Last updated: 2026-06-04 | Effective date: 2026-06-04
Please read these Terms of Service ("Terms") carefully before using Cobalt. By accessing or using the Service you agree to be bound by these Terms. If you do not agree, do not use the Service.
Cobalt is a hosted, software-as-a-service ("SaaS") visual moodboard platform for photographers and creative professionals, accessed through a web browser at app.cobalt.photos (marketing site: cobalt.photos). The Service is operated by Jakub Ludwig, IČO 88711111, U Obory 1004, 675 71 Náměšť nad Oslavou, Czech Republic, Czech Republic, a sole trader (OSVČ / podnikající fyzická osoba) ("Cobalt", "we", "us", "our").
The Service lets registered users create visual boards containing images, notes, hyperlinks, and other content; organise those boards into layouts and columns; share boards via public share links; and optionally connect an external AI assistant to their account (see Section 10).
Cobalt is offered only as a hosted service we operate. We do not provide, license, or support any self-hosted, on-premises, or downloadable version of the software, and these Terms grant no right to install or run the software on your own infrastructure. We do not represent that the Service is open-source or that you "own" or self-host the underlying application.
Access to Cobalt is currently invite-only: you can create an account only if you have been invited (or if self-serve sign-up is later opened). Every new account starts on the Free plan (200 MB of storage). Paid plans are available on a recurring monthly basis (there is no annual plan):
| Plan | Price (monthly, excl. any taxes added at checkout) | Storage |
|---|---|---|
| Free | €0 | 200 MB |
| Starter | €4 | 10 GB |
| Pro | €9 | 50 GB |
| Studio | €19 | 200 GB |
Current plans, prices, and storage allowances are shown in the app and on cobalt.photos at the time of purchase, and prevail over the table above if they differ. Plans differ primarily in the amount of storage they grant.
Cobalt is a paid service intended for use by adults and is not directed at children. To create an account you must be at least 16 years of age, and where you purchase a paid plan you must have the legal capacity to enter into a binding contract (in the Czech Republic, full capacity is generally reached at the age of majority, 18). This is a contractual eligibility rule; it is separate from the "age of digital consent" for data-protection purposes, which is addressed in our Privacy Policy (in the Czech Republic that age is 15 under § 7 of Act No. 110/2019 Coll.). If we learn that an account holder does not meet these requirements, we may suspend or close the account.
Accounts are created using "Sign in with Google" (Google OAuth). We do not offer password-based registration for end users; your Cobalt account is tied to your Google identity. When you sign in, we receive from Google the data you authorise — your email address, display name, profile picture URL, and Google account identifier — as described in our Privacy Policy. You agree to provide accurate information and to keep your account details up to date. You are responsible for all activity that occurs under your account, including actions taken by any AI assistant you authorise (see Section 10).
You must keep your Google sign-in credentials secure and must not share your Cobalt access or API tokens with others except as expressly permitted by these Terms. Please notify us promptly at privacy@cobalt.photos if you suspect unauthorised access to your account.
Personal accounts may not be transferred without our prior written consent. Where your plan supports shared workspaces or team use, you remain responsible for use of the account within the limits of your plan.
You may use Cobalt for lawful personal or professional creative purposes, including creating moodboards for photography projects, client presentations, and similar visual-planning activities.
You must not use the Service to:
You retain full ownership of all content you upload, create, or otherwise provide to Cobalt ("User Content"), including photographs, notes, links, board layouts, and column structures. These Terms do not transfer any intellectual property rights in your User Content to us.
By uploading or submitting User Content, you grant Cobalt a non-exclusive, worldwide, royalty-free, sub-licensable (solely to our sub-processors named in the Privacy Policy) licence to host, store, reproduce, and display your User Content solely to the extent necessary to:
This licence is limited to operating the Service; we do not use your User Content for advertising, for training machine-learning models, or for any purpose unrelated to providing the Service to you. The licence terminates when you delete the relevant content or close your account, subject to the short technical retention periods needed to complete deletion (see the Privacy Policy).
By uploading User Content, you represent and warrant that:
All intellectual property in the Cobalt platform — software, design, branding, trademarks, and documentation — is owned by or licensed to Jakub Ludwig, IČO 88711111. You are granted a limited, non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and use the Service during your active subscription (or Free-tier access) for the purposes described in these Terms. No other licence is granted.
You may create a public share link for any board you own, configured as either:
When you create a share link, you choose to share that board's content. You remain the owner and the party responsible for the content on your board, including content added by contributors via a contributor-access link you have enabled (which you may disable or delete at any time).
People who add content via a contributor-access link do so without creating an account. By submitting content they agree to the acceptable-use rules in Section 3.2. The board owner is responsible for moderating and, where necessary, removing contributed content. We may, at our discretion, remove contributed content that violates these Terms.
The presence of a public share link does not constitute our endorsement or review of the board's content. We do not pre-screen User Content.
Cobalt offers a Free plan and paid plans (Starter, Pro, Studio) as set out in Section 1.1. Paid plans are billed monthly in advance at the price shown at checkout. Prices are stated in euro (EUR). Any applicable taxes (e.g. EU VAT) are calculated and added by our Merchant of Record at checkout (see Section 6.2).
All paid subscriptions are sold and processed through Polar ([POLAR LEGAL ENTITY NAME / ADDRESS — confirm]), which acts as our Merchant of Record ("MoR") and seller of record. This means:
Because Polar is the seller of record, refunds and tax documents are issued by Polar. Where a refund is due (see Section 6.5 and our separate Refund Policy), Cobalt will authorise and instruct Polar to process it; the mechanics follow Polar's terms.
Paid subscriptions renew automatically each month at the then-current price until you cancel. You can cancel at any time from your account settings or via Polar's billing portal. Cancellation takes effect at the end of the current paid month; you keep full access until that date and are not charged again after cancelling.
If you are a consumer in the EU, you ordinarily have a 14-day right of withdrawal from a distance contract for a paid plan, under Directive 2011/83/EU (as amended) and §§ 1829–1837 of the Czech Civil Code (Act No. 89/2012 Coll.). You may withdraw within 14 days of entering into the contract, without giving a reason, by a clear statement to us or to Polar.
Cobalt is a digital service (online access to a hosted platform). Where you ask us to make the paid Service available to you immediately — before the 14-day period ends — the law allows your right of withdrawal to be lost once the service has been fully performed, but only if all of the following are satisfied:
Your statutory rights come first. Nothing in these Terms removes or limits the refund and remedy rights you have by law as a consumer, including a valid withdrawal under Section 6.4 and remedies for defective performance. Subject to those rights:
Full details are in our separate Refund Policy.
We may change subscription prices. We will give you at least 30 days' advance notice by email before a change affects your subscription. If you do not cancel before the new price takes effect, your continued subscription after that date constitutes acceptance of the new price. You may cancel at any time if you do not accept a price change.
We may offer promotional or discount codes subject to additional terms (e.g. expiry dates, single-use restrictions, plan eligibility) communicated when the code is issued. Codes may not be combined unless expressly stated. We may withdraw or modify promotional offers at any time, without affecting a discount already validly applied.
Each plan includes a storage quota for uploaded content; the quota for your plan is shown in your account settings.
You may close your account at any time in your account settings. On closure, any paid subscription is cancelled at the end of the current billing month and your content is deleted in accordance with our Privacy Policy.
We may suspend or terminate your account, with notice where practicable, if:
If we terminate for your material breach, no refund is due for the unused part of the current paid month. If we terminate for any other reason within your control's absence (including Section 8.3), we will refund the unused part of any prepaid period on a pro-rata basis, via Polar. This does not affect your statutory remedies.
If we decide to discontinue the Service, we will endeavour to give at least 90 days' notice and a reasonable opportunity to export your content before shutdown, and to refund (via Polar) the unused part of any prepaid period beyond the shutdown date.
You may export your boards and content at any time while your account is active (including while upload-restricted). We provide export as [DESCRIBE EXPORT FORMAT(S) — e.g. PDF/PNG of boards, ZIP of original images, JSON metadata]. Export is provided on a reasonable-efforts basis and may be subject to file-size limitations.
You may connect an external AI assistant (for example, Claude by Anthropic) to your Cobalt account by generating and authorising an access token within the Service ("AI Integration"). When you do so:
Subject to the box above and to applicable law, the Service is provided on an "as available" basis. We do not warrant that the Service will be uninterrupted, error-free, or free from vulnerabilities, and — to the extent permitted by law, and except as against consumers where such exclusions are not permitted — we disclaim implied warranties of merchantability, fitness for a particular purpose, and non-infringement. For business (B2B) users, the Service is provided "as is" to the fullest extent permitted by law. [Lawyer: confirm the consumer carve-out tracks the current digital-content/services regime (§§ 2389a et seq. / 2615 CZ Civil Code).]
Business (B2B) users. If you use the Service for your trade, business, craft, or profession (i.e. not as a consumer), then to the fullest extent permitted by law:
Nothing in these Terms limits or excludes liability that cannot be limited or excluded by law, including liability for death or personal injury caused by negligence, for fraud or fraudulent misrepresentation, for harm caused intentionally or by gross negligence, for harm to a person's natural/personality rights, or any other liability that applicable mandatory law does not allow to be limited.
If you are a business (B2B) user, you agree to defend, indemnify, and hold harmless Cobalt and Jakub Ludwig, IČO 88711111 from third-party claims, liabilities, damages, losses, and reasonable legal fees arising out of: (a) your User Content, including any claim that it infringes a third party's intellectual property or privacy rights; (b) your use of the Service in breach of these Terms; or (c) your violation of applicable law or the rights of a third party.
This indemnity does not apply to consumers. If you are a consumer, you are responsible for your own breaches under the general law, but you give no contractual indemnity, and this Section imposes no obligation on you.
These Terms, and any dispute arising out of or in connection with them, are governed by the laws of the Czech Republic, without regard to conflict-of-law rules.
The competent courts of the Czech Republic have jurisdiction, except that:
If you are a consumer and we cannot resolve a dispute directly, you may turn to the competent Czech alternative dispute resolution (ADR) body for consumer disputes:
Czech Trade Inspection Authority (Česká obchodní inspekce, ČOI)
Online ADR portal: adr.coi.cz
Website: www.coi.cz
For cross-border disputes within the EU, consumers can also seek help from the European Consumer Centres Network (ECC-Net): eccnet.eu.
Note: the European Commission's online dispute resolution (ODR) platform was discontinued in 2025 and is no longer available; references to it have been removed.
We may amend these Terms. If we make material changes, we will notify you by email at least 30 days before they take effect, and post the updated Terms at cobalt.photos/terms with a revised "Last updated" date. If you do not accept the amended Terms, you may close your account before the effective date and, if applicable, receive a pro-rata refund (via Polar) for any unused prepaid period. We will not impose materially adverse changes on consumers purely by inertia where mandatory law requires otherwise.
These Terms, together with our Privacy Policy and Refund Policy, are the entire agreement between you and Cobalt regarding the Service and supersede prior agreements on that subject. They do not limit any mandatory statutory rights you have as a consumer.
If any provision is found invalid or unenforceable, the remaining provisions remain in force, and the invalid provision is modified to the minimum extent necessary to make it enforceable (or, against a consumer, simply not applied to that consumer).
Our failure to enforce a right or provision is not a waiver of it.
You may not assign your rights or obligations without our prior written consent. We may assign ours in connection with a merger, acquisition, or sale of substantially all our assets, subject to notifying you and to your right to terminate if the assignment is to your material detriment.
These Terms are written in English; the English version prevails over any translation.
For questions about these Terms, contact:
Jakub Ludwig, IČO 88711111
U Obory 1004, 675 71 Náměšť nad Oslavou, Czech Republic, Czech Republic
privacy@cobalt.photos
© 2026 Jakub Ludwig — Cobalt (cobalt.photos). Last updated: 4 June 2026.