Join the HOA-OS Beta, and receive 6 Months of Free Premium for your community.Apply
HOA-OS

HOA-OS Founding Cohort Beta Agreement

v1Effective 2026-05-118 min read

1. The Program

HOA-OS is inviting your community to join the founding cohort of our beta program: six months of free Premium-tier access in exchange for using the platform actively across five product areas and sharing your honest feedback along the way.

The cohort is small, and your participation will directly shape what HOA-OS looks like at general availability. We're running this beta to find bugs and rough edges, to learn which features actually save board volunteers time, and to validate our pricing against real-world value. We are not running it as a free trial that converts automatically; there are no surprise charges at the end.

This document explains what your HOA is signing up for. It is shorter and more direct than our standard Terms of Service. It does not replace them — our Terms of Service and Privacy Policy still apply. This agreement only covers what is different for beta participants.

2. The 5 Gates and Timeline

Your HOA's six months are organized into five monthly milestones — “gates” — plus an exit interview in month 6. Each gate has two parts: doing the thing in the product, and answering a short survey about how it went.

  1. Month 1 · Onboarding

    What you'll do: Complete the setup wizard: brand, board roster, units imported, Stripe Connect onboarded, Plaid linked

    Survey: 5–8 questions on setup experience

  2. Month 2 · Communicate

    What you'll do: Send at least one newsletter and publish your community website with at least one customized page

    Survey: 5–8 questions on newsletters and your prior tools

  3. Month 3 · Govern

    What you'll do: Run at least one board vote, send at least one violation notice, or resolve at least one ARC request

    Survey: 5–8 questions on the workflow you used

  4. Month 4 · AI Assistant

    What you'll do: Upload at least one governing document and have at least 10 AI chatbot exchanges

    Survey: 5–8 questions on chatbot quality and pricing

  5. Month 5 · Money in motion

    What you'll do: Set up recurring dues for at least one unit and confirm at least one bank reconciliation match

    Survey: 5–8 questions on dues, reconciliation, and pricing

  6. Month 6 · Exit interview

    Survey: NPS, conversion intent, references, open feedback

Each gate opens on the first of its month and stays open for 30 days, with a 7-day grace period beyond that. If your HOA hasn't both met the outcome and submitted the survey by day 37, your enrollment is automatically demoted (see §8). The HOA-OS team will email reminders at day 14, day 25, and day 33.

Gates are sequential. Falling behind on one gate doesn't pause the next; gate 3 opens on the first of month 3 whether or not you've finished gate 2.

3. What HOA-OS Provides

During the term, HOA-OS provides:

  • Premium-tier access at no charge — full feature set, including newsletters, website builder, document management, board governance tools, AI chatbot, and Plaid bank reconciliation. No Stripe subscription is created and no card on file is required.
  • Reasonable support — responses to support requests within two business days, prioritized for beta participants. Bug reports go to the top of our queue.
  • No surprise charges — your card will not be auto-billed at the end of the term. The end-of-term behavior is described in §8.
  • Account managers — a named contact at HOA-OS (typically Edward) who you can email or text directly.

4. What Your HOA Agrees To

In exchange, your HOA agrees to:

  • Complete the five gate surveys and the exit interview. Survey responses are the primary input we use to improve the product and validate pricing. A single board admin per survey is sufficient; we'll prompt the right person at the right time.
  • Be responsive to support outreach. When we email or call about a bug, a question, or a feature we're considering, please reply within two business days when reasonably possible. We're not asking for instant response — only that you don't ghost.
  • Continue to abide by the baseline Terms of Service and Privacy Policy. Beta participation doesn't change your obligations to lawful use, content responsibility, or community website compliance under those documents.

5. Testimonial and Marketing License

By accepting this agreement, your HOA grants HOA-OS a non-exclusive, worldwide, royalty-free, perpetual license to use your HOA's name, logo, and any quotes you provide in surveys, exit interviews, or other written communication with HOA-OS, for the purpose of marketing the HOA-OS service. This includes use on our website, in sales materials, in case studies, in social media, in press releases, and in presentations.

Two important limits apply:

  • You may withdraw consent for future uses with 30 days' written notice to support@hoa-os.com. After the 30-day notice period, we will not create new marketing assets featuring your HOA, but assets we have already published or distributed may remain in circulation.
  • You may decline any specific quote. Surveys may include questions flagged “May we quote you on this?” or similar. Answering “no” to those questions means we won't quote that specific response, regardless of the general license above.

This license survives termination, withdrawal, and demotion from the beta program, subject to the 30-day-forward revocation right.

6. Feedback Ownership

Your HOA retains ownership of all feedback, suggestions, bug reports, and ideas you share with HOA-OS during the beta. By sharing them, you grant HOA-OS a perpetual, worldwide, royalty-free, irrevocable license to use, modify, incorporate, and distribute your feedback as part of the HOA-OS service, without obligation of attribution or compensation. We may ship features inspired by your feedback without further permission from your HOA.

This is meant to be practical, not predatory: we want the freedom to act on what you tell us without re-licensing every idea. If you share something genuinely proprietary to your HOA (a confidential financial figure, a personnel matter), mark it clearly in your message and we will treat it as confidential under §7 instead of as feedback under this section.

7. Confidentiality

During the beta, your HOA may have early access to features, pricing experiments, or roadmap conversations that HOA-OS has not yet released publicly. You agree:

  • Not to publicly share screenshots, descriptions, or details of features or pricing that HOA-OS has not yet made generally available (i.e., visible on the public marketing site or in a press release).
  • Not to disclose login credentials, admin tokens, or any other access credentials provided to your HOA, including to other members of your HOA who are not authorized board admins.
  • No restriction on discussing or describing features or pricing that HOA-OS has already made public.

This is a light confidentiality obligation. It does not prevent your HOA from criticizing, recommending against, or otherwise speaking candidly about HOA-OS — publicly or privately. We want honest feedback, including the kind we don't want to hear.

8. Term, Demotion, and End of Beta

Term. This agreement begins on the date you accept it and ends six months from that date, unless terminated earlier under this section.

Gate-fail demotion. If your HOA fails to meet both the outcome and the survey for a gate by the end of the gate's 30-day window plus the 7-day grace period, your enrollment is automatically demoted. On demotion:

  • Your effective tier reverts to Starter (newsletters and basic features).
  • Data in Premium-only surfaces (AI chatbot conversation history, Plaid bank connections, recurring dues schedules, website builder pages beyond the Starter limits) is preserved and remains read-only, not deleted. You can view your prior work; you cannot create new entries in those surfaces.
  • Your HOA may request re-enrollment by emailing support@hoa-os.com. Re-enrollment is at HOA-OS's discretion and may be granted, declined, or conditioned on specific catch-up work.

Voluntary withdrawal. Your HOA may withdraw from the beta at any time by emailing support@hoa-os.com. On withdrawal, effective tier reverts to Starter, Premium-only data becomes read-only on the same terms as gate-fail demotion, and the testimonial license under §5 survives for any assets already created or in use, subject to the 30-day-forward revocation right.

Successful completion (end of 6 months). If your HOA completes the program (all five gates met or excused, exit interview submitted), your effective tier automatically reverts to Starter at the end of month 6. Premium-only data remains in read-only form. HOA-OS will reach out separately with a paid Premium offer; there is no auto-billing and no card-on-file charge. You can take as long as you want to decide.

Termination by HOA-OS for cause. HOA-OS may terminate this agreement and your beta enrollment immediately if your HOA materially breaches the baseline Terms of Service (e.g., harassment, fraud, fair-housing violations on your community website) or this agreement (e.g., publicly disclosing unreleased features in violation of §7). On for-cause termination, your effective tier reverts to Starter, Premium-only data becomes read-only, and the testimonial license under §5 continues to apply on its normal terms.

This section is the addendum where the legal language lives. The rest of the agreement above prevails as the readable version; this section governs in case of any disagreement about meaning.

Incorporation by reference. The Terms of Service and Privacy Policy are incorporated into this agreement by reference. In any conflict between this agreement and those documents, this agreement controls for the duration of your beta enrollment.

Limitation of liability. Section 11 of the baseline Terms of Service caps HOA-OS's liability at the amount your HOA paid in the twelve months preceding any claim. Because your HOA pays nothing for the beta, HOA-OS's aggregate liability under this agreement is capped at the greater of (a) fees your HOA paid HOA-OS in the twelve months preceding the claim or (b) $500 USD. This cap applies to the maximum extent permitted by law.

Carve-outs from the cap. The liability cap above does not apply to:

  • HOA-OS's gross negligence or willful misconduct;
  • Liability arising from a data-security incident caused by HOA-OS's failure to meet reasonable industry standards in handling resident personal information, financial-account credentials provisioned via Plaid, or AI-assistant conversation history;
  • HOA-OS's indemnification obligations under this agreement or the baseline Terms of Service; or
  • Any claim that cannot be capped as a matter of law (including, for example, certain statutory consumer-protection claims and claims for personal injury caused by HOA-OS's negligence).

“As-is, even more so.” Beta features may be incomplete, unstable, or removed mid-term. HOA-OS makes no warranties beyond those required by law, and specifically disclaims any warranty of merchantability, fitness for a particular purpose, or non-infringement with respect to features made available during the beta. This is in addition to the warranty disclaimer in section 12 of the baseline Terms of Service.

Pricing surveys are not commitments. Gate 4 and Gate 5 surveys ask hypothetical pricing questions (e.g., “Would you pay $2.50 per account per month for the Plaid add-on at general availability?”). Your HOA's response to these questions is not a binding offer to purchase at that price, and HOA-OS's inclusion of the question is not a binding offer to sell at that price. Both parties retain full discretion at general availability.

Governing law and forum. This agreement is governed by the laws of the State of Texas, without regard to conflict-of-laws principles. Any dispute arising under this agreement will be resolved exclusively in the state or federal courts located in Travis County, Texas. This mirrors section 16 of the baseline Terms of Service.

Modifications. HOA-OS may modify this agreement with 30 days' advance written notice (email to the primary board admin on file). If your HOA does not wish to accept the modification, your HOA may withdraw from the beta under §8 before the modification takes effect, with no penalty. Continued participation after the effective date constitutes acceptance.

Entire agreement. This agreement, together with the Terms of Service and Privacy Policy it incorporates by reference, is the entire agreement between your HOA and HOA-OS with respect to the beta program. It supersedes any prior conversation, email, or marketing material describing the beta.

10. Acceptance

By clicking I Accept below:

  • I confirm that I am an authorized board admin of {ORG_NAME}, with authority to bind the HOA to this agreement under its governing documents.
  • I confirm that I have read this agreement in full, including the legal terms in §9.
  • I agree, on behalf of {ORG_NAME}, to the terms above.

(The system will record your user account, your HOA's account, the timestamp, your IP address, your browser's user agent, and the version of this agreement at the moment you click Accept. This record is the binding identifier of acceptance regardless of the org name displayed in the prose above.)