Creator Terms

1. Scope and Acceptance

These Creator Terms form a binding agreement between you (the “Creator”) and AOVANCY SRL, a company registered in Romania (“AOVANCY”, “we”, “us”), and govern how AOVANCY sells your digital products, as your commissionaire, through the AOVANCY platform. They supplement our Terms & Conditions and Privacy Policy, which continue to apply. Where these Creator Terms conflict with the general Terms & Conditions on a commercial matter covered here, these Creator Terms prevail.

You accept these Creator Terms when you create a creator account, when you first publish a product, or when you continue to offer products after an updated version has taken effect under Section 15 — whichever happens first. If you do not agree, do not publish products.

2. The Commission Relationship

You act as principal and appoint AOVANCY as your commissionaire to sell your products. When you publish a product, you grant AOVANCY a non-exclusive, worldwide right and licence to reproduce, host, market, distribute, sell and deliver that product to end customers, and to grant end-user licences to buyers, for the duration set out in Section 14.

AOVANCY sells your products in its own name but on your account, under a commission arrangement (contract de comision) within the meaning of the Romanian Civil Code. This means:

• Toward the buyer, AOVANCY is the seller and merchant of record. We operate the checkout, list and collect the price, issue buyer-facing billing documents, deliver the product, and are responsible to the buyer for support, conformity, refunds and payment disputes. The buyer contracts with AOVANCY, not with you.
• AOVANCY sells on your account: the economic result of each sale is yours, and AOVANCY’s own revenue from the arrangement is its commission (Section 5). AOVANCY collects the sale price in its own name and, after retaining its commission, the remaining proceeds (your “Creator Earnings”) are due to you.
• AOVANCY acts as commissionaire for you only, as the party entitled to the proceeds — not for buyers. This is a commercial-agent / commission arrangement, not a payment service: AOVANCY is not a bank, payment institution, electronic money institution, or other regulated payment service provider, and provides no payment services to you or to buyers.
• Your creator dashboard balance is a running record of the Creator Earnings accrued and not yet settled. It is not a wallet, payment account, deposit, or stored-value account, and confers no right to instruct payments to third parties.
• You retain full ownership of your products and all intellectual property in them. Nothing here transfers ownership to AOVANCY. The licence granted above is limited to what is necessary to sell and deliver the product and to honour licences already granted to buyers.

AOVANCY does not buy your products as inventory in advance. Your Creator Earnings on a product accrue only when a unit of that product is actually sold and paid for.

3. Eligibility

By offering products for sale through AOVANCY, you confirm that:

• you are at least 18 years old and have legal capacity to contract;
• you act in a professional or business capacity, and not as a consumer, in relation to offering products through the platform under these terms;
• the identity, country, and payment information you provide are accurate and kept up to date;
• you are not subject to, and not owned or controlled by a person subject to, EU, UN, UK or US sanctions, and you are not resident in a territory subject to comprehensive sanctions.

We may request documentation to verify any of the above, and may suspend listings, sales, or settlement while verification is outstanding.

4. Pricing

You set the retail price for each product in your dashboard. AOVANCY lists the product at that price and may apply discounts, promotional campaigns, bundle pricing, regional pricing, or free-access offers under the applicable programme terms.

Where a product is sold at a reduced price, your Creator Earnings are calculated on the amount actually collected, as set out in Section 5. Where AOVANCY offers a product free of charge on its own initiative and not at your request, no Creator Earnings accrue and no commission is charged.

Free products. You may choose to offer a product free of charge. A free product generates no proceeds, so no Creator Earnings accrue, no commission is charged, and it produces no settlement line. Offering a product for free does not reduce your obligations: each free product is listed, reviewed, distributed, and made available to buyers on the same basis as a paid one, and all of your representations, warranties, indemnities, content rules, and data-protection obligations under these terms apply to it in full.

5. Commission and Your Earnings

For each unit sold, AOVANCY retains its commission and the payment processing costs charged by the payment provider for that sale. The remaining proceeds actually collected from the buyer — your Creator Earnings — are credited to your balance.

Payment processing costs. Card and payment-provider fees are charged per transaction by our payment provider (currently Stripe) and are deducted from the sale before your Creator Earnings are calculated. These are third-party costs — AOVANCY does not retain them and earns nothing from them. They typically fall between roughly 1.5% and 4% of the sale depending on the buyer’s card, country and currency, and the exact amount charged on each sale is shown against that sale in your dashboard. Your Creator Earnings for a sale are therefore:

(sale price − payment processing cost) × (100% − commission rate)

This applies to every sale, including where an individually agreed commission rate of 0% applies: a 0% commission means AOVANCY takes no commission, not that AOVANCY absorbs the payment provider’s costs.

The commission rate applicable to a sale is the rate shown in your creator dashboard at the time of that sale, as published on our pricing page, or as individually agreed with you in writing. Individual arrangements are only binding on AOVANCY where they are confirmed in your dashboard or communicated from an@aovancy.com address. Rates displayed as a result of an obvious error or system fault do not bind either party; the correct rate applies and any difference is corrected in the next settlement.

Your dashboard records, for every sale, the gross amount, the commission applied, and the resulting Creator Earnings. These records are the basis of settlement between us.

6. Balance and Payouts

Your Creator Earnings accrue to your creator balance as sales complete. Funds from a sale become available for payout after a maturation period shown in your dashboard, which protects both you and AOVANCY against refunds and payment reversals; until then they are shown as pending.

You may request a payout of your available balance at any time, using the payment methods available in your dashboard. Each payout is accompanied by a settlement statement showing the sales included, gross amounts, commission, deductions under Section 7, and the net amount paid.

• Self-billing. Unless you tell us otherwise, you agree that AOVANCY may issue settlement statements as self-billed invoices on your behalf. Where your jurisdiction requires you to issue your own invoice, or requires use of a national electronic invoicing system, you will do so on the basis of the statement, and payment may be made after a valid invoice is received.
• Minimum amount. We may set a reasonable minimum payout amount, shown in your dashboard. Amounts below it remain in your balance until the minimum is reached, and are always paid out on termination.
• Holdbacks and reserves. We may retain a reasonable, proportionate part of amounts otherwise payable to cover refunds, chargebacks, and payment reversals that are still possible for recent sales, and may apply a longer holdback to newly created accounts, to unusually high or atypical sales volumes, and to sales showing indicators of payment fraud. The amount and reason for any holdback is shown on the statement.
• Accuracy of details. You are responsible for providing accurate and current payment details, matching your own name or entity. Following a change to those details, we may delay your next payout by a short verification period. We are not liable for payments sent to details you provided incorrectly.
• Suspension of payouts. We may withhold or delay payout in whole or in part where required by law, where fraud, sanctions exposure, or a material breach of these terms is reasonably suspected, or where a legal claim relating to your products is pending — for as long as reasonably necessary, with reasons given to you.

Program rewards (including referrals). Separate from your Creator Earnings, AOVANCY may operate optional programmes — such as the referral programme — under which you can earn rewards. Any such reward is a discretionary marketing incentive offered under the applicable programme rules, not a contractual entitlement and not part of your Creator Earnings. Unless the programme rules state otherwise: rewards are added to your available balance and paid out with it once they have accrued and matured; a reward is reversed if the qualifying activity is later reversed or refunded, or is found to breach Section 11 — for example, if a referred creator’s sales fall back below the qualifying threshold; and AOVANCY may change, suspend, or end any programme, including its rates and caps, on reasonable notice, without that being a change to these terms requiring the process in Section 15. Rewards may be a different category of income from your Creator Earnings for tax and invoicing purposes, and you are responsible for accounting for them correctly.

7. Refunds, Chargebacks and Set-off

As the seller, AOVANCY handles buyer refunds in accordance with our Withdrawal Policy and applicable consumer law. Where a sale is refunded, reversed, or charged back, the Creator Earnings accrued for that sale are deducted from your balance and, if already paid out to you, from your future payouts.

Where deductions exceed the amounts payable to you, the resulting negative balance is a debt due to AOVANCY and repayable on demand. We may set off amounts you owe us against any amount payable to you, including across multiple accounts controlled by the same person or entity.

Sustained or unusual refund, chargeback, or dispute rates associated with your products may lead to review of your account, longer holdbacks, or removal of the affected products.

8. Your Status, Invoicing and Taxes

You offer products through AOVANCY as an independent business. Nothing in these terms creates an employment relationship, partnership, or joint venture between you and AOVANCY, and neither party may bind the other except as expressly set out here and in the commission arrangement in Section 2.

AOVANCY is responsible for taxes arising on its own sales to buyers. You are responsible for declaring and paying all taxes and social contributions arising on the Creator Earnings you receive, and for holding any registrations required for your activity. Amounts stated in your dashboard are exclusive of any tax you may be required to charge on your sales.

Where applicable law requires AOVANCY to withhold tax or contributions from amounts payable to you, we will withhold and remit them, and the amount paid to you will be net of that withholding. We may request tax identification, residence, or business-registration details from you where needed to determine the correct treatment or to meet reporting obligations applicable to us, and may suspend settlement until they are provided.

9. Warranties and Responsibility

By offering a product for sale, you represent and warrant that:

• you own the product and all material in it, or hold all rights, licences and permissions needed to grant AOVANCY the licence in Section 2;
• the product and its marketing materials do not infringe any third-party rights, including copyright, trademarks, and personality rights;
• the product complies with applicable law and with our content rules in the Terms & Conditions, and contains no unlawful, deceptive, or harmful content — including guarantees of financial returns or earnings claims presented as certain;
• all descriptions, previews, specifications and claims you provide are accurate, complete, and not misleading, and the product conforms to them;
• the product is free of malware and functions as described on the formats and platforms stated.

You will indemnify AOVANCY against losses, claims, and reasonable costs arising from breach of these warranties. Because AOVANCY is responsible to buyers for the conformity of what it sells, this includes refunds, price reductions, replacements, and compensation AOVANCY must provide to buyers because a product did not conform to its description or was defective.

Updates you promise. Buyers always receive access to the latest published version of a product they have bought. AOVANCY does not, by default, promise buyers that further updates will be released. However, where you advertise, describe, or otherwise represent that a product includes updates, revisions, or new versions, that representation becomes a commitment you owe to buyers: you must provide those updates within a reasonable time for as long as the product is offered for sale. If you do not, AOVANCY may update, relabel, withdraw, or remove the product, and may refund affected buyers — and you will reimburse AOVANCY for refunds it must give because a promised update was not provided.

Products are reviewed before publication and remain subject to our notice-and-action process afterwards. We may decline, suspend, or remove products in accordance with the Terms & Conditions, and you may appeal such decisions through the creator dashboard.

10. Limitation of Liability

Nothing in these terms limits or excludes either party’s liability for death or personal injury caused by negligence, for fraud or fraudulent misrepresentation, for intentional misconduct (dol) or gross negligence (culpă gravă), or for any other liability that cannot be limited or excluded under applicable law.

Subject to the paragraph above:

• AOVANCY provides the platform with reasonable care and skill, but does not guarantee that it will be uninterrupted, error-free, secure, or available at any particular time, that any level of sales, revenue, visibility, or ranking will be achieved, or that any feature will be maintained.
• Neither party is liable to the other for any indirect or consequential loss, or for any loss of profit, revenue, sales, anticipated savings, data, goodwill, or business, however arising, even if the possibility of that loss was known.
• AOVANCY’s total liability to you arising out of or in connection with these terms and your use of the platform — whether in contract, tort (including negligence), or otherwise, and for all claims taken together in any twelve (12) month period — is limited to the greater of (i) the total commission AOVANCY retained on sales of your products in the twelve (12) months before the event giving rise to the liability, and (ii) one hundred euro (EUR 100).

The limits in the two bullet points above do not reduce your right to be paid the Creator Earnings properly owed to you under Sections 5 and 6, and do not apply to your indemnity obligations under Section 9.

11. Anti-Abuse and Self-Dealing

You must not, directly or through another person:

• purchase your own products, or arrange purchases, in order to inflate sales figures, unlock rewards, qualify for programme milestones, or trigger settlement;
• use payment instruments you are not authorised to use, or knowingly accept payments funded by them;
• create multiple or nominee accounts to obtain benefits intended once per person, or to evade a suspension;
• manipulate reviews, referrals, rankings, or platform metrics.

Where such activity occurs, AOVANCY may reverse the affected transactions and any resulting rewards, reclaim amounts already paid, withhold settlement, and terminate the relationship.

12. Data Protection

Each party will comply with applicable data protection law, including the GDPR, when processing personal data in connection with these terms. “Personal data”, “controller”, “processor”, and “data subject” have the meanings given in the GDPR.

(a) Buyer data we share with you. When a buyer purchases your product, AOVANCY may provide you with the buyer’s name, email address, and details of the purchase. In respect of this data, AOVANCY and you act as separate, independent controllers, each responsible for its own processing. You may use buyer data only to support your own relationship with buyers of products they bought through AOVANCY — such as answering enquiries or providing product updates — and to send marketing only where you have a valid lawful basis to do so. You must give buyers your own privacy information, honour their rights (including objection and erasure), and not use buyer data in any way AOVANCY has told the buyer it will not be used.

(b) Leads you collect through the platform. Where you use AOVANCY tools — such as email capture on your storefront — to collect personal data for your own purposes, you are the controller of that data and AOVANCY acts as your processor. AOVANCY processes it only to provide those tools and on your documented instructions, keeps it confidential, applies appropriate security, and returns or deletes it on termination, in accordance with our Data Processing Addendum, which forms part of these terms. You are responsible for having a lawful basis for the collection, giving the individuals the required privacy information, and honouring their rights.

(c) Your obligations. For all personal data you handle under these terms you will: maintain a valid lawful basis and your own privacy notice; keep the data secure; respond to the data-subject requests you are responsible for; not sell or unlawfully disclose the data; and notify AOVANCY without undue delay of any personal data breach affecting data received or collected through the platform.

(d) Enforcement. AOVANCY may restrict or withdraw your access to buyer data and to platform data tools, and may suspend or terminate your account, where we reasonably believe you are handling personal data unlawfully. You will indemnify AOVANCY against claims, regulatory fines, and reasonable costs arising from your breach of this Section or of data protection law.

13. Marketplace Presentation and Ranking

AOVANCY decides how products are presented, categorised, and ordered across the platform. Ranking in listings, search results, and recommendations is determined mainly by relevance to the query or category, sales and conversion performance, recency, product quality signals including buyer ratings and refund rates, and completeness of product information. Paid placement, where offered, is identified as such.

AOVANCY may market your products through its own channels, including the marketplace, creator stores, email, and paid advertising, using product titles, cover images, descriptions, and your creator name.

14. Term, Suspension and Termination

These Creator Terms apply for as long as you hold a creator account. You may stop offering products at any time by unpublishing your products or closing your account.

Where AOVANCY restricts or suspends the sale of your products, we will give you a statement of the reasons. Where AOVANCY terminates the relationship, we will give you at least thirty (30) days’ prior notice with reasons, unless we are subject to a legal or regulatory obligation to act sooner, or you have repeatedly breached these terms or the Terms & Conditions, in which case termination may be immediate.

On termination, your remaining available balance is paid out, after any deductions under Sections 6 and 7. Buyers who purchased your products before termination keep their licences, and the licence in Section 2 survives to the extent needed to continue serving them. Sections 5 and 6 (for completed sales), 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 16 and 17 survive termination.

15. Changes to These Terms

We may update these Creator Terms. Each version carries the version date shown at the top of this page. We will notify you of changes through the platform at least fifteen (15) days before they take effect, and longer where you need more time to adapt. During the notice period you may terminate under Section 14 with immediate effect. Continuing to offer products after the effective date constitutes acceptance. Changes required by law, or that add an entirely new optional feature, may take effect immediately.

16. Governing Law and Disputes

These Creator Terms are governed by Romanian law. Disputes are subject to the competent courts in Romania, unless mandatory law provides otherwise. Before starting proceedings, both parties agree to attempt in good faith to resolve the matter through the complaint mechanism described in the Terms & Conditions.

17. General

(a) Entire agreement. These Creator Terms, together with the Terms & Conditions, Privacy Policy, and Data Processing Addendum they refer to, form the entire agreement between you and AOVANCY on their subject matter and replace any prior understanding on it, except for any individual arrangement confirmed under Section 5.

(b) No waiver. If AOVANCY does not enforce a right or provision, that is not a waiver of it, and any single or partial exercise of a right does not prevent its later enforcement.

(c) Severability. If any provision of these terms is or becomes invalid or unenforceable — including because it is void under Regulation (EU) 2019/1150 (the Platform-to-Business Regulation) — that provision applies to the maximum extent permitted, or is severed if it cannot, and the remaining provisions continue in full force.

(d) Assignment. You may not assign or transfer your rights or obligations under these terms without our prior written consent. AOVANCY may assign or transfer these terms, in whole or in part, to an affiliate or in connection with a merger, acquisition, reorganisation, or sale of assets, on notice to you; your rights under these terms are not reduced by such a transfer.

(e) Notices. We give you notices through the platform or to the email address on your account, and such notices are treated as received when sent or posted. You send us notices to the address in Section 18. Notice periods in these terms run from when notice is given in this way.

(f) Force majeure. Neither party is liable for delay in or failure of performance — other than a payment already due — caused by events beyond its reasonable control, including outages of third-party infrastructure, network, or payment providers, cyber-attacks, natural events, or government action.

(g) Governing language. These terms are drafted in English. If we provide a translation, the English version prevails in the event of conflict, to the extent permitted by law.

18. Contact

Questions about these Creator Terms can be sent to legal@aovancy.com.