Terms of Service

Effective date: 3 August 2026

These Terms are an agreement between you and Smalltalk Telecom Inc. ("Smalltalk", "we"), a company based in Toronto, Ontario. They govern the Smalltalk phone, the Smalltalk app, our website, and the calling service that connects them (together, the "Service").

By creating an account or using the Service, you agree to these Terms. Nothing in these Terms limits rights you have under the Ontario Consumer Protection Act, 2002 or other consumer protection laws that apply to you; where these Terms conflict with a right you cannot waive, the law wins.

1. THE SMALLTALK PHONE CANNOT CALL 911

This is the most important section of these Terms. Please actually read it.

The Smalltalk phone is a closed-network intercom for families. It can call, and be called by, only the contacts a guardian has approved. It has no connection to the public telephone network.

This means a Smalltalk phone CANNOT call 911 or any other emergency service — not while locked, not while unlocked, not in any circumstance. The app cannot call 911 through Smalltalk either. This is a deliberate design of the product, not a limitation that a setting, an upgrade, or an emergency can change.

You must not rely on any part of the Service to reach emergency services, and you must ensure that your child and everyone in your household knows the Smalltalk phone cannot call 911 and knows how to reach emergency services another way (for example, a mobile phone or a traditional landline). During setup we require every guardian — and every invited caller in the app — to read and acknowledge this limitation, and we keep a record of that acknowledgment.

2. What the Service is

• The phone: a screen-free handset that connects over your home Wi-Fi and can call only approved contacts.
• The app: the parent's remote control — manage approved contacts, lock and unlock the phone, set downtime schedules, see calling activity, and make and receive calls with your family's phones.
• Invited callers: guardians may invite family members and trusted friends to call the family's phones through the app. Plans include a set number of caller lines; the Village 10 add-on provides more.
• The closed network: every call stays inside Smalltalk. Neither the phone nor the app can dial out to ordinary phone numbers.

We may add, change, or remove features. If a change materially reduces what you are paying for, we will tell you before it takes effect.

3. Who may use the Service

You must be at least 18 and reside in Canada to create an account. The Service is not currently offered in Quebec. The account holder is responsible for the account, for everyone they invite to it, and for the use of every phone on it. The phone is intended for use by children under the supervision and authority of their guardian — the guardian, not Smalltalk, decides who may call their child.

4. Your responsibilities

• Emergency access — §1. This one is on you, and it matters more than everything else in this list combined.
• Accurate information — keep your account email current; it is how we send you legally required notices.
• Your household's Wi-Fi and power — the phone needs both to work.
• People you add. When you add someone to a contact list or invite a caller, you confirm that you know them, that you have the authority to share their name and number with us, and that adding them is appropriate for your child. Smalltalk never vets contacts — the entire safety model of the product is that YOU choose who can reach your child.
• Your credentials. Keep your password to yourself. A shared guardian login means shared control of your child's phone.
• Lawful, intended use. Don't attempt to break the closed network, dial numbers outside it, probe or overload our systems, resell the Service, or use it to harass anyone.

5. Guardians, callers, and shared control

Accounts support up to two guardians with equal and full control: either guardian can lock the phone, change schedules, and manage contacts, and each can see a record of changes the other made. Invited callers can only call — they have no control over any phone. You are responsible for choosing your co-guardian and your callers well; Smalltalk cannot referee family disputes, and we will treat any guardian's instruction as the account's instruction.

6. Plans, billing, and cancellation

• Subscriptions are billed by Stripe, monthly or yearly, at the prices shown when you subscribe, in Canadian dollars, plus applicable taxes.
• Subscriptions renew automatically until cancelled. You can cancel at any time in the app; cancellation takes effect at the end of the period you have paid for, and the phone keeps working until then.
• New subscriptions come with a 30-day money-back guarantee. If Smalltalk is not right for your family, email support@smalltalkphone.com within 30 days of your phone arriving — or within 30 days of purchase if you did not receive a phone — and we will refund what you paid for your plan. If we sent you a phone, send it back and we will refund anything you paid for it; we will cover the postage. This guarantee in plain language: Returns and refunds.
• If a payment fails, we will tell you and retry before anything is interrupted. If we ever disconnect service for non-payment, we will give you written notice first.
• Price changes apply from your next renewal, never mid-period, and we will give you at least 30 days' notice.

7. The phone (hardware)

The Smalltalk phone is sold, not leased. Your phone number, contacts, schedules and history belong to your account, not to the physical handset — if a phone is replaced, the replacement takes over its line.

8. Availability, and what the Service depends on

The Service depends on your home internet, your electricity, our infrastructure, and our telecom providers. We do not promise uninterrupted service, and the phone will not work during a power or internet outage at your home. We design for reliability — the calling rules keep working at the network level even when parts of our system are down — but you must not treat any phone, ours included, as infallible.

If the phone is offline, the app shows it as offline; we would rather tell you than pretend.

9. Privacy

Our Privacy Policy explains what we collect and why, and it is part of these Terms. The short version that belongs here: no ads, no trackers, no selling data, no recording calls. Ever.

10. Intellectual property

We own the Service's software, design, and branding. You get a personal, non-transferable licence to use the app and the phone's software as part of the Service — not to copy, modify, or reverse-engineer them except where the law gives you that right regardless of contract.

11. Suspension and termination

You can close your account at any time. We may suspend or close an account for non-payment (with notice, §6), for material breach of these Terms, or where we reasonably believe the Service is being abused or someone's safety requires it. If we discontinue the Service entirely, we will give you at least 60 days' notice — a child's phone should never simply go dark without warning.

On closure, the Privacy Policy's deletion and retention rules apply.

12. Disclaimers and limitation of liability

Apart from the promises made expressly in these Terms and the warranties the law implies and does not allow us to exclude, the Service is provided without other warranties.

To the maximum extent permitted by applicable law:

• Smalltalk is not liable for losses arising from your inability to reach emergency services using the Service — §1 told you, in bold, that the Service cannot do this;
• Smalltalk is not liable for indirect or consequential losses, or for failures caused by your internet, your power, or events beyond our reasonable control;
• our total liability for everything else is limited to the greater of the amounts you paid us in the 12 months before the claim and $100.

Nothing in this section excludes or limits liability that cannot lawfully be excluded or limited — including under the Ontario Consumer Protection Act, 2002 — or liability for our own gross negligence or wilful misconduct.

13. Changes to these Terms

We may update these Terms. For material changes we will give you at least 30 days' notice in the app or by email, and the change applies from your next renewal. If you do not agree, cancel before it takes effect and the old terms govern until then.

14. General

These Terms are governed by the laws of Ontario and the federal laws of Canada. Disputes belong to the courts of Ontario — though nothing stops either of us from small claims court, and nothing in these Terms takes away a consumer right to sue where the law gives you one. If part of these Terms is found unenforceable, the rest stands. These Terms plus the Privacy Policy are the whole agreement between us about the Service.

Smalltalk Telecom Inc.
400-26 Wellington St E, Toronto ON M5E 1S2, Canada
support@smalltalkphone.com