Workbench Terms

These Terms of Service (the Terms) govern access to HardwareHub Workbench (the Service) provided by Hardware Hub Consulting, LLC (HardwareHub, we, us, or our). HardwareHub Parties means HardwareHub and its members, managers, officers, employees, contractors, and agents acting in those capacities. By creating an account or using the Service after being shown these Terms, you agree to them. If you use the Service for a company or other organization, you represent that you have authority to bind it, and you includes that organization.

If you do not agree, do not create an account or use the Service.

1. Eligibility and account authority

The natural-person account holder must be at least 18 years old, legally able to enter a contract, and have a primary residence in the United States. If you bind an organization, it must be organized in or have its principal place of business in the United States. Temporary travel outside the United States does not by itself end eligibility, but you may not use the Service if U.S. sanctions or export-control law prohibits that use. You must provide accurate account information, take reasonable steps to protect your login credentials, and promptly report suspected unauthorized access. You are responsible for activity you authorize or reasonably control. You are not responsible for activity caused by a HardwareHub or service-provider security failure or otherwise outside your reasonable control.

An Individual account is for one person. Individual plans do not include team membership, external invitations, or shared administrative control unless a plan description expressly says otherwise.

2. What Workbench is

Workbench is a one-person hardware project-management workspace. It helps users store and track project deliverables, design and documentation files and their revisions, bills of materials, vendor records, decisions, schedules, notes, and handoff history. Available features depend on the selected plan and current product configuration.

The current Individual Service does not provide AI-generated or AI-assisted features, AI chat, or a general question-answering interface. It does not send User Content to an AI or automated-model provider. A future AI or chat feature would require a separately reviewed product, privacy, security, consent, and legal release before it becomes part of the Service.

Workbench is an organizational software service. It is not a licensed engineering service, law firm, accounting service, certification body, testing laboratory, manufacturer, or safety authority. Using Workbench does not create an attorney-client, professional-engineer, fiduciary, employment, partnership, agency, professional-services, or consulting relationship.

Any separate CAD, engineering, prototyping, sourcing, or consulting work requires a separate written proposal, statement of work, or agreement.

Vendor directory and separate vendor relationships

Workbench may display directory entries, ranked matches, fit scores, verification labels, trust tiers, or other information about independent vendors. These are informational project-management aids based on available directory data and the project context you provide. They are not certifications, professional procurement advice, guarantees, or independent endorsements. They do not establish a vendor's licensing, insurance, financial condition, quality, safety, capacity, availability, pricing, regulatory compliance, or suitability for your project.

You decide whether to contact or select a vendor and are responsible for appropriate due diligence, including confirming capabilities, references, licenses, insurance, security, confidentiality terms, pricing, lead times, quality controls, regulatory obligations, and contract terms. Adding a vendor to a project does not contact the vendor or award work. You contract with, direct, and pay each vendor directly. HardwareHub is not a party to that relationship and does not control or accept responsibility for a vendor's work, statements, omissions, quote, delivery, or payment dispute unless HardwareHub itself separately signs an agreement to provide the specified services.

HardwareHub may appear in the directory as one optional vendor. It is not the default or required vendor merely because HardwareHub provides Workbench, and you should evaluate it under the same diligence standards. HardwareHub does not receive listing, referral, or transaction compensation from other listed vendors. HardwareHub may sometimes receive referral or other commercial compensation from Slingshot; HardwareHub will disclose that connection near any affected Slingshot listing or recommendation. That relationship does not make Slingshot certified or relieve you of your own vendor review.

3. Plans and service limits

The plan description shown when you create an account or subscribe describes its price, project limit, storage limit, file-size limit, and other feature limits. The accepted, version-retained plan description is the plan-specific order terms and is part of the agreement for that plan. We will retain the applicable version and will not market a feature as unlimited if a material limit applies.

Free is currently offered at no charge and is not a time-limited trial. HardwareHub may change or discontinue Free under Section 12 with reasonable advance notice and a reasonable opportunity to download available content. A paid-plan preview, if offered, will state its length and end behavior before activation. A cardless preview ends without a charge unless you later make a separate purchase.

If Workbench offers a change between Builder and Pro, it will show the exact price, timing, effective date, and renewal effect before confirmation and require separate acceptance of the then-current paid-plan-change addendum. The plan change does not take effect from a client-side success message alone; authoritative payment and subscription state controls.

If you downgrade or exceed a limit, we may block new projects, uploads, or other paid-only actions. We will not intentionally block reasonable access to or download of existing project content solely because of a downgrade, subject to security, legal, and technical constraints. If stored content exceeds a lower plan's limit, we may require you to reduce usage or upgrade after at least 30 days' notice and a download opportunity. We will not delete content solely for an overage without a second clear notice and a reasonable cure period.

4. Your content and ownership

HardwareHub does not claim ownership of your project information. As between you and HardwareHub, and subject to third-party rights and the underlying HardwareHub materials, you retain any ownership rights you have in content you submit to the Service, including product concepts, designs, files, requirements, project plans, supplier information, timelines, notes, and user-created templates (User Content).

You give HardwareHub a limited, nonexclusive, worldwide, royalty-free license to host, copy, format, preview, transmit, back up, secure, and otherwise process User Content only as reasonably needed to:

• operate and support the Service;
• provide features you request;
• maintain security, reliability, audit, and abuse controls;
• make user-directed shares or downloads available;
• comply with law and enforce these Terms.

This license does not give HardwareHub ownership of User Content or permission to sell it, advertise against it, make it public on our own, or use it to train or fine-tune any AI or automated model.

HardwareHub may sublicense only these limited rights to service providers acting for us, solely to provide their contracted services and subject to applicable contractual restrictions.

The service license ends when User Content is deleted from active systems, except for restricted backup copies awaiting rotation, legal holds, security records, and other limited retention described in the Privacy Notice.

5. Your responsibilities for content

You represent that you own or are authorized to use and upload User Content and that our processing of it as described here will not violate another person's rights or applicable law.

Do not upload or enter:

• malware or code, files, or payloads intended to compromise, disrupt, or gain unauthorized access to a system;
• passwords, authentication secrets, private keys, full payment-card information, or financial-account credentials;
• personal data that reveals or is used to infer physical or mental health status, diagnosis, treatment, disability, reproductive or sexual health, genetic, biometric, or neural characteristics; race or ethnicity; religion; sexual activity or orientation; nonbinary or transgender status; citizenship or immigration status; or precise geolocation;
• protected health information or other identifiable consumer health data, including when HIPAA does not apply;
• Social Security numbers or other government-issued identifiers, or children's personal information;
• classified information, CUI, ITAR-controlled technical data, or technology or software whose storage, access, export, reexport, or transfer through Workbench requires a license, authorization, restricted-party screening, or other special handling under the EAR;
• any other personal information whose processing in Workbench requires specific consent, a data-protection assessment, or special handling under applicable privacy or health-data law;
• material restricted by an NDA, employment agreement, customer contract, or supplier agreement unless you are authorized and the Workbench workflow is appropriate; or
• content whose possession or sharing is unlawful.

These restrictions do not prohibit ordinary business contact information, company or supplier locations, product or medical-device designs and specifications, or deidentified technical or test data that is not linked or reasonably linkable to a natural person. Workbench is not designed or approved to collect, store, analyze, or infer the prohibited sensitive data listed above. If a project requires identifiable health or other sensitive personal data, do not use Workbench unless HardwareHub first provides a separately reviewed written scope and verified controls.

The upload pipeline validates technical metadata and access. It does not promise malware scanning or certify a file as safe. You and recipients should independently scan downloaded files.

6. Content access, sharing, and confidentiality

Access to projects and files is restricted through account and project permissions. If Workbench offers a sharing or download feature and you use it, you direct us to make the selected content available to the selected recipient. Individual plans do not add team members or external collaborators. You are responsible for choosing recipients and reviewing the scope before sharing.

These Terms are not a substitute for a nondisclosure agreement. HardwareHub will use reasonable care to restrict access to User Content and will disclose it only to authorized personnel, service providers supporting the Service, recipients you direct, professional advisers under appropriate duties, or as legally required. For projects needing contractual confidentiality obligations beyond these Terms, contact HardwareHub for a separate agreement before uploading the material.

HardwareHub personnel do not inspect the substance of User Content during ordinary administration, product development, analytics, or for convenience. Support begins with account metadata and information you choose to provide in sanitized form. Human access to User Content requires your verified, explicit authorization for the exact support case and scope, except when narrowly necessary to address a security incident, prevent serious harm, comply with law, or preserve legal rights. HardwareHub requires such access to be least-privilege, time-limited, logged, reviewed, and disclosed to you promptly unless law prohibits notice. These personnel-use rules do not mean that User Content is end-to-end encrypted or technically inaccessible to every authorized system administrator or service provider.

7. HardwareHub materials

HardwareHub owns the Service, software, branding, documentation, and company-created templates, excluding User Content. We grant you a limited, nonexclusive, nontransferable right, terminable as provided in Sections 12 and 13, to use those materials within the Service for your lawful project work while your account is active. You may continue to use, copy, download, and share completed project outputs you created using HardwareHub templates. You may not resell or distribute blank HardwareHub templates or the Service itself unless we agree in writing.

Workbench may provide example checklists, NDA starter language, invention notes, filing links, or other organizational templates. They are general information, not legal advice, do not create an attorney-client relationship, and do not guarantee confidentiality, patent priority, registration, filing, compliance, or enforceability. Consult qualified counsel for legal decisions.

8. Feedback

You keep ownership of feedback you voluntarily provide. You grant HardwareHub a perpetual, worldwide, nonexclusive, royalty-free right to evaluate and use that feedback to improve the Service. This right excludes User Content, confidential project information, and private project context. We will not publicly attribute or quote private feedback without separate permission. Nothing restricts you from giving an honest review of the Service.

9. Unreleased features

Only features made available in the Service and identified in the applicable plan description are included. Dormant, internal, experimental, or future capabilities are not part of the current plan. Before a material new use or transfer of User Content begins, HardwareHub must update the applicable terms or notice and obtain any user choice required by law. Existing acceptance does not authorize processing that is not described in the current agreement.

10. Acceptable use

You may not:

• access or attempt to access another user's account, workspace, project, file, or link without authorization;
• bypass access controls, plan limits, rate limits, or security measures;
• probe or test security without our written permission;
• reverse engineer the Service except where law expressly permits it;
• scrape or automate the Service in a way that burdens or disrupts it;
• upload malware or use the Service to harm, harass, impersonate, defraud, or infringe others;
• use the Service for illegal weapons, unlawful surveillance, sanctions evasion, export-control violations, or other unlawful conduct;
• resell or sublicense access unless we agree in writing; or
• misrepresent templates or Workbench records as a professional approval or certification.

11. Third-party services

The Service relies on third-party providers for hosting, authentication, storage, email, CAPTCHA, payments, and optional sign-in. Their services may be governed by their own terms and may experience outages or changes. HardwareHub remains responsible for selecting and configuring providers with reasonable care but does not control their independent services.

12. Support, changes, and availability

We provide the support described in the applicable plan. We may maintain, improve, or change the Service. If a material change substantially reduces a paid feature during a prepaid period, we will use reasonable efforts to provide notice and a practical remedy, such as continued access, a comparable feature, cancellation, or a prorated refund for the affected unused period.

We do not promise uninterrupted service or a service-level agreement for Individual plans. Planned maintenance, emergencies, provider outages, security events, and circumstances outside reasonable control may affect availability.

13. Suspension and termination

You may stop using Free at any time and may cancel a paid plan through the online billing portal under the plan-specific checkout terms. If you cannot access the portal or account email, contact contact@hardwarehub.io; after reasonable alternative identity verification, we will process cancellation without requiring portal access.

We may suspend or limit access when reasonably necessary to address a security risk, unlawful use, material breach, abuse, harm to another user, or a legal requirement. For verified nonpayment alone, we may suspend paid features or downgrade the account but will not suspend reasonable access to existing content. When practical and safe, we will provide notice and an opportunity to cure before termination.

If we permanently discontinue a paid Service during a paid period, we will refund the unused prepaid portion unless discontinuation results from your material breach or unlawful conduct.

Individual Free accounts are not automatically closed for inactivity at launch. If HardwareHub later introduces an inactivity-closure program, it will first provide clear advance notice, a way to keep the account active, and a reasonable opportunity to export and download available content.

Cancellation, account closure, archive, export, and deletion are different operations. Before closing an account, download available files and request the available project export. The current Individual project export contains structured project data and file metadata; it excludes file bytes. Download file bytes separately. Universal workspace export and self-service hard deletion are not currently available. Workbench should not be your only copy of important project files. If HardwareHub terminates the Service for reasons other than a security risk, unlawful conduct, or material breach, we will provide a reasonable opportunity to download available content when lawful and technically practicable.

14. Copyright and intellectual-property complaints

If you believe content in Workbench infringes your copyright, send a written notice to our Copyright Agent at dmca@hardwarehub.io, Copyright Agent, Hardware Hub Consulting, LLC, 2256 Northlake Parkway, Ste 110 PMB1033, Tucker, GA 30084, United States, telephone (404) 500-9810. Include your physical or electronic signature; identification of the copyrighted work or a representative list; identification and location of the material to be removed; contact information; a good-faith statement that the use is not authorized by the copyright owner, its agent, or law; and a statement under penalty of perjury that the notice is accurate and you are authorized to act.

HardwareHub will act expeditiously on substantially compliant notices, promptly notify the affected user, and take reasonable steps to help a sender cure a notice that identifies the work, material, and sender but is otherwise incomplete. An affected user may send a counter-notice to the same agent containing their signature; identification and former location of the removed material; a statement under penalty of perjury that removal resulted from mistake or misidentification; their name, address, and telephone number; and consent to the jurisdiction and service-of-process requirements in 17 U.S.C. § 512(g). HardwareHub may restore material not less than 10 and not more than 14 business days after a valid counter-notice unless the claimant timely reports a qualifying court action.

HardwareHub has adopted a policy to terminate repeat infringers in appropriate circumstances and will reasonably implement it while considering valid counter-notices and other relevant evidence. HardwareHub will accommodate and not interfere with applicable standard technical measures. Copyright Office designated-agent registration DMCA-1078724 is active, but registration does not by itself establish safe-harbor qualification. Other intellectual-property complaints may be sent to contact@hardwarehub.io.

15. Disclaimers

To the extent permitted by law, the Service is provided as is and as available. The HardwareHub Parties disclaim implied warranties of merchantability, fitness for a particular purpose, title, and noninfringement, but only to the extent those warranties can legally be disclaimed.

HardwareHub does not warrant that the Service, directory information, vendor match, fit score, trust or verification label, or any other output will be uninterrupted, error-free, secure against every threat, complete, accurate, current, manufacturable, safe, compliant, certified, or suitable for sale or a particular use. HardwareHub does not warrant or guarantee an independent vendor's work, price, availability, capability, compliance, delivery, or conduct. Nothing in these Terms limits a warranty or consumer right that applicable law does not allow us to waive.

16. Limitation of liability

To the extent permitted by law, neither you nor any HardwareHub Party is liable to the other for indirect, incidental, special, exemplary, punitive, or consequential damages, or lost profits, revenue, goodwill, or business opportunity, arising from the Service, even if advised that such damages were possible.

The HardwareHub Parties' combined total liability arising from the Service will not exceed the greater of:

1. the fees you paid HardwareHub for the Service during the 12 months before the event giving rise to the claim; or
2. $100.

These exclusions and caps do not apply where prohibited by law or to fraud, willful misconduct, gross negligence, death or personal injury caused by negligence, amounts owed for a covered third-party claim under Section 17, or obligations that cannot legally be limited. They do not limit your right to a refund that these Terms or applicable law expressly provides.

17. Narrow indemnity

You will defend and indemnify the HardwareHub Parties against a third-party claim to the extent caused by User Content that you were not authorized to provide, your intentional unlawful use of the Service, or your knowing infringement of another person's rights. This obligation does not apply to a claim caused by a HardwareHub Party's negligence, willful misconduct, unauthorized modification of User Content, or use outside these Terms.

HardwareHub must promptly notify you, allow you reasonable control of the defense, and reasonably cooperate. You may not settle a claim in a way that admits fault by or imposes an obligation on HardwareHub without our written consent, not to be unreasonably withheld.

18. Governing law and disputes

Before filing a lawsuit, each party agrees to send written notice describing the dispute and allow 30 days for good-faith informal resolution. This does not prevent either party from seeking urgent injunctive relief, filing in small-claims court, reporting to a regulator, or acting before a legal deadline expires.

Georgia law governs these Terms without regard to conflict-of-law rules. A lawsuit must be brought in the state courts located in DeKalb County, Georgia, or the United States District Court for the Northern District of Georgia, and each party consents to those courts' jurisdiction. This venue requirement does not override a right under applicable consumer law to bring a claim in another court. These Terms do not require arbitration or waive either party's right to participate in a class action where that right exists.

19. Changes to these Terms

We may update these Terms to reflect product, legal, security, or operational changes and will post the new version and effective date. Except for an urgent legal or security change, we will give at least 30 days' notice of a material change. We will obtain renewed acceptance before a change materially expands our rights to User Content, recurring billing, or dispute terms, and will not apply such a change retroactively without consent.

20. Communications and notices

HardwareHub will send notices of material terms or privacy changes, price or renewal changes, legally reportable security incidents, and suspension or termination to the current email address associated with your account, and may also display them in the Service. Other required account, security, billing, renewal, and legal notices may be sent by email or displayed in the Service. You must keep your email address current.

At launch, HardwareHub sends only transactional, account, security, billing, and legally required messages. HardwareHub will not send marketing text messages, prerecorded or artificial-voice calls, or robocalls without a separately implemented legally sufficient consent and revocation system. If HardwareHub later sends marketing email, it will use accurate sender and subject information, include the legally required postal address and unsubscribe method, maintain suppression records, and honor opt-outs within the legally required period. Opting out of marketing does not stop transactional or legally required messages.

At signup and purchase, HardwareHub will provide versioned links and an electronic copy or confirmation that you can retain. Consent to a recurring paid subscription is requested separately from acceptance of these Terms.

By creating an account electronically, you consent to receive the agreement, privacy and billing disclosures, confirmations, and legally required account notices electronically. You need a current browser, internet access, an active email address, and the ability to save or print text or PDF records. Keep your electronic contact information current through Account Settings or by emailing contact@hardwarehub.io. You may request a paper copy or withdraw consent for future legally required electronic records by emailing contact@hardwarehub.io; withdrawal does not affect records already delivered and may require account closure if we cannot lawfully provide the Service without electronic delivery. Paper copies of legally required records are provided at no charge.

21. General terms

These Terms, the Privacy Notice, the accepted plan description, and the plan-specific checkout or order terms form the agreement for the self-service Service. Checkout or order terms control only a conflict about that plan's price, billing period, renewal, or included limits; the Privacy Notice controls a conflict about personal-information handling; these Terms otherwise control. The Data + IP and Payment + Cancellation summaries are nonbinding explanations and do not add to or change those documents. A separately signed agreement controls if it expressly says it overrides these Terms. If one provision is unenforceable, the rest remains effective. A failure to enforce a provision is not a waiver. You may not assign your account without our consent; HardwareHub may assign these Terms as part of a merger, financing, reorganization, or sale of the Service, subject to the same privacy and content obligations. Neither party is liable for delay caused by events beyond reasonable control.

Sections concerning ownership and licenses, accrued payment obligations, disclaimers, limitations of liability, indemnity, disputes, and provisions that by their nature should survive will survive termination. The User Content license survives only for the limited retention described in the Privacy Notice.

22. Contact

Legal and support notices: contact@hardwarehub.io Privacy requests: privacy@hardwarehub.io Security reports: security@hardwarehub.io Accessibility assistance and feedback: support@hardwarehub.io Copyright notices and counter-notices: dmca@hardwarehub.io Mail: Hardware Hub Consulting, LLC, 2256 Northlake Parkway, Ste 110 PMB1033, Tucker, GA 30084, United States

These contact methods do not waive legal requirements for formal service of process.