Terms of Use

Effective date: November 9, 2026

Welcome to Thread. These Terms of Use ("Terms") are an agreement between you and CHORD, Inc. ("CHORD", "we", "us" or "our"). Please read them carefully.

1. What these Terms cover

These Terms apply to everything Thread offers (together, the "Services"):

  • the Thread Podcast;
  • the Thread app for iPhone, iPad, Android and the web;
  • the Thread Leadership Studio at portal.threadpodcast.org;
  • the website threadpodcast.org.

By creating an account, buying a plan, or using the Services, you agree to these Terms and to our Privacy Policy. If you do not agree, do not use the Services.

2. Who can use Thread

  • You must be at least 13 years old to create an account.
  • If you are under 18 (or under the age of adulthood where you live), a parent or guardian must agree to these Terms for you.
  • If you use Thread for a church, school or other organization, you confirm that you are allowed to accept these Terms for it.

3. Your account

  • Give true and current information when you create your account.
  • Keep your password secret. You are responsible for what happens in your account.
  • An account is for one person. Do not share your account or your login.
  • If you think someone else is using your account, tell us at once at threadpodcast@chord.org.
  • If you sign in with Apple or Google, their terms also apply to that sign-in.

4. Plans and payments

4.1 Plans

  • Free plan: some features and content at no cost.
  • Premium plan: a paid plan for one person, billed monthly or yearly.
  • Community plans: a church, school, leadership center or other group pays so that its members can use Thread (see section 5).

What each plan includes is shown in the app and at threadpodcast.org/pricing. It can change over time.

4.2 Prices

The price of a plan is shown before you buy it, in your local currency where possible. Taxes may apply.

4.3 Automatic renewal

A Premium plan renews automatically at the end of each period (each month or each year) at the current price, until you cancel it.

  • If you bought it through Apple, you must cancel at least 24 hours before the end of the current period. Apple charges your account within the 24 hours before the period ends.
  • If you bought it through Google Play or on the web, you must cancel before the end of the current period.

4.4 Free trials

  • Some plans start with a free trial. The length of the trial is shown before you start it.
  • If you do not cancel before the trial ends, the paid plan starts and you are charged. For Apple purchases, cancel at least 24 hours before the trial ends.
  • If you buy a plan during a free trial, the rest of the trial ends.
  • Apple and Google decide who can get a free trial. Usually it is one trial for each person.

4.5 Who bills you

  • App Store: Apple bills you, under Apple's terms.
  • Google Play: Google bills you, under Google's terms.
  • Web: our payment partners Stripe and RevenueCat bill you.

We do not see or store your full card number.

4.6 How to cancel

  • In the Thread app: go to Settings, then Plans, then Manage subscription.
  • iPhone or iPad: open the Settings app, tap your name, then tap Subscriptions.
  • Android: open Google Play, tap your profile picture, then Payments & subscriptions, then Subscriptions.
  • Web: use Manage subscription in the app, or write to threadpodcast@chord.org.

After you cancel, you keep your plan until the end of the period you paid for.

Deleting the app or deleting your Thread account does not cancel a subscription you bought through Apple or Google. Cancel it in the store as shown above.

4.7 Refunds

  • App Store and Google Play: Apple and Google handle all refunds under their own rules. We cannot give these refunds. To ask for one, go to reportaproblem.apple.com or to Google Play.
  • Web: write to threadpodcast@chord.org. Payments cannot be refunded unless the law requires it, but we will look at every request.

4.8 Price changes

We may change our prices. We will tell you before a new price applies to you, as the law and the app stores require. If you do not accept the new price, cancel before it starts.

4.9 If you subscribe before you create an account

In the app, you can buy a plan before you create a Thread account. Then the plan belongs to your Apple or Google account only. Create a Thread account, or sign in to one, so that we can connect your plan to it. If you change phones, sign in, or tap "Restore purchase", to get your plan back.

5. Community plans and the Leadership Studio

A church, school, leadership center or other group (a "Community") can buy a plan so that its members can use Thread. The Community's leaders manage it in the Leadership Studio.

If you are a member

  • You join a Community with its code. The Community decides who its members are.
  • If the Community removes you, or if its plan ends, you lose its content and the features its plan paid for.
  • Your own account, your notes, and any plan you bought yourself stay with you.

If you are a leader

  • You accept these Terms for your Community, and you confirm that you are allowed to do so.
  • You are responsible for the content you add and for the people you give access to.
  • In the Leadership Studio you may see information about your members, such as their names, their email addresses, and how they use Thread. Use it only to serve your Community, and follow our Privacy Policy and the law.
  • Fees for a Community plan are paid as agreed with CHORD.

6. Our content

The podcast, episodes, videos, devotionals, small group guides, kids lessons, artwork, the Thread name and logo, and the software belong to CHORD or to the people who license them to us. Copyright and trademark laws protect them.

What you may do:

  • Use the Services and their content for your own spiritual growth. This is a personal, limited, non-exclusive and non-transferable license, and we can take it back.
  • If your Community has an active plan, its leaders and members may use the content inside the Community, for example in services, small groups and kids classes, in the ways the Leadership Studio allows.
  • Share links to Thread episodes and pages.

What you may not do:

  • Sell, rent or license our content to others.
  • Post our content publicly, or share copies outside your Community.
  • Remove copyright or other notices.
  • Use automated tools to copy our content, or use it to train artificial intelligence models.
  • Use our content to make a product that competes with Thread.

Bible text: the Bible translations in Thread are used with permission from their publishers. Their copyright notices and terms also apply, and some limit how much text you may copy or share.

7. Your content

"Your content" is what you add to Thread: for example, your notes, your profile, and the text, images, videos and files that leaders add in the Leadership Studio.

  • You keep ownership of your content.
  • You give CHORD a worldwide, non-exclusive, royalty-free license to host, store, copy, process and show your content, only to run and provide the Services. For example, this lets us save your notes on all your devices and show a leader's content to the members of the Community.
  • This license ends when you delete the content or your account. We may keep copies in backups for a limited time, or where the law requires it.
  • You promise that you have the right to add your content, and that it does not break the law or anyone else's rights.
  • If you send us ideas or feedback, we may use them without paying you.

8. Rules for using Thread

Do not:

  • break the law, or help someone else break it;
  • harass, threaten or harm other people;
  • add content that is illegal, hateful, sexually explicit, or that you do not have the right to share;
  • try to get into accounts, systems or data that are not yours;
  • disturb or overload the Services, or get around their security or limits;
  • copy or collect data from the Services with automated tools;
  • copy, change or reverse-engineer the app, except where the law allows it;
  • pretend to be someone else.

9. Copyright complaints

If you believe that content in Thread breaks your copyright, write to threadpodcast@chord.org. Tell us:

  • which work you own;
  • where the content is in Thread;
  • your name and how we can contact you.

We will remove content that breaks someone's copyright, and we may close the accounts of people who do it again and again.

10. Other companies' services

Thread uses or links to services from other companies, for example YouTube, Apple, Google, Stripe, RevenueCat and Bible publishers. Their own terms and privacy policies apply to them. We are not responsible for them.

11. Changes to the Services

We may add, change or remove features and content at any time, on paid plans and on the free plan. For example, series can leave the app.

12. Ending your account

  • You can delete your account at any time in the app: go to Profile, then Delete My Account. You can also write to threadpodcast@chord.org. See our Privacy Policy for what happens to your data.
  • Deleting your account does not cancel a subscription bought through Apple or Google (see section 4.6).
  • We may pause or close your account if you break these Terms, if the law requires it, or to protect other people or the Services.
  • Sections 6, 7, and 13 to 22 stay in effect after your account ends.

13. Not professional advice

Thread offers content for spiritual growth and Bible study. It is not professional counseling, medical, mental health, legal or financial advice. If you are in crisis or in danger, call your local emergency number. In the United States, you can call or text 988 (the Suicide & Crisis Lifeline).

14. Disclaimers

THE SERVICES ARE PROVIDED "AS IS" AND "AS AVAILABLE". AS FAR AS THE LAW ALLOWS, CHORD GIVES NO WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, WHETHER EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE AND NON-INFRINGEMENT. WE DO NOT PROMISE THAT THE SERVICES WILL ALWAYS BE AVAILABLE OR FREE OF ERRORS.

Some places do not allow these exclusions. Where they are not allowed, they do not apply to you.

15. Limit on our liability

AS FAR AS THE LAW ALLOWS, CHORD AND ITS DIRECTORS, STAFF, VOLUNTEERS, PARTNERS AND LICENSORS ARE NOT LIABLE FOR ANY INDIRECT, INCIDENTAL, SPECIAL, CONSEQUENTIAL OR PUNITIVE DAMAGES, OR FOR ANY LOSS OF DATA, PROFITS OR GOODWILL, THAT COMES FROM YOUR USE OF THE SERVICES.

OUR TOTAL LIABILITY FOR ANY CLAIM ABOUT THE SERVICES IS LIMITED TO THE GREATER OF (A) THE AMOUNT YOU PAID FOR THE SERVICES IN THE 12 MONTHS BEFORE THE CLAIM, OR (B) US$50.

This section does not limit any liability that the law does not allow us to limit.

16. Your responsibility

As far as the law allows, you agree to defend and protect CHORD from claims, losses and costs (including reasonable lawyers' fees) that come from your content, your misuse of the Services, or your breaking these Terms.

17. Law and disputes

  • The laws of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, USA, apply to these Terms, without regard to its conflict-of-law rules.
  • Before you start a legal claim, please write to threadpodcast@chord.org. We will try to solve the problem with you within 30 days.
  • Any legal claim must be brought in the state or federal courts in Massachusetts, and you and CHORD agree to those courts.
  • If the law where you live gives you the right to bring a claim in your own country's courts, or other rights that these Terms cannot take away, you keep those rights.

18. If you got the app from Apple's App Store

  • These Terms are between you and CHORD only, not Apple. CHORD, not Apple, is responsible for the app and its content.
  • You may use the app on Apple devices that you own or control, as the Usage Rules in Apple's Media Services Terms and Conditions allow.
  • Apple has no duty to give maintenance or support for the app.
  • If the app does not meet a warranty that applies to it, you can tell Apple, and Apple will refund the price you paid for the app, if any. As far as the law allows, Apple has no other warranty duty for the app.
  • CHORD, not Apple, is responsible for dealing with any claims about the app, including product liability claims, claims that the app does not meet a legal or regulatory requirement, consumer protection claims, and claims that the app breaks someone's intellectual property rights.
  • You confirm that you are not in a country under a US government embargo, or one the US government calls a "terrorist supporting" country, and that you are not on a US government list of prohibited or restricted parties.
  • Apple and its subsidiaries are third-party beneficiaries of these Terms. When you accept these Terms, Apple has the right to enforce them against you.
  • Apple's Licensed Application End User License Agreement also applies to your use of the app on Apple devices.
  • Questions or complaints about the app go to CHORD (see section 22).

19. If you got the app from Google Play

Purchases through Google Play follow the Google Play Terms of Service. Google is not a party to these Terms.

20. General

  • These Terms, our Privacy Policy, and any separate written agreement between CHORD and your Community are the whole agreement between you and CHORD about the Services.
  • If a court finds that a part of these Terms cannot be enforced, the rest stays in effect.
  • If we do not enforce a part of these Terms right away, we can still enforce it later.
  • We may transfer these Terms to an organization that takes over the Services. You may not transfer them without our written permission.
  • Apart from Apple (section 18), no one else gets rights under these Terms.
  • We may translate these Terms. If a translation and the English version do not agree, the English version applies.

21. Changes to these Terms

We may update these Terms. We will post the new version on this page and change the effective date at the top. If a change is important, we will tell you in the app or by email before it takes effect. If you keep using the Services after the change, you accept the new Terms.

22. Contact us