What Should My Terms of Service Actually Say for an MVP?
6 min read
If you are about to let real people into your app, your Terms of Service needs five things: a clear grant of use, a liability limit, an "as-is" beta warranty disclaimer, the right to suspend or terminate accounts, and which country's law and courts govern disputes. Everything else is optional at this stage. Those five turn a friendly page into an actual agreement that limits what a user can pin on you if something breaks.
Why this matters for a vibe-coded app
Your AI agent built the features you asked for. It did not build the contract between you and the person using them, because you didn't ask, and the app runs fine in a demo without one. So most vibe-coded MVPs launch with either no Terms at all or a copied template that quietly assumes a full, stable, warranted product. A beta is the opposite of that: it is unfinished, it will lose data, and it will go down. If your Terms promise a polished service you have not built, you have written a contract you cannot keep.
The point of Terms for an MVP is not to look grown-up. It is to say, in writing, "this is early software, use it at your own risk, and here is the ceiling on what I owe you if it goes wrong."
How to check where you stand
- Open your app and find the link to your Terms. If there is no link in the footer or the sign-up screen, you have no enforceable Terms, full stop.
- If a page exists, search it for four phrases: "as is", "limitation of liability", "terminate", and "governing law". Missing any of them is a gap.
- Check whether users actually agree to it. A link nobody clicks is weak. A ticked checkbox or an "I agree" button at sign-up is what makes it binding.
- Read it for a company name and country. Templates often still say "[Company Name]" or name a US state you have no connection to.
The fix
- Grant of use, with limits. State that you give the user a personal, revocable licence to use the app, and list what they may not do (resell it, attack it, scrape it, break the law with it).
- Disclaim warranties, "as is". Say plainly the service is provided "as is" and "as available" during beta, with no guarantee of uptime, accuracy, or that data will be preserved. This is the single most important clause for an MVP.
- Limit your liability. Cap what you owe if things go wrong, typically to a small amount or the fees paid, and exclude indirect and consequential losses. Some consumer-protection law overrides parts of this, which is fine: the clause still does most of its job.
- Termination and suspension. Reserve the right to suspend or delete accounts, for example for abuse or non-payment, and explain what happens to their data if you do.
- Governing law and disputes. Name the country (and region) whose law applies and where disputes are heard. Pick where you actually operate.
- Changes and contact. Say you may update the Terms and how users will know, and give a real contact address. Put a "last updated" date at the top.
- Get real agreement. Add an "I agree to the Terms and Privacy Policy" checkbox at sign-up that links to both. Agreement is what makes the document worth having.
The trap to avoid
Do not paste in a template from a large SaaS company and change the name. Those Terms are written for a mature, paid, warranted product, so they promise things your beta cannot deliver and often name a jurisdiction that has nothing to do with you. A short, honest page that says "this is early, use at your own risk" is worth more than ten pages of borrowed clauses you have not read. And do not treat Terms as a substitute for a Privacy Policy: they are different documents doing different jobs.
Where this fits
Terms of Service is one of the launch basics that never shows up in a demo and suddenly matters the moment a stranger signs up. It sits right next to your privacy policy and, if you have users abroad, your GDPR position. The free Readiness Report checks whether you have enforceable Terms and a working agreement step before beta, and the Finishing Pass hands you the fixes in order so you are not guessing which clause you still owe.