Terms, privacy and credits
Last updated 2 November 2026. Vessel is operated by the operator of this site. Questions about anything here: the contact address on this site.
Terms of use
What Vessel does
Vessel suggests brand names and domain names and checks whether those domains appear to be available. Suggestions come partly from an AI model and partly from rules in our code. Availability answers come from domain registrars and public DNS and RDAP records.
What it does not do
- We do not register domains. The Register button takes you to a registrar, and anything you buy there is between you and them. See Registrars and partner links for which one and why.
- An availability answer is a snapshot, not a guarantee. A domain shown as free can be registered by someone else a minute later, and a registrar's price can differ from the one shown.
- Nothing here is trade mark, legal or linguistic advice. The noise check is an AI model's reading of who else uses a name, from what it knows and the first page of a web search. It is not a clearance search. Before you commit to a name, search the trade mark registers where you will trade, and take advice if it matters.
- AI suggestions can be wrong, unoriginal, or mean something unfortunate in a language nobody checked. Treat them as ideas, not answers.
Registrars and partner links
Register and Enquire are partner links. If you buy through one, the registrar or marketplace may pay us a commission. You pay the same price as you would going there directly.
- Register takes each name to whichever of our partner registrars, Dynadot or Netim, is cheapest for its ending over three years: the first year plus two renewals, so a low first-year price that renews high does not win. Where the two are within 3% of each other, Dynadot is preferred. A premium name goes to Namecheap, which quoted its price. An ending none of them sells has no Register button.
- Once you have bought credits, you can choose Namecheap or GoDaddy instead in Settings, to keep your domains in an account you already have. Endings that registrar does not sell still go to the cheapest partner.
- Enquire takes a name listed for sale to its listing on the marketplace that has it, such as Sedo or Atom.
- The price shown is the registrar's list price from its own published prices (GoDaddy's from a public price tracker), refreshed daily. It excludes VAT and any promotion, and the registrar's checkout is the final word. Where a renewal costs well over the first year, both are shown.
- Commission does not decide where a name goes. Price does. We are not paid to rank one registrar above another.
Accounts
You can use most of Vessel without an account. Features that call an AI model need one, and you sign in with Google, Microsoft or GitHub. We never see your password. Keep that account secure: anyone who can sign in as you can spend your credits. One person, one account. Creating extra accounts to collect more free credits is not allowed.
Projects and sharing
A project's link is its key. Unless you switch a project to members only, anyone who has its link can see and edit it, so share links with care. You are responsible for what you type into Vessel. Do not enter anything you are not allowed to share with the services listed in the privacy policy below.
Fair use
Do not scrape, overload or automate Vessel, use it to break the law, or try to get around the credit system. We may suspend accounts that do, and free credits obtained that way have no value.
Changes and availability
Vessel is provided as it is. We work to keep it running, but we do not promise it will always be available, error-free or unchanged. As far as the law allows, we are not liable for indirect losses, lost opportunities or lost profits, including the loss of a name or domain. Our total liability to you is limited to what you paid us in the twelve months before the claim. Nothing in these terms limits rights you have as a consumer that cannot be limited by law. If we change these terms in a way that matters, we will say so on this page before the change takes effect.
Law
These terms are governed by the law of Ireland. If you are a consumer, you also keep the protection of the mandatory laws of the country where you live.
Privacy policy
the operator of this site is the controller of the personal data described here.
What we collect
- Account details, if you sign in: your name, email address, profile picture link, and the account identifier Google, Microsoft or GitHub gives us.
- Your projects: the brief, words, names, notes, tags and shortlists you create, and who may open each project.
- Credit records: your balance and a record of each purchase, refund and AI request (which feature, when, and how much model capacity it used).
- Payment details: Stripe handles and stores your card, and we never see the number. We keep the card's brand, last four digits and expiry, so we can show you which card is on file. We also keep a record of each payment: amount, currency, outcome and Stripe's receipt link.
- Technical data: server logs with your IP address and browser type, kept for security and troubleshooting.
- Usage data, only if you accept analytics cookies: the pages and features you use, roughly where you are (country or city), and your device and browser, collected by Google Analytics.
Why, and on what basis
- To provide the service you asked for: sign-in, saving and sharing projects, running AI features, and selling and deducting credits. The basis is our contract with you.
- To keep financial records required by tax and accounting law. The basis is legal obligation.
- To prevent abuse and keep the service secure. The basis is our legitimate interest.
- To understand how Vessel is used and improve it, through Google Analytics. The basis is your consent, which you can withdraw at any time.
We do not sell your data and we do not use advertising cookies. Analytics runs only if you accept it.
Who else processes it
- Google provides sign-in, if you choose it. Google also runs the Gemini AI model: when you use an AI feature, the text of your brief and the relevant names are sent to Google's Gemini API to produce the answer. Fonts on this site load from Google Fonts. If you accept analytics cookies, Google Analytics receives usage data about your visits.
- Anthropic runs the Claude AI models. If you pick a Claude model in Settings, the text of your brief and the relevant names are sent to Anthropic's API instead of Google's to produce the answer.
- Microsoft provides sign-in, if you choose it.
- GitHub provides sign-in, if you choose it.
- Stripe processes payments.
- Serper (serper.dev) receives the shortlisted names you run a noise check on, and the country from your brief, to search Google for them. It receives nothing else about you.
- Namecheap, and public DNS and RDAP services, receive the domain names we check for availability. They do not receive anything else about you.
- Our hosting provider stores the service and its database.
Some of these providers process data outside the European Economic Area. Where they do, they rely on the European Commission's standard contractual clauses or an adequacy decision.
Cookies and browser storage
If you sign in, we set one cookie to keep you signed in, and a short-lived one while the sign-in is in progress. Both are strictly necessary.
If you accept analytics cookies, Google Analytics sets _ga and _ga_* cookies to tell visits apart. They last up to two years. Nothing is sent to Google Analytics until you accept, and if you reject or ignore the question, no analytics cookies are set. To change your choice, choose Cookies at the foot of the app; withdrawing consent deletes these cookies.
Your browser also stores your unsent brief, your view settings, your cookie choice and, if you are signed out, the list of projects you have opened. That data stays on your device.
How long we keep it
We keep account details and projects until you ask us to delete them. Sessions end 60 days after your last visit. Purchase and credit records are kept for as long as tax law requires, usually six years. Server logs are kept for up to 30 days. Google Analytics data is kept for up to 14 months.
Your rights
You can ask to see, correct, export or delete your data, and you can object to or restrict how we use it. Email the contact address on this site, or do it yourself in Settings, which downloads everything we hold about you as one file and deletes your account. Deleting your account removes your sign-ins, name, email, saved card and company details, and your membership of projects; purchase and credit records stay, without your name, for the time tax law requires. Projects other people can still open through their link are kept for them. You can also complain to your data protection authority, which in Ireland is the Data Protection Commission (dataprotection.ie).
Credits and refunds
How credits work
- AI features cost credits. Every AI button shows its price with a coin before you press it. Quick jobs cost 1 credit and bigger ones cost 2 or 3.
- Credits are only deducted when a request succeeds. If the AI fails or times out, you are not charged.
- You are asked once per login session to enable AI credits, so nothing is spent without you knowing.
- New accounts get 25 free credits. Free credits have no cash value and cannot be refunded.
- Purchased credits do not expire. They are tied to your account, cannot be transferred, and cannot be exchanged for cash except as a refund described below.
- We may change how many credits a feature costs, or the price of packs. The cost is always shown on the button before you press it, and credits you have already bought keep their value.
Your saved card and auto top-up
- When you buy credits, Stripe saves the card you pay with as your card on file. Stripe's payment page tells you this before you pay. You can change or remove the card at any time in Billing.
- Auto top-up is off unless you switch it on. When it is on, we charge your saved card for the pack you chose whenever your balance falls below the level you set, or is too low for an AI request you have just made. You are charged the price shown when you chose the pack.
- If that pack's price changes, or a top-up is declined, top-ups pause until you choose again or update your card. There are never more than 5 top-ups in a day.
- You can switch auto top-up off at any time in Billing. Every payment, including each top-up, is listed there with its Stripe receipt.
Refunds
- If you have not used them, you can have purchased credits refunded within 14 days of buying them, including credits from an auto top-up. Email the contact address on this site from the address on your account.
- Credits you have used cannot be refunded. Enabling credits and pressing an AI button is a request for us to supply the service straight away. For the credits you use, you therefore lose the 14-day right of withdrawal that EU consumer law otherwise gives you.
- If something went wrong on our side, for example you were charged for a result that never arrived, tell us and we will return the credits.
- If we ever close Vessel, we will refund unused purchased credits in proportion to what you paid.
- If a payment is refunded or reversed, the credits it bought are removed from your balance, even if that leaves the balance below zero.