Terms of Service

TripChat is a marketplace. We connect travelers with independent local guides. You can chat with a guide, customize a tour, book it, and pay — all in one place.

The tours, services, messages, and calls are delivered by the guides, not by TripChat. Guides are independent businesses — they are not TripChat employees, agents, or partners. TripChat provides the platform (discovery, chat, payments, escrow, reviews); the guide provides the actual service.

You need an account to book, pay, or message guides. Sign-in is handled by our authentication provider (Clerk). Keep your login details safe — you are responsible for what happens on your account.

Accounts have roles: travelers (members) book and pay; guides offer tours and services and earn money. Guides must apply and be approved before they can sell — see section 9.

TripChat works with a prepaid wallet. You top up your balance first — by card (processed by Stripe) or with cryptocurrency (processed by NowPayments) — and then spend that balance on bookings, paid messages, calls, fanclub subscriptions, and store purchases.

Your wallet balance is spending credit on TripChat, not a bank deposit. Every movement in your wallet is recorded in a transaction history you can see on your wallet page.

When you book a tour, the money is held from your wallet balance right away — but the guide is not paid yet. TripChat holds your payment until the tour is done. The guide is paid after.

After the guide marks the tour as completed, there is a 48-hour dispute window. If something went wrong, contact us within those 48 hours. When the window passes, the payment is released to the guide's withdrawable balance.

TripChat earns a service commission that is deducted from the guide's payout — it is not added on top of the price you see. The price shown to the traveler is the price paid.

• Tour bookings: 10–12% of the booking total.
• Paid messages, paid calls, fanclub subscriptions, and store service purchases: 20%.

Each tour has its own cancellation policy — Flexible, Moderate, Strict, or Non-refundable — chosen by the guide and shown on the tour page before you book. The policy decides how much you get back, depending on how early you cancel.

The full rules are on our Refund & Cancellation Policy. Refunds are returned to your TripChat wallet balance.

Some guides run a fanclub: a monthly subscription with perks like member pricing and exclusive content. Subscriptions renew automatically every 30 days and are charged from your wallet balance at the price you joined at.

You can cancel anytime from your subscriptions page. When you cancel, you keep access until the end of the paid 30-day period — there are no partial-period refunds. If a renewal payment fails because your balance is too low, you get a short grace period (3 days) to top up before the subscription ends.

Guides can charge for messages and calls. Each guide sets a free message allowance for your conversation — after you use it, each message you send costs the guide's per-message rate. Guide replies are always free.

Calls are billed per minute at the guide's per-minute rate, rounded up to the next whole minute, and only for the time both sides are actually in the call. You need enough wallet balance to start a paid call. If a call fails in the first two minutes for technical reasons, the charge is refunded to your wallet.

Every guide applies to join TripChat, and our team reviews each application (including submitted ID and license information) before approval. Guides marked as verified passed this review.

Vetting is a reasonable-effort check, not a guarantee. TripChat does not employ guides and does not control how they deliver their services. The agreement for a tour or service is between you and the guide.

Until a booking is confirmed between you and a guide, phone numbers, email addresses, and links in chat messages are automatically hidden. This keeps payments and your safety on-platform.

Do not try to move a deal off TripChat to avoid the platform rules. Off-platform deals are not protected by our escrow, refunds, or support.

You may not use TripChat to:

• commit fraud or scams, or pay for anything illegal;
• harass, threaten, or abuse other users;
• post false reviews or manipulate ratings;
• circumvent payments, fees, or the contact-masking rules;
• create fake accounts or impersonate someone else.

We can suspend or close accounts that break these rules, and hold related funds while we investigate.

TripChat provides the platform "as is". Because guides are independent, TripChat is not responsible for the quality, safety, or legality of the services guides deliver, or for what happens during a tour.

To the extent the law allows, TripChat's total liability for a claim related to a booking is limited to the amount you paid for that booking through the platform. Nothing in these terms limits liability that cannot be limited by law.

We may update these terms as the product evolves. The "last updated" date at the top always shows the current version. Continuing to use TripChat after a change means you accept the new terms.

Questions? Email support@tripchat.net.