Ask Idle operating agreement

Last updated 26 August 2026.

These Terms are the operating agreement for the Ask Idle service (the “Service”). By creating an account, signing in, downloading the host app, or running a job, you agree to this agreement. If you do not agree, do not use the Service.

1. United States only — eligibility

The Service is offered exclusively in the United States. You may use it only if all of the following are true:

You are at least 18 years old.
You are a U.S. person or U.S. legal entity (citizen, national, lawful permanent resident, or entity organized under U.S. law with a U.S. principal place of business).
You are physically located in the United States each time you access the Service, including when a host agent is connected.
Your billing address, payout bank, and Stripe identity are in the United States.
Any machine you enlist as a host is physically in the United States for the entire time it is listed or connected.

We do not offer the Service in any other country, including the EU, UK, Canada, Mexico, or via “roaming.” There is no international license. Access from outside the U.S. is unauthorized.

2. Geo-fence, VPNs, and evasion

We estimate location from public IP address and related signals (including payment billing country). We may refuse signup, sign-in, jobs, host connections, downloads, waitlist, and payouts when the request does not appear to originate in the United States.

You must not use a VPN, proxy, Tor, relay, remote desktop, tunnel, or any other method to make a non-U.S. location look like a U.S. location, or to move a host listing’s apparent city. Doing so is a material breach. We may immediately close the account, disconnect hosts, void unused credits, and refuse refunds to the extent the law allows.

A VPN that exits in the U.S. while you are physically abroad is still a breach. Location means where you and the machine are, not the IP label.

3. Export, sanctions, and embargoes

You represent you are not on any U.S. sanctions list, not located in a comprehensively sanctioned jurisdiction (including Cuba, Iran, North Korea, Syria, and covered regions of Ukraine), and will not use the Service for any person or end-use prohibited by U.S. export or sanctions law. Hosting or renting compute for those persons or places is forbidden.

4. Accounts

One login can rent and host. You are responsible for the password, SSO account, and any renter API tokens you mint. Revoke tokens if they leak. Google or X sign-in creates or links the same Ask Idle user by email when the provider shares one. Tokens, cookies, and the host app still only work from U.S. IPs.

5. Jobs

Prompts are visible to the host that runs them.
No illegal content, malware, or attempts to break out of allowlisted runtimes (Ollama, LM Studio, llama.cpp, vLLM).
We may cancel jobs, pause hosts, or close accounts that abuse the network or evade the U.S. restriction.
Open-weight model licenses apply to you. You must not use outputs to train a competing model where those licenses forbid it.

6. Money

All prices are in U.S. dollars. Renters prepay credits. Failed or cancelled jobs release the hold.
Hosts keep 80% on Neighbor jobs and 88% on Hall jobs. Ask Idle keeps 20% / 12%.
Card processing (Stripe 2.9% + 30¢) is added on top of credit packs and the Neighbor Pass so the stated credit amount actually lands. We do not short your wallet to pay Stripe.
Neighbor Pass is an optional monthly subscription. Each paid period adds job credits (currently $6.00). Pass credits are not cash and cannot be withdrawn. Cancel in Stripe customer portal / support.
Signup credits expire after 50 completed jobs. Leftover bonus is removed. Packs you bought are not touched.
The hourly ask shown when a job is matched is locked for that job. A thread pinned to a host keeps that locked rate; a host who raises their public ask cannot change in-flight jobs or existing threads. A lower ask still flows through to those threads.
Two listing types. Neighbor is leftover home machines (Mac/Windows app), text models, cheap asks. Hall is rack / colo on Windows or Linux, staff-approved per account. Venue is bound to the installer we issue; editing host files cannot promote a Neighbor box to Hall. Hardware is locked from the first probe. The installer is locked to the first computer that connects — a copy on another box is refused and the original stays live. Download again from Ask Idle to move to a new machine. Auto, filters, and overflow never mix the two. A rig code still pins a specific machine.
New accounts may receive promotional job credits. Those credits are for running jobs only. They are not cash, not host earnings, and cannot be withdrawn.
Host withdrawals require a minimum of host earnings (currently $10.00) so Stripe payout fees do not exceed the transfer. Credits never convert to a payout.
Payouts go through Stripe Connect to a U.S. connected account. Stripe’s fees and KYC apply. We do not pay hosts outside the United States.
Top-ups require a U.S. billing address. Non-U.S. cards or addresses may be refunded and not credited.
Unused credits are not a bank deposit. Refunds for unused balances are at our discretion except where U.S. law requires otherwise.

7. Hosts

You only run software you installed. You set the public display name and ask. Suggested asks are based on chip, VRAM, loaded models, and what similar live machines charge; they are not a guarantee of fill. You can list the machine as unlisted and share a rig code so only people with that code can pin it. A renter who picks your machine (or uses the code) may wait in a short queue of up to three jobs; Auto match never waits. You can pause listing without quitting the app. You must not snoop renter prompts beyond operating the node. If the machine leaves the United States, you must Quit or Pause immediately. We may drop the socket if the IP is no longer U.S.

8. No warranty; limitation of liability

The Service is provided as is. We are not a cloud SLA. Machines go offline. Jobs fail. Hosts are independent operators, not our employees or subcontractors. We are not liable for lost jobs, host downtime, model output, geo-fence false positives, or a host retaining prompt text. To the maximum extent permitted by U.S. law, our aggregate liability is limited to the fees you paid us in the thirty days before the claim, or one hundred U.S. dollars, whichever is greater.

You will defend and indemnify us against claims arising from your prompts, your hosted machines, your violation of model licenses, or your evasion of the U.S.-only restriction. We may preserve logs and cooperate with lawful U.S. process. We do not monitor every prompt.

9. Governing law and venue

The operator of Ask Idle is a United States person (the person or entity operating this service). This agreement is governed by the laws of the United States and of Delaware, without regard to conflict-of-law rules. Exclusive venue for disputes is the state or federal courts located in Delaware, except where a U.S. statute requires otherwise. The U.N. Convention on Contracts for the International Sale of Goods does not apply. If a court finds the U.S.-only restriction unenforceable in some respect, the rest of this agreement still applies and we may still refuse service outside the U.S. as a matter of operations.

10. Changes

We may update these Terms. Continued use after the date above is acceptance. If you cannot stay in the United States, stop using the Service.