The service is provided as is with all warranties disclaimed, and Vercel's total liability is capped at the greater of one hundred dollars or the fees you paid in the past six months, with all indirect and consequential damages excluded, including data loss. The carve-outs from the cap only cover your obligations (usage restrictions, confidentiality, payment, warranties, indemnity), so your exposure is unlimited while Vercel's is tightly capped. There is no exception for gross negligence or willful misconduct, only a savings clause for states that ban such limits.
Vercel keeps very broad termination powers: 30 days notice for no reason at all, 10 days for breach, 2 days for nonpayment, immediate termination if you exceed usage limits, and free Hobby projects can be shut down without any notice for any reason. All of your content may be permanently deleted on termination and there is no appeal process, though Vercel does refund unused prepaid amounts if it cancels you without cause.
You keep ownership of your content, but you grant Vercel a sublicensable and transferable license to copy, modify, and make derivatives of it, and the stated purposes include developing new products, which goes beyond just running the service. The biggest issue is AI training: on the free Hobby plan and Pro trials, Vercel may train AI models on your content and share it with third parties for their own model training. Feedback you give becomes a perpetual, irrevocable license, and Vercel can remove your content at any time for any reason.
Vercel can change the agreement at any time, and notice can be as little as posting on its website rather than emailing you. Changes take effect immediately after posting or notice, continued use counts as acceptance, and your only stated remedy is to stop using the service and cancel. There is no advance notice period for non-price changes, though fee changes at least wait until your next payment period.
Subscriptions auto-renew and Vercel auto-charges your card in advance, in arrears for usage, and even immediately if it decides your usage looks anomalous, judged at its sole discretion. All fees are non-refundable except where the agreement says otherwise, and your cancellation only takes effect at the next renewal. Fairer points: price changes only apply from the next billing period with written notice, and Vercel refunds unused prepaid amounts if it terminates you without cause.
The terms defer most privacy detail to a separate Privacy Policy and Data Processing Addendum, but what is here is mixed. You own your account information and Vercel commits to reasonable security safeguards, which is good. However, Vercel claims full ownership of system data such as logs and telemetry and may use it for any business purpose in its sole discretion, and free-tier content can be shared with third parties for AI development.
You must indemnify Vercel for a broad range of situations: any breach of the agreement, any infringement claim arising from your websites or content, and even your use or misuse of the services generally, including Vercel's legal and accounting fees. Vercel gives you no indemnity in return. The clause does include procedural fairness: Vercel must notify you promptly, you may take sole control of the defense, and you are not on the hook for settlements you did not approve.
Disputes are governed by California law and must go through binding JAMS arbitration in San Francisco after a 60 day informal resolution period, with a jury trial waiver and a class action waiver. Those are classic consumer red flags, but Vercel softens them meaningfully: you can opt out of arbitration entirely within 30 days by email, small claims court and injunctive relief claims are excluded, public injunctive relief is preserved, and Vercel says it will not seek attorneys' fees in arbitration unless your claim is frivolous. A separate clause still awards attorneys' fees to the prevailing party in court actions.
You accept these terms simply by using the service, with no separate signature or checkbox described, and the scope covers any product Vercel or its affiliates offer, plus several extra policies pulled in by reference. On the positive side, the arbitration clause is flagged in capital letters right at the top, definitions are clear, and open source software is expressly carved out.