Terms of Service

1. About these terms

I'm Marie Gale. Compliance Advisor is my service, run as a sole proprietorship at 1485 Overlea St., Clearwater, FL 33755. You can reach me at hello@mariegale.com.

These terms are the agreement between you and me. They cover the Compliance Advisor subscription, the Label Quick Check, the free tools on this site, and any part of the Library I've made public.

When you create an account, buy a Label Quick Check, or use a free tool, you're agreeing to these terms. If you're signing up for a business, you're telling me you have the authority to agree on that business's behalf.

You need to be at least 18 to use Compliance Advisor.

My Privacy Policy is part of this agreement.

2. What Compliance Advisor is, and what it isn't

This is the most important section in this document. Please read it.

What it is

Compliance Advisor gives you labeling and compliance guidance drawn from my 20-plus years of work with soap and cosmetic makers. Depending on your subscription, that includes the Label Full Check, the Fragrance Allergen Checker, the Ingredient Declaration Builder, the Ingredient Lookup, Ask Marie, monthly Office Hours, and the Library.

It is not legal advice

I am not an attorney. Nothing in Compliance Advisor is legal advice, and using it does not create an attorney-client relationship. If you have a legal question, talk to a lawyer.

It is not a government approval

Nothing here is an approval, clearance, certification, or determination from the FDA, the FTC, any state agency, or any authority outside the United States. If a tool tells you your label looks good, that is my analysis. It is not a defense in an enforcement action and it does not bind any agency.

It is not a consulting engagement

A subscription is not the same as hiring me. My individual consulting work is a separate service with its own agreement.

You are responsible for your labels

I can tell you what the rules require and what I see on your label. I can't stand behind your finished product. You're responsible for what you enter into the tools, for the labels you print, and for your own compliance. Check your work before you go to press.

What's in scope

Compliance Advisor covers United States federal requirements from the FDA and the FTC, including MoCRA and the Fair Packaging and Labeling Act, along with the state requirements the tools specifically identify.

It does not cover the European Union, the United Kingdom, Canada, or any other country, except where a tool tells you it's addressing that requirement. It does not cover formulation safety, stability, preservation, or product efficacy. It does not cover trademark clearance.

Rules change

Guidance reflects the requirements as I understand them at the time you receive it. Regulations change, and so does agency interpretation. Staying current is ultimately your job.

3. How artificial intelligence is used here

I want to be plain about this, because a lot of tools are vague about it.

AI is used in one place only: the label checks. Its job is to read your label and report what it sees. That's all it does.

Every pass, fail, or flag comes from programmed logic I built from my own rules. The AI does not decide whether your label complies with anything.

AI can misread an image. Blurry photos, unusual fonts, curved surfaces, and low contrast all cause errors, and a misread label produces a wrong result. Send the clearest image you have, and treat anything surprising in your result as worth a second look.

The other tools use no AI at all. The Fragrance Allergen Checker, the Ingredient Declaration Builder, the Ingredient Lookup and the MoCRA Wizard are straight lookups and calculations.

Label images are sent to my AI provider only to be read. They are not used to train AI models. My provider is contractually prohibited from training on them.

4. Your account

Give me accurate information when you sign up, and keep it current.

Your account is for you, or for your one business. Don't share your login. If I find an account being used by more than one person or business, I may suspend or close it, and you won't get a refund.

Keep your password to yourself, and tell me right away if you think someone else has gotten into your account. You're responsible for what happens under your login.

You can't transfer your account to someone else without my agreement in writing.

If you sell your business, get in touch. I'd much rather move the account across to whoever bought it than have them start over, and it's usually simple to arrange.

5. Subscriptions and billing

Price

Compliance Advisor is $47 per month or $470 per year, in U.S. dollars. You're responsible for any tax that applies where you are.

It renews automatically

Your subscription renews automatically at the end of each term, and your payment method is charged again, until you cancel. Monthly plans renew monthly. Annual plans renew annually. You're authorizing that recurring charge when you subscribe.

If you're on an annual plan, I'll email you a reminder 10 days before it renews.

You can cancel any time, from your member dashboard, in a few clicks. You don't have to email me or ask anyone's permission.

Your rate never goes up

As long as your subscription stays active without a break, you keep the rate you signed up at. I will not raise it. That's a promise I intend to keep permanently.

The rate is tied to your subscription, not to you. If you cancel and come back later, you rejoin at whatever the price is then.

Payment

Payment is handled by Stripe. Keep your payment method current.

If a payment fails

Nothing happens immediately. You keep everything, and you have time to sort it out.

• Days 1 to 5. Your subscription stays intact and your tools stay open. Fix your payment method and nothing changes.
• After 5 days. The tools lock. Your subscription is still active and you can still sign in, reach your dashboard, and get to Stripe to update your card.
• After 15 days. Your subscription is canceled, effective immediately, and your access ends at that point.

If it gets to cancellation, your rate is gone. Rejoining means paying the price in effect at that time, not the rate you were on. If you're on an old rate, that's worth knowing before a card sits broken for two weeks.

Cancellation

Cancel from your dashboard any time. Your cancellation takes effect at the end of the term you've already paid for, and you keep full access until that date. Nothing is prorated and nothing is refunded.

Refunds

I don't give refunds on any part of a subscription you've already paid for. That applies to monthly and annual plans alike. Annual plans aren't refunded and aren't prorated if you cancel partway through.

Cancel any time and you keep what you paid for through the end of the term. That's the trade.

Coming back

If you rejoin, you pay the price in effect at that time.

If you rejoin within 60 days of canceling, I'll restore your tool run history. After that I can't promise it will still be there.

Chargebacks

If you dispute a charge with your bank instead of contacting me, I may suspend or close your account. If something's wrong with a charge, email me first. I'd rather sort it out.

6. Label Quick Check

The Label Quick Check is a one-time $9 purchase, separate from a subscription. It is not a subscription and it does not renew.

One payment buys one check. It's yours and can't be transferred.

The Label Quick Check is not refundable. You have 365 days from the date of purchase to use it. If you don't use it in that time, it expires.

Once you've run your check, you can get back to your results for 30 days. After that the result is gone. Download or print your results when you get them. I'll email you a reminder before the report comes offline.

If you subscribe afterward

Run a Quick Check and then subscribe within 60 days of running it, and two things happen: the $9 you paid comes off your first payment, and your completed check appears in your new dashboard.

Two different clocks are at work here, and both start when you ran the check, not when you bought it.

• 30 days is how long the result stays readable. That clock keeps running whether or not you subscribe, so a check you ran a while ago may already have expired by the time you join.
• 60 days is how long the offer stays open. Subscribe inside that window and the credit applies and the check comes across to your dashboard. Subscribe later and neither happens, and the check doesn't come across at all.

Everything in Sections 2 and 3 applies to the Quick Check exactly as it does to a subscription.

7. Free tools and public content

Some things here are free and don't need an account. The MoCRA Wizard is one. From time to time I make items from the Library publicly readable.

If you use a free tool or read public content, these terms apply to you. Specifically: Section 2 (what this is and isn't), Section 3 (how AI is used), Section 9 (how you may use the service), Section 10 (your content), Section 12 (the Library and my copyright), Section 13 (availability), Section 14 (disclaimers and limits), and Section 16 (legal terms).

Public Library items

Making something free to read means you may read it. It doesn't mean you may take it. Public items are still my copyrighted work. Don't copy them, repost them, hand them out, teach from them, or fold them into your own materials.

I can make a public item members-only again, or remove it, at any time. Nothing here guarantees that something free today stays free.

The MoCRA Wizard

The Wizard is free and anonymous. Your answers aren't connected to you, and your results can't be retrieved once you leave the page — not by you, and not by me. Print or save them before you go.

If you give your email address, it goes on my mailing list. It isn't attached to your answers, and your results don't follow you into a membership if you subscribe later.

The Wizard is limited to 10 runs per hour.

Changes to free tools

I may change, limit, or remove any free tool or public item at any time, without notice.

8. The blog

The blog at mariegale.com is free to read and doesn't need an account.

Registering

You can register on the blog to be told when a new article is published. Registration is the standard WordPress kind: you choose a password and get a profile.

You need to be registered to leave a comment.

When you register, your details go into the blog's registration records and are also added to my email list. That's what sends you the article notices.

Registering also adds you to my email list. Every email has an unsubscribe link, so you can leave the list whenever you like — unsubscribing stops the email and leaves your blog registration alone.

I've used "register" for the blog and kept "subscribe" for Compliance Advisor, so it's clear which one is meant.

Comments

Comments are welcome once you're registered, and they're public — your name and your comment are visible to anyone reading the article. Don't put anything in a comment you wouldn't want the world to read, and don't post someone else's confidential information.

I moderate comments. I may edit, decline or remove a comment, and I don't have to explain why. Spam, abuse, and anything posted purely to advertise will go.

Comments are checked by an automated spam filter, which is described in my Privacy Policy.

My articles are copyrighted

Everything I publish on the blog is copyright Marie Gale, unless the article says otherwise.

You're welcome to read it, link to it, and quote a short passage with credit. You may not reproduce an article in full, republish it elsewhere, put it in your own materials, or present my work as your own.

If you'd like to use something, ask me. The answer is often yes.

9. How you may use Compliance Advisor

Your own business only

Your subscription covers your own products and your own business.

You may not use the tools to check labels for clients or customers, and you may not resell access or run a label-checking service off your membership. If that's what you want to do, email me and we'll make arrangements. I'm happy to talk about it. It just isn't what a regular subscription covers.

How many checks you get

The Label Full Check is limited to 10 checks per calendar month. Your count resets on the first of each month, no matter when you signed up. If you join mid-month, you get all 10 for the rest of that month, and 10 more on the first day of the next month. Unused checks don't carry over.

The Fragrance Allergen Checker, the Ingredient Declaration Builder and the Ingredient Lookup have no set limit, subject to reasonable use.

Things you may not do

• Share your login, or let anyone else use your account
• Scrape the site, use bots, or access the tools by any automated means
• Reverse engineer the tools or try to extract the rules behind them
• Get around usage limits
• Bulk-download the Library
• Upload anything harmful, or anything you don't have the right to upload
• Use anything you get here to train an AI model or build a competing product

If you do any of this, I may suspend or close your account without a refund.

10. Your content

It's yours

Your labels, images, formulations, and everything else you put into the tools belong to you. Uploading something here doesn't give me ownership of it.

You do give me permission to store and process what you upload, for the purpose of running the tools and giving you results.

You're telling me you have the right to upload what you upload, and that it doesn't infringe anyone else's rights. Don't upload someone else's confidential formula.

I keep it confidential

I don't share your formulations or label content with anyone. The exceptions are narrow: my AI provider reads your label images to perform your check, as described in Section 3, and I'll comply with a valid legal demand if I ever get one.

What I keep, and for how long

I keep records of your tool runs indefinitely. I use them to run your account, support you, and understand how the tools are being used.

Label images are kept for 90 days from the run, then deleted. They aren't shown in your dashboard and you can't retrieve them. During that time I may review an image myself, in the admin area, to check the tool read your label correctly and to make the checks more accurate. That's me refining my own rules. The images are not used to train AI models.

Uploaded label files are limited to 8 MB.

Using anonymized examples

Real questions and real situations are the best teaching material there is, so I sometimes use them in articles, on Office Hours calls, and in the Library.

When I do, identifying details come out first: your name, your business name, your brand and product names, and anything distinctive enough to point back to you.

If I use a formulation as an example, I remove the percentages or replace them with ranges, so your actual formulation is never disclosed. The ingredients make the teaching point. The percentages are yours.

If a situation can't be explained without a detail that would identify you, I'll ask you first.

I may also use anonymized, aggregated information to improve the tools and understand how they're used. That means counts and patterns with nothing identifying you.

Testimonials

If you say something kind about the service, in a feedback form or in an email, I may ask whether I can use it as a testimonial.

I'll always ask first. You can say no, and that's the end of it. You can also say yes on conditions — without your full name, without your business name, or without anything else you'd rather not have attached.

The Ingredient Lookup

The Ingredient Lookup is a one-off tool. You look up an ingredient and you get the correct name to use in an ingredient declaration, along with any other information I have on file for that ingredient. The result isn't saved to your dashboard, so print or copy anything you want to keep.

I do keep a log of lookups, and it's connected to your account. I use it to see how the tool is being used and to find gaps — if you looked something up and didn't get what you expected, that's exactly what I want to know about. It also means I may notice a problem with a result and get in touch to help.

Your dashboard

Your results stay in your dashboard for as long as you want them. You can hide any result you'd rather not see and unhide it later. Hiding only changes what's displayed to you; it doesn't delete the record.

To actually delete something, ask me. I'll delete everything connected to you and keep the underlying run data only in anonymized form.

Keep your own copies

Compliance Advisor is not a recordkeeping system. It won't satisfy any record you're required to keep under MoCRA or anything else. Download and save what you need.

11. Ask Marie and Office Hours

Ask Marie

Send me your questions and I'll answer them. Most questions are answered within 1 business day (or less). That's a target, not a guarantee, and it may take longer around holidays or when I've announced I'm away.

There's no cap on how many questions you can ask. I do ask that you use it reasonably. If a question really needs an individual consultation, or falls outside what Compliance Advisor covers, I'll tell you and offer you the alternative.

Questions and answers may later be anonymized and added to a Library section so other members can benefit. Your name, any identifying information, and any product name or identifying detail are removed first.

Office Hours

I hold Office Hours every month. That's a commitment.

The date and time of a given month's call may change, and I'll give you notice when it does. You aren't entitled to any particular date or time, and there's no refund or credit for a call you miss. Recordings go to the Library, so you can watch what you weren't able to attend.

Office Hours calls are recorded. The recording captures your voice unless you're muted, your video if your camera is on, your display name, and anything you show on your screen. Recordings go to the Library for other members to watch, and stay there permanently.

You can attend without being in the recording. Stay muted, keep your camera off, use whatever display name you like, and send your question through the chat. I'll answer it without saying who asked.

Anything you say on a call is heard by everyone attending and stays in the recording. I don't normally edit recordings afterward, but if something comes up and you need one changed, email me and I'll sort it out.

Office Hours is group guidance, not a private consultation.

12. The Library and my copyright

Everything on this site is mine: the tools, the logic behind them, the documents, the worksheets, the videos, the articles, and the book content in the Library. It's all protected by copyright.

While your subscription is active, you have my permission to use it for your own business. That permission is personal to you, and it ends when your subscription ends.

Downloads

Worksheets and documents you download while your subscription is active are yours to keep and use in your own business, including after you cancel.

They're for your business only. Don't give them to customers, blank or filled in. Don't post them, share them in groups, teach from them, resell them, or include them in a course, service, or package of your own.

Your results

The results a tool gives you are yours to use for your own products. The rules, logic, and presentation behind them stay mine.

"Compliance Advisor" and "Marie Gale," along with my logos, are my trademarks.

If you believe something here infringes your copyright, my designated agent for copyright complaints is:

Marie Gale
1485 Overlea St., Clearwater, FL 33755
hello@mariegale.com

13. Availability and changes

I'll do my best to keep Compliance Advisor running, but I can't promise it's always available. There will be maintenance, and occasionally something will break.

Compliance Advisor depends on services I don't control, including my AI provider, Stripe, my email providers, my video conferencing service, and my host. When one of them has an outage, so do I.

I may add, change, or discontinue tools and features. If I'm removing something significant, I'll give members notice.

If I ever shut Compliance Advisor down entirely, I'll refund the unused portion of any annual subscription. That's the one place I'll refund, because that would be my decision and not yours, and I think that would be fair.

14. Disclaimers and limits on liability

This section is written in the formal language these clauses require. The short version: I've told you what Compliance Advisor does and doesn't do, and this puts a limit on what I can be held responsible for.

Compliance Advisor is provided "as is" and "as available." To the fullest extent permitted by law, I disclaim all warranties, express or implied, including any implied warranty of merchantability, fitness for a particular purpose, accuracy, or non-infringement.

I do not warrant that a label reviewed through Compliance Advisor will be found compliant by the FDA, the FTC, any state or foreign authority, any retailer, or anyone else. A result that flags no problems does not mean no problem exists.

To the fullest extent permitted by law, I am not liable for any indirect, incidental, consequential, special, or punitive damages. That includes the cost of reprinting labels or packaging, product recalls, lost sales or profits, and any fine or penalty assessed against you.

My total liability to you, for any claim arising out of Compliance Advisor, is limited to the amount you paid me in the 12 months before the claim arose.

You agree to indemnify me against claims arising from your products, your labels, or your use of anything you got here.

Some states don't allow some of these exclusions. If yours doesn't, they apply to you only as far as the law allows.

15. Ending your access

You may cancel any time, as described in Section 5.

I may suspend or close your account if you breach these terms, don't pay, or misuse the service. If I close your account for cause, I may end your access immediately, without waiting for the end of your paid term, and without a refund.

Your access ends completely in three situations: I close or suspend your account for breaching these terms, a failed payment goes unresolved for 15 days, or you cancel and your paid term runs out.

In all three, your tools, your Library access and your run history stop being available at that point. There is no grace period and no export window. Download whatever you want to keep before then.

It isn't gone, though. Your run history is still here, and if you rejoin within 60 days I'll restore it. After that I can't promise it will still be there. You'd rejoin at the price in effect at the time.

Sections 10, 12, 14, and 16 survive the end of this agreement.

16. Legal terms

Governing law

This agreement is governed by the laws of the State of Florida, without regard to its conflict of laws rules.

Let's talk first

If you have a dispute with me, email me and give me 30 days to work it out with you. Most things can be resolved that way, and I'd rather resolve them that way.

ARBITRATION AND CLASS ACTION WAIVER

Please read this carefully. It affects your legal rights.

If we can't resolve a dispute informally, any dispute between us will be resolved by binding individual arbitration, not in court, and not before a jury. Arbitration will be administered by the American Arbitration Association under its Consumer Arbitration Rules and Mediation Procedures, in the locale determined under those rules.

You and I both waive the right to bring or participate in a class action, class arbitration, or any representative proceeding. Claims may be brought only on an individual basis.

There are two exceptions. Either of us may bring a qualifying claim in small claims court instead. And either of us may go to court for an injunction to protect intellectual property rights.

You may opt out of this arbitration agreement. Email me at hello@mariegale.com within 30 days of first agreeing to these terms and say you're opting out. That's all it takes. Opting out doesn't affect anything else in this agreement, and it won't affect your subscription.

Arbitration fees are allocated under the AAA's consumer fee schedule.

Time limit

Any claim arising out of Compliance Advisor must be brought within one year of when it arose.

If I change these terms

I may update these terms. When I do, I'll change the version number and effective date at the top, and I'll email members about anything significant. Continuing to use Compliance Advisor after a change means you accept it. If you don't accept a change, cancel.

I don't publish old versions on the site, but I keep them. If you'd like to see an earlier version, or the version that was in force when you joined, email me and I'll send it to you.

Notices

I'll send notices to the email address on your account, so keep it current. You can reach me at hello@mariegale.com.

You're agreeing to receive account and legal notices by email. That's separate from marketing email, which you can unsubscribe from any time without affecting your account.

Everything else

I may transfer this agreement if I sell or transfer my business. You may not transfer it without my written agreement.

Neither of us is responsible for a failure caused by something outside our reasonable control.

If a court finds part of this agreement unenforceable, the rest stays in effect. If I don't enforce something right away, I haven't given up the right to enforce it later.

Nothing here makes us partners, or makes either of us the other's agent or employee.

These terms and the Privacy Policy are the whole agreement between us about Compliance Advisor.

Section headings are for convenience and don't affect meaning.

17. Contact

Marie Gale
1485 Overlea St., Clearwater, FL 33755
hello@mariegale.com

Questions about your account, your bill, these terms, or your privacy all go to the same place. Just email me.