Fair Use Policy

This Fair Use Policy sets out how we expect Trust Alma to be used and the limits that apply to each subscription plan. It forms part of our Terms of Service and applies to all users of the Service.

We've written this policy to be as clear and friendly as possible. Our goal isn't to restrict what charities can do - it's to make sure the platform stays fast, reliable and affordable for everyone.

1. Why we have a fair use policy

Trust Alma is built for UK charities of all sizes, from small community groups to large national organisations. Our flat-fee pricing model means we don't take a percentage of donations - which is great for charities, but it also means we need clear limits to prevent unusual usage patterns from affecting other users or making the platform unsustainable.

2. Plan limits

The following limits apply to each subscription plan. Limits reset on the first day of each calendar month.

*"Unlimited" means there is no fixed numerical cap, but normal usage is expected. See section 4 for what this means in practice.

3. How we enforce these limits

We use a soft enforcement approach. We will never cut off your service mid-action or block declarations from being captured.

When you reach a limit:

• At 80% of your monthly limit: You'll see a notification in your Donation Hub and receive an email letting you know you're approaching your plan's limit.
• At 100% of your monthly limit: You'll see a clear notification and an email suggesting you upgrade to the next plan. Your service continues to work normally - declarations will still be captured, donors will still be saved, and Gift Aid will still be calculated.
• Above 100%: We'll follow up by email to discuss upgrading. We will not throttle or suspend your account without speaking to you first.

If your usage consistently exceeds your plan's limits, we'll work with you to find the right plan. We never want a charity to lose donations because of a billing dispute.

4. What "unlimited" means

Plans listed as "unlimited" are designed for normal charity use. We reserve the right to contact you if your usage is significantly higher than what we'd expect from a typical charity of your size - for example, if a single account is processing tens of thousands of declarations per month, or a single user is making thousands of Alma AI requests per day.

In these rare cases, we'll always reach out to discuss your needs before taking any action. Most of the time, the answer is simply moving to an Enterprise plan with custom terms.

5. Acceptable use

In addition to the limits above, you must not:

• Submit false, fraudulent or duplicate Gift Aid declarations
• Share admin credentials between separate organisations or use one account for multiple charities (each charity must have its own subscription)
• Use the kiosk to process payments unrelated to your charity's mission
• Generate test or fake donor data at scale to inflate your records
• Use automated tools to scrape, query or extract data via the API beyond normal usage
• Resell or repackage Trust Alma services to third parties without written agreement
• Use Trust Alma in any way that would breach UK charity law, HMRC rules, or GDPR

Breaches of this section may result in account suspension. We'll always contact you first to understand what's happening.

6. AI assistant usage

Alma AI uses third-party language model APIs which incur per-request costs. The daily limits in section 2 are designed to give every user generous capacity for normal use. If you find yourself regularly hitting these limits, please contact us - we may be able to adjust your allowance or suggest a more suitable plan.

We may temporarily reduce AI assistant capacity during periods of unusual platform-wide demand. We'll always prioritise read-only queries (questions about your data, help and guides) over action tools (which we throttle first).

7. What's always available

Even if your account is over a usage limit, the following remain available:

• Data export - you can always download your donor records, declarations, and reports as CSV
• Read access - you can always view your existing data in the Donation Hub
• HMRC export - you can always export Gift Aid claims for HMRC submission
• Customer support - you can always contact us via the Report an Issue button

8. Contacting us

If you have any questions about this Fair Use Policy, or you think a limit is being applied incorrectly, please contact us at hello@trustalma.com. We're a small team and we read every email.

9. Changes to this policy

We may update this Fair Use Policy from time to time. We'll give you at least 30 days' notice of any material changes by email and by posting an update notice on this page. The current version is always available at trustalma.com/legal/fair-use.