Joule — Terms of Service & Disclaimer

Last updated: 16 September 2026 · Operated by K2026744251 (South Africa) (Pty) Ltd

Plain-English summary (not a substitute for the terms below): Joule helps you cut and measure the cost, energy and carbon of your AI usage. The cost figures are exact; the energy and carbon figures are transparent estimates, not measurements. Savings are a modelled comparison against always using the largest model, not a guaranteed outcome. Joule is provided "as is", and is not a certified compliance product. Use your own judgement before relying on any figure for financial or regulatory purposes.

1. The service and who provides it

Joule is operated by K2026744251 (South Africa) (Pty) Ltd, a private company registered in South Africa under registration number 2026/744251/07. In these terms, "Joule", "we" and "us" mean that company.

Joule is an OpenAI-compatible proxy that routes your AI requests, meters their cost, energy and carbon, and reports savings and quality metrics. You connect your own model-provider account; Joule makes calls to that provider on your behalf using the key you supply.

2. Your account and keys

You are responsible for your own model-provider account, its API keys, and all charges your provider bills you. Joule stores your provider key encrypted and does not return it to your browser, but you remain responsible for keeping your own credentials secure and for the usage made through your workspace.

3. Nature of the figures — important

• Cost is calculated from provider-returned token counts multiplied by the provider's published prices. It is exact arithmetic, but depends on the prices configured and the usage your provider reports.
• Energy is an estimate, modelled from published GPU-characterisation research. It is not measured from hardware power draw and will differ from any physical measurement.
• Carbon is energy multiplied by grid-carbon intensity (live where available, otherwise a clearly-labelled fallback constant). It is therefore also an estimate, aligned in approach to the GHG Protocol (Scope 2) and SCI / ISO-IEC 21031, but it is not an audited or certified emissions figure.
• Savings are a counterfactual comparison against a baseline of always using the larger model on the same requests. This is a modelled comparison, not a guaranteed reduction, and your actual bill depends on your own traffic and provider.
• Quality figures come from sampled verification. Any coverage guarantee is marginal — it holds across the population of sampled requests, never for any individual query — and can be affected by changes in your traffic. Below a minimum sample count, no guarantee is stated.

You should not rely on any Joule figure as a certified, audited, or legally sufficient record for tax, regulatory, ESG-reporting, or financial-accounting purposes without independent verification.

4. No certification

Joule holds no third-party security or compliance certification (e.g. SOC 2, ISO 27001) and does not represent that it does. Exported reports are summaries built from your logged data and are explicitly not certified compliance documents.

5. Availability

The service is provided on an "as available" basis. No uptime or availability percentage is promised, and Joule may be unavailable, interrupted, or modified at any time. Live component status is shown in-product; no historical availability figure is published or warranted.

6. Warranties

THE SERVICE AND ALL FIGURES ARE PROVIDED "AS IS" AND "AS AVAILABLE", WITHOUT WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE, ACCURACY, AND NON-INFRINGEMENT. Joule does not warrant that routing will preserve output quality for any particular request, that any figure is error-free, or that the service will be uninterrupted.

7. Limitation of liability

TO THE MAXIMUM EXTENT PERMITTED BY LAW, Joule SHALL NOT BE LIABLE FOR ANY INDIRECT, INCIDENTAL, SPECIAL, CONSEQUENTIAL, OR PUNITIVE DAMAGES, OR FOR ANY LOSS OF PROFITS, REVENUE, DATA, OR MODEL-PROVIDER CHARGES, ARISING FROM YOUR USE OF THE SERVICE OR RELIANCE ON ANY FIGURE IT PRODUCES. THE TOTAL AGGREGATE LIABILITY FOR ANY CLAIM SHALL NOT EXCEED THE AMOUNTS YOU PAID TO Joule FOR THE SERVICE IN THE 3 MONTHS PRECEDING THE CLAIM (OR ZERO, IF THE SERVICE WAS PROVIDED FREE OF CHARGE).

8. Acceptable use

You agree not to use Joule to violate any law, infringe any right, or send data you are not permitted to process through a third-party model provider. You are responsible for ensuring your use of AI providers via Joule complies with any data-protection or data-residency obligations that apply to you.

9. Data handling

Joule's data-handling posture (what is and isn't stored, prompt-text retention, encryption, and workspace isolation) is described in the in-product Security & Data Handling documentation, which forms part of these terms.

10. Changes

These terms and the service may be updated. Continued use after an update constitutes acceptance of the revised terms.

11. Governing law

These terms are governed by the laws of ZA, without regard to conflict-of-law principles.

This document is a starting template that reflects Joule's actual, honest posture. It is not legal advice. Before taking paying customers — especially regulated ones — have a qualified lawyer in your operating jurisdiction review and finalise it.