Legal

Terms of Use & License Agreement

Licensor: IT Beratung – Andreas Hähnel, Neukircher Str. 3, 74357 Bönnigheim, Germany

1. Scope

These terms of use and license agreement govern the use of the software SMTPly (hereinafter "Software") by the Licensee.

Deviating or supplementary conditions of the Licensee are only recognised if the Licensor expressly agrees to them in writing.

1a. Target group: business customers only (B2B)

The Software and its licensing are offered exclusively to entrepreneurs, legal entities under public law and special funds under public law within the meaning of § 14 of the German Civil Code (BGB). The Software is not sold to consumers within the meaning of § 13 BGB.

By purchasing a license, the Licensee confirms that they are acting in the course of their commercial or independent professional activity. Consumer protection provisions, in particular the right of withdrawal under §§ 312g, 355 BGB, therefore do not apply.

No right of withdrawal, no 14-day return policy: Because the Software is sold exclusively to business customers, no statutory right of withdrawal applies. The Licensor also grants no voluntary return or withdrawal right after license activation. Refunds are excluded; mandatory statutory claims for material defects under § 8 of this agreement remain unaffected.

Evaluation before purchase: Before purchasing, the Software can be evaluated with full functionality via the 14-day free trial. The Licensee is required to use this trial period to verify that the Software is suitable for their specific use case and compatible with their environment.

2. Purchase and processing by Polar

SMTPly licenses are purchased through Polar (Polar Software, Inc., 3500 South DuPont Highway, Dover, DE 19901, USA) as Merchant of Record. The purchase contract regarding payment is concluded between the Licensee and Polar; payment processing and invoicing are handled exclusively by Polar under their Checkout Buyer Terms.

This license agreement governs the right to use the Software and is concluded with the Licensor (IT Beratung – Andreas Hähnel). It becomes effective upon receipt of the license key.

3. Subject matter

The subject of this agreement is the Software SMTPly in the version available at the time of purchase. SMTPly is a local Windows SMTP relay service that forwards incoming SMTP email via OAuth2 and Microsoft Graph through Microsoft 365.

The Software is offered in the Starter, Business and Enterprise editions. The scope of functions, in particular the number of Microsoft 365 tenants that can be connected and the Business and Enterprise features, depends on the edition purchased, as described on the product page at the time of purchase.

4. License grant

The Licensor grants the Licensee a non-exclusive, non-transferable, time-unlimited right to install and use the Software on one (1) physical or virtual server.

The license is bound to the server on which it was activated. For this, the Software records several characteristics of the server (SMBIOS UUID, Windows machine ID, BIOS serial number, network addresses); only a hash derived from them is sent to the license server. Replacing individual components or live-migrating a virtual machine does not affect the binding. The license includes:

Installation and execution of the Software on the activated server
Creation of backup copies for the Licensee's own use only
Use of updates made available free of charge by the Licensor

5. License restrictions

The Licensee is in particular not permitted to:

rent, lease, sell, sublicense or otherwise transfer the Software to third parties;
decompile, disassemble or otherwise reverse-engineer the Software, except as expressly permitted by law;
circumvent or remove any license checks, protection mechanisms or usage restrictions;
run the Software on more than one server simultaneously without having purchased a separate license for each additional server;
use the Software to connect, serve or manage tenants, clients or IT environments of third parties for a fee, in particular as an IT service provider, managed service provider, hosting provider or software vendor for their customers, or make it part of a paid product or paid service.

Connecting several tenants (Business and Enterprise editions) is only permitted for the Licensee's own tenants and those of its affiliated companies, or for third-party tenants for which no fee is charged. Any other use, in particular by IT service providers and software vendors, requires a separate written agreement (partner license). Please send inquiries to the Licensor through the contact form.

The last two restrictions (use for third parties and connecting several tenants) apply to licenses purchased on or after 2 October 2026. For licenses purchased earlier, Section 5 applies in the version published until then.

6. Trial version

The Software may be used without a license for 14 days with full functionality. After the trial period, further use is only permitted with a valid license key; configuration and logs are preserved.

A license may be purchased and activated at any time during or after the trial.

7. Hardware binding and server migration

Upon activation, the license key is bound to the hardware ID of the server. For a server migration, the Licensee first deactivates the license via the GUI's "Deactivate (release license)" function, after which the same key can be activated on a new server.

If deactivation is no longer technically possible (e.g. hardware failure), the Licensee contacts the Licensor for manual release.

Online license validation

The Software regularly validates the license online with the license server (api.polar.sh, via HTTPS). If no successful validation is possible for more than 30 days, the license is considered unconfirmed until the next successful validation, and the edition-bound features are no longer available. The Licensee ensures that the server can reach the license server at least at this interval. The Software warns before this period expires.

8. Warranty

The Software is provided "as is". The Licensor gives no warranty that the Software is free of defects, operates without interruption or is fit for the Licensee's particular purpose.

In particular, no warranty is given for:

error-free or uninterrupted operation of the Software;
compatibility with future versions of Microsoft 365, Windows or the Microsoft Graph API;
the availability of third-party services (Microsoft 365, Azure, Polar) on which the Software or the purchase channel depends;
fitness for any particular purpose.

The Licensee is responsible for conducting sufficient testing before production use and for maintaining appropriate data backup measures. Obvious defects must be reported within 14 days of receipt of the license key.

9. Limitation of liability

The Licensor is fully liable for damages resulting from injury to life, body or health, and for damages caused by intent or gross negligence on the part of the Licensor.

For simple negligence, the Licensor is only liable for breach of material contractual obligations (cardinal obligations), limited to the foreseeable, contractually typical damage. Total liability in such cases is capped at the license fee actually paid by the Licensee.

Any further liability is excluded to the maximum extent permitted by law, in particular for:

loss or corruption of data of any kind;
damages arising from errors, failures or malfunction of the Software;
damages resulting from failure or changes to third-party services (Microsoft 365, Azure, Microsoft Graph API);
lost profits, lost revenue or any indirect or consequential damages;
costs of data or system recovery and business interruption.

The Licensee is solely responsible for maintaining regular data backups and meeting their own IT requirements. Use of the Software in production environments is at the Licensee's own risk.

10. Updates and development

Updates are provided irregularly and without guarantee. There is no entitlement to specific features, versions or update cycles.

Paid new major versions may require the purchase of a new license. Licensees will be informed in advance.

11. Data protection

Information on the processing of personal data in connection with the purchase and use of the website can be found in the Privacy Policy.

12. Termination

The license is granted for an indefinite period. The right to use the Software terminates automatically if the Licensee breaches these terms. Upon termination, all installations of the Software must be removed.

13. Governing law and jurisdiction

These terms are governed by the laws of the Federal Republic of Germany, excluding the UN Convention on Contracts for the International Sale of Goods (CISG). The place of jurisdiction, to the extent permitted by law, is Heilbronn, Germany.

Should individual provisions of these terms be invalid, the validity of the remaining provisions shall not be affected.

Last updated: October 2026