The Stability AI Terms of Service and Acceptable Use Policy (AUP) are the two documents that cover every route to Stability AI technology except where a signed agreement says otherwise. The Terms govern Brand Studio, Stable Audio, the API, the websites and associated software, and include the AUP.[1] Both were effective on 30 September 2026 in the versions reviewed.[1][2]
Contracting entity and precedence
Services are provided by Stability AI Ltd, a company incorporated in England and Wales, to customers in the UK, EU or Switzerland, and by Stability AI US Services Corporation, a Delaware corporation, to customers elsewhere.[1] A person acting for a business represents that it has authority to bind the entity.[1] Three precedence rules matter. A separate written agreement controls over the Terms to the extent of any conflict. Service-specific supplemental terms govern their Service. And other terms applying to part of the technology, such as open source licence terms, control for that part.[1] For the self-hosted models the Community License Agreement therefore sits beside the AUP rather than under the Terms.
Editions
The documents have no editions. They apply by route:
| Route | Documents |
|---|---|
| Brand Studio, Stable Audio, Platform API | Terms of Service including the AUP[1] |
| Self-hosted Core Models | Community License Agreement or Enterprise licence, plus the AUP[2] |
| Third-party hosted platforms | The platform’s terms, plus the AUP[2] |
Metrics
The Terms contain no usage metric of their own. They govern how credits and subscriptions behave: service credits, subscription renewal and fees. Those units are covered in the Platform API and subscription articles.
Counting / floors
Not applicable. The Terms set no minimums beyond ages: 13 for audio services (with parental permission under 18) and 18 for other Services.[1]
Virtualization & partitioning
Not applicable.
Cloud / BYOL
The AUP extends to access through third-party hosted platforms.[2] The Terms say third-party models and APIs may be incorporated in the Services, that inputs may be shared with them to enable functionality, and that outputs from them may not be used to train a model that competes with Stability AI or the third party.[1]
Programs
Use restrictions in the Terms. A customer may not, or help another to: use the Services or outputs to develop, train, fine-tune or improve an AI model that competes with or replicates a Stability AI model without written approval; sell, resell, sublicense or distribute the Services, Software or API, except by letting end users use functionality solely through the customer’s own product as an integrated component; reverse engineer; crawl or scrape or use automated means other than documented APIs; represent an output as human-generated when it was not; knowingly remove, obscure or circumvent watermarks, content credentials or provenance markings; buy, sell or transfer API keys; or modify, port, adapt or translate the Services or Software.[1]
Ownership and use of content. Users retain ownership of submitted content and grant Stability AI a licence to use it to provide, maintain, secure and support the Services. Stability AI assigns its right, title and interest, if any, in outputs, so the user owns the output to the extent permitted by law, and the assignment applies only to the user’s specific outputs, not to those of other users.[1] Stability AI may use content to improve the Services, and users can opt out of training use.[1]
LoRAs. Where a Service supports shared LoRAs, a trainer who shares one grants Stability AI a nonexclusive, irrevocable licence to host and make it available, and grants users a licence to use and create derivative works from the LoRA and its output. Stability AI may remove a LoRA at any time without notice.[1]
Content credentials. Image, video and audio outputs from the APIs and first-party products carry a C2PA manifest recording that the file was AI-generated, with Stability AI as publisher. Stability AI says it applies no visible or invisible watermark. The metadata can be lost by re-encoding or screenshots, but the Terms prohibit its intentional removal.[3]
Safeguards. Default safeguards can be disabled only after the customer demonstrates independent moderation and signs an agreement.[4]
Contract terms
Acceptable Use Policy. The AUP applies to non-commercial, research and commercial uses, including self-hosting under the Non-Commercial Research, Community or Enterprise licences.[2] Its prohibited categories are violations of law or others’ rights (including listed AI-law practices such as social scoring and untargeted facial recognition databases), harm to or exploitation of children, sexually explicit content, emotional or physical harm, circumvention of safeguards, and deceiving or misleading others, including misleading end users about AI-generated outputs.[2]
Fees and credits. Fees may rise with advance notice, and subscriptions auto-renew. Service credits are non-refundable, non-transferable, not currency and expire after one year when issued on or after the effective date.[1]
Liability and indemnity. The services are provided “as is”. Aggregate liability of the Stability parties is capped at the greater of USD 100 or the amount paid for the Services in the six months before the claim arose. The customer indemnifies the Stability parties for its use, breaches, products or fine-tunes it makes available, and its inputs and outputs.[1] The Terms set out the customer’s indemnity; the public documents state Stability AI indemnification only under Enterprise arrangements.[5]
Changes and termination. Stability AI may add, remove or discontinue features and Services without advance notice, may deprecate or upgrade Services, and may suspend or terminate access without notice if it believes the Terms are breached.[1] It may update the Terms, and continued use after notice means acceptance.[1]
Disputes. Customers in the United States agree to binding individual arbitration with a class action waiver, after 60 days of informal resolution, with the National Arbitration and Mediation forum, and can opt out by written notice within 30 days of account creation or of an update. Groups of 25 or more similar demands within 90 days are administered in batches of up to 50 claimants.[1]
Copyright notices. Stability AI follows the DMCA notice procedure through a designated agent and terminates repeat infringers in appropriate circumstances.[1] The dispute over the original model’s training is in Getty Images v. Stability AI.
Audits and compliance
The Terms do not define a licence audit. Stability AI can suspend or terminate for breach, and an organisation’s administrator may monitor and control accounts that are linked to its enterprise account through its email domain.[1] For a customer the controls are: an inventory of accounts and API keys; a rule that keys are not shared or traded; review of any feature that exposes generation to end users, to stay within the integrated-component exception; a record of the AUP for self-hosted deployments; and a process that preserves content credentials in downstream publishing.
Out of scope
- Privacy policy and data processing terms.
- The Trust Center and security certifications.
- Previous versions of the Terms and AUP.
- Consumer protection rights, which the Terms say are not limited by the fees and credits section where they cannot be waived by contract.[1]