusive, revocable license to use Ex-Tax on Apple-branded devices you own or control, as the App Store Usage Rules allow. We and our licensors own Ex-Tax.
• Apple has no obligation to provide maintenance or support for Ex-Tax.
• If Ex-Tax fails to meet a warranty that applies, you may notify Apple, and Apple will refund the purchase price, if any. Apple has no other warranty obligation for Ex-Tax.
• Apple isn't responsible for claims about Ex-Tax, including product liability claims, claims that it fails to meet legal or regulatory requirements, and consumer protection or privacy claims. We are responsible for these to the extent these terms say so.
• If someone claims that Ex-Tax or your use of it infringes their intellectual property, we, not Apple, are responsible for investigating, defending, settling and discharging that claim.
• You must comply with third-party terms, like your wireless carrier's, when using Ex-Tax.
• You confirm you aren't in a country under a U.S. government embargo or on a U.S. government list of prohibited or restricted parties.
• Apple and its subsidiaries are third-party beneficiaries of these terms and may enforce them against you.
• Questions, complaints or claims about Ex-Tax go to us: Pacey Vorderstrasse, 5701 Tilden Ave, Apt. 1, Van Nuys, CA 91401, support@extax.app.

19. General

• Transfer. We may transfer these terms to a company we control or to someone who buys Ex-Tax. You may not transfer them.
• Entire agreement. These terms, our Privacy Policy and our Consumer Health Data Notice are the whole agreement between you and us about Ex-Tax.
• Severability. If a court finds part of these terms can't be enforced, the rest still applies.
• No waiver. If we don't enforce part of these terms right away, we can still enforce it later.
• Notices. You agree that we can give you notices and other communications electronically, in the app or by email. You can reach us at support@extax.app.
• Events outside our control. We aren't responsible for delays or failures caused by things outside our reasonable control, such as outages at Apple, mobile carriers or Twilio.
• Survival. If your account closes or these terms end, these sections continue to apply: The number stays ours (in section 4), 8 (Payments and refunds), 11 (Not legal, medical or mental health advice), 13 (Your content), 15 (Disclaimer), 16 (Limits on liability), 17 (Governing law and disputes), 18 (Apple) and 19 (General).

20. Changes and contact

We may update these terms, and we'll update the date at the top when we do. If a change is significant, the app will show you the new terms and ask you to agree before they apply to you. Until you agree, the version you last agreed to keeps applying, though you may not be able to make new purchases. A change never applies to a purchase you already made or a dispute that arose before it.

Questions: support@extax.app. See also our Privacy Policy.