Terms of Service

The agreement

These terms are an agreement between you and Tarn. By creating an account or using the service you accept them. If you're signing up on behalf of a company, you're accepting for that company and confirming you have the authority to do so.

These terms cover operators — the companies that use Tarn to run their business. If you're a guest booking a trip through an operator's booking page, the guest terms apply to you instead.

What Tarn is — and isn't

Tarn is booking and operations software for outdoor adventure companies. You run the trips; we give you the tools to take bookings, collect payments and waivers, schedule guides, and stay organized.

Every booking creates a contract between you and your guest. You are the seller of the trip; Tarn facilitates the booking and the payment but is not a party to that contract. Pricing, availability, safety decisions, cancellation calls, and refunds are yours to make. Tarn never makes a go/no-go decision — conditions data shown in the product is informational only.

Your account

You're responsible for your account and for everyone you add to it — keep credentials secure and assign staff roles appropriately. You're also responsible for the accuracy of what you enter and for complying with the laws that apply to your operation, including waiver, safety, licensing, and consumer-protection requirements.

Your listings and bookings

Keep your listings honest: prices, capacities, meeting locations, and what's included should match what you actually deliver. Publish your cancellation policy through Tarn — guests are asked to agree to it before they book, and that agreement is recorded on the booking.

Once a guest completes a booking, honor it. Don't retroactively change the price or terms of a completed booking, and don't list prices you don't intend to honor.

Fees

Tarn charges a platform fee calculated as a percentage of each booking, per the published schedule on the pricing page. The rate steps down automatically as your booking volume grows. The fee is what Stripe calls an application fee: it's split out of each payment at the moment the guest's card is charged, so the money that reaches you is already settled. We never debit your bank account, there's nothing to invoice, and there's no monthly subscription.

By default, Tarn's fee and card-processing costs are added at checkout as a booking fee paid by the guest, shown as its own line before they pay. You can choose to absorb either or both in your settings instead. Card processing is charged at Stripe's rates and is separate from Tarn's fee. Custom rates apply only when agreed in writing.

Getting started is free: no card up front, no minimum, no setup fee. If you never take a booking, you never pay anything.

Payments and payouts

Guest payments run through Stripe. To accept payments you'll connect a Stripe account and accept Stripe's own connected-account agreement; charges are processed through Tarn's Stripe platform integration and settle to your connected account, with payouts landing in your bank on Stripe's schedule.

When a guest disputes a charge with their bank (a chargeback), the card network raises it against the sale — and the sale is yours, so the response and the outcome are yours too. Tarn's job is to arm you for it: your bookings carry the records that win disputes — the exact policy text the guest agreed to, waiver signatures with their signing evidence, and the full email history — and you respond directly through the product. If a lost dispute or its fees end up charged to Tarn, we may recover that amount from your connected account balance or from future payouts.

Cancellation and refund policies are yours: you set them, display them through Tarn, and decide when to apply them. Refunds are issued by you through the product, not automatically by Tarn. When you refund a guest who paid a booking fee, the fee is refunded in proportion to the refund — fees aren't kept on money you've given back.

Refunds come out of your Stripe balance — the same place the payment settled — and typically appear on the guest's card within 5–10 business days. One cost doesn't come back on a refund: Stripe's card-processing charge from the original payment, which Stripe — like every card processor — doesn't return.

Taxes

Taxes on your trips are yours to configure and remit. Tarn calculates the tax you configure on the trip price; booking fees passed to guests aren't included in that calculation. Some states treat fees passed to guests as part of the taxable selling price — confirm the right setup for your state with your tax advisor. The tax collected settles to your account along with the rest of the payment.

The booking fee a guest pays goes to Tarn, not to you: it never enters your balance or your payouts, so it isn't your revenue. Where US payment-reporting rules place a filing obligation (such as Form 1099-K) on the platform rather than on Stripe, that obligation is Tarn's. None of this is tax advice — confirm your own filing requirements with your tax advisor.

Waivers

Tarn provides the signing ceremony for digital waivers — presenting your waiver text, capturing a typed electronic signature, and recording evidence of the signing (time, network address, and a fingerprint of the exact text signed). The waiver content itself is yours: you decide what it says, and you're responsible for whether it's enforceable in your state and adequate for your activities. Have a lawyer review your waiver; Tarn supplies the pen, not the legal advice.

Your guests

Emails and text messages that Tarn sends to your guests — confirmations, reminders, payment requests, waiver links — are sent on your behalf. You're responsible for having any consent required to contact your guests, and for the content of policies and custom text you publish through Tarn. Text messaging works the way the SMS terms describe: guests opt in, and staff-initiated texts require the guest to have asked for them.

Your data

Your operational data — bookings, guests, trips, waivers, reports — is yours. You can export it at any time, and it remains available to you for the life of your account. We act as a processor of that data on your behalf, as described in the privacy policy, and share it only with the service providers listed there. If you close your account, export first; after closure we delete your data on the schedule described there.

We use aggregated, de-identified usage data — never anything that identifies you or your guests — to understand how the product is used and to improve it.

Insurance

You should carry insurance appropriate for a guided outdoor operation, including general liability coverage. Tarn is software; it isn't a substitute for insurance and doesn't insure your trips, your guests, or your business.

Acceptable use

Don't use Tarn to break the law, infringe others' rights, send spam, or disrupt the service. Don't attempt to access other operators' data or probe the platform's security. We may suspend or close accounts that do.

Our software

Tarn owns the service, its software, and this site. Your account gives you the right to use them for your operation, not to copy or resell them. If you send us feedback or feature ideas, we can use them to improve the product without owing you anything — though we'll probably say thanks.

Availability and changes

We work to keep Tarn fast and available, but no software is up 100% of the time and we can't guarantee uninterrupted service. The product evolves continuously; if we ever remove something material to how you operate, we'll give you reasonable notice.

Leaving

There's no contract term and no lock-in. You can close your account at any time — export your data first, then email us. We can also end the relationship, with at least 15 days' notice for convenience, or immediately for accounts that violate these terms, create legal or security risk to the platform, or where a payment partner requires it. Bookings taken before your account closes are still yours to honor.

Sections of these terms that by their nature should survive closure — fees owed, data terms, liability limits — survive it.

Disclaimers and liability

Tarn provides operational software, provided 'as is' and without warranties of any kind to the extent the law allows. We are not responsible for the trips you run, decisions you make, or disputes with your guests — those stay between you and them, and you'll cover us if we're pulled into a claim that arises from your trips or your content.

To the extent permitted by law, Tarn's total liability for any claim arising from the service is limited to the platform fees you paid us in the twelve months before the claim, and neither of us is liable to the other for indirect or consequential damages.

Changes to these terms

If we make meaningful changes to these terms, we'll update the date at the top and notify you by email at least 15 days before they take effect. Continued use of Tarn after that means the updated terms apply.

Governing law

These terms are governed by the laws of the United States and of Tarn's home state, and any dispute that can't be resolved directly will be handled in the courts located there. If part of these terms turns out to be unenforceable, the rest still applies.

Contact

Questions about these terms? Email support@tarnbooking.com and we'll explain.