These Terms govern your use of Potok: the Telegram bot @potok_now_bot, the web version at potok.now/app and the Potok desktop app (together, the “Service”). The Service is provided by Vladimir Olegovich Lipatnikov, individual entrepreneur, Russia (“we”, “us”); details are in section 13.
Short version. You send a recording or a link, we return the text. 60 minutes a month are free. Paid plans give unlimited transcription within a fair use cap of 30 hours a month. Card subscriptions renew automatically and can be cancelled in two taps. Telegram Stars purchases are one-time and never renew. The text is yours.
This page is an English translation of our Public offer and User agreement, prepared for people who use the Service in English. It keeps the same rules. If the two versions ever differ, the Russian version prevails, but we will always apply whichever reading is more favourable to you.
1Accepting these Terms
1.1. These Terms are a public offer. You accept them by using the Service: sending a recording to the bot, signing in, or paying for a plan. Paying means you have read these Terms, including the fair use rules in section 5.
1.2. You must be old enough to enter into a contract in your country, or use the Service with the consent of a parent or guardian.
1.3. If you do not agree with these Terms, please do not use the Service.
2What the Service does
2.1. The Service turns speech into text: voice and video messages, audio and video files, and links to YouTube, Rutube, VK Video and other supported platforms. Depending on the plan, it can also split text by speakers, add timestamps, tidy up the text and make summaries.
2.2. Speech recognition runs on our servers. The Service needs an internet connection.
2.3. The Service is provided “as is”. Speech recognition is never perfect: accuracy depends on audio quality, accents and background noise. Check the text before you use it for anything important, such as legal, medical or financial decisions.
3Free access
3.1. The bot and the web version give you 60 minutes of recordings free each calendar month (Moscow time), with no card required. Your first recording is transcribed in full regardless of length; its minutes count toward the free allowance.
3.2. Bonus minutes: 30 after your first transcription, and 30 for each friend you invite after their first transcription (your friend gets 30 too), up to 10 such bonuses a month. Bonus minutes expire at the end of the month in which they were given and cannot be exchanged for money.
3.3. When the free minutes run out, a file longer than the remaining allowance is transcribed up to that allowance; the rest needs a paid plan.
3.4. Some features, such as AI summaries and text editing, may have a daily limit on the free plan. The bot shows the limit and how much is left.
4Plans and payments
4.1. Paid bot plans are sold for 7, 30, 90, 180 or 365 days. The price, the period and the currency are shown in the bot before you pay. The price shown at the moment of payment is the price you pay.
4.2. Payment methods. Depending on your country and what the bot offers you:
- Telegram Stars: a one-time payment inside Telegram. It does not renew, nothing is charged later, and access simply ends when the period is over.
- Bank card or YooMoney via YooKassa: a subscription in Russian rubles that renews automatically (4.4–4.8). Cards issued outside Russia may not be accepted by the payment provider.
4.3. Access is switched on automatically right after the payment is confirmed, in the same Telegram account. If you paid and access did not switch on, send /paysupport in the bot or write to support@potok.now.
Card subscriptions and auto-renewal
4.4. When you pay by card, the payment provider saves your payment method for future charges, and you agree to automatic charges for each next period of the same length. You are told about this on the payment page before you confirm the payment.
4.5. Each renewal is charged on the day the paid period ends, for the same period. If you subscribed before a price increase, you keep paying your original price for as long as the subscription stays active without a break.
4.6. Cancel any time, without asking us: in the bot, open “My access” and tap “Cancel auto-renewal”; or at potok.now/account; or in the desktop app under Settings → Plan and payment; or by email to support@potok.now. After cancellation, no further charges are made and access lasts until the end of the period you have already paid for. Deleting the bot chat or your Telegram account does not cancel a card subscription; please cancel it first.
4.7. If a renewal charge fails, we retry for up to six hours and then stop automatic charges. The period you have already paid for is not cut short.
4.8. We never see or store your card details. The payment provider keeps them; we keep only a payment method identifier and the last four digits of the card, and delete the identifier when you cancel.
5Fair use
5.1. Plans described as “unlimited” or “as much as you need” have no limit on the number or length of individual recordings for reasonable personal or work use by one person. They do have a fair use cap: 30 hours of audio or video per calendar month (Moscow time), counted across the bot, the web version and the app. Most people never come close to it.
5.2. Recordings that failed through our fault do not count. Unused hours do not carry over.
5.3. Above the cap, nothing is refused: recordings go into a background queue after those within the cap. The result may take longer, up to 24 hours; we aim for that, but cannot guarantee it.
5.4. We let you know when you reach 80% of the cap and when you reach the cap. Your current usage is shown in the bot.
5.5. If you regularly need more, write to support@potok.now and we will offer a plan for large volumes.
5.6. A plan is for one person. You may not share access, resell the Service or its results as a bulk transcription service, or upload recordings with automated tools to get around plan limits. If this happens, we may warn you, move your recordings to the background queue and, if it continues, suspend access (section 9).
6Refunds
6.1. Card payments. We refund the full amount if access was not provided, and the full amount or part of it if the Service was not provided properly. If you simply change your mind, we refund the unused part of the period, pro rata to the days left from the date of your request. Money goes back to the card you paid with within 10 days of your request; your bank may take a few more days to credit it.
6.2. Telegram Stars. Telegram lets us refund Stars only for the whole payment. We refund in full if access was not provided or the Service did not work through our fault. If you change your mind, ask within 7 days of the purchase: we refund the Stars in full and end the access. The Stars return to your Telegram balance.
6.3. To ask for a refund, send /paysupport in the bot or write to support@potok.now with the subject “Refund”, the date and the amount of the payment. We reply within 3 working days.
6.4. Bonus minutes and free access cannot be refunded or exchanged for money.
7Purchases in Telegram
7.1. We sell the plans in the bot ourselves. Telegram is not a party to the purchase and its support cannot help with it: for any question about a payment in the bot, send /paysupport or write to support@potok.now. The full terms are always available in the bot with the /terms command.
7.2. Telegram Stars are governed by Telegram’s own Terms for Stars. Taxes and fees charged by your app store or your bank when you buy Stars are outside our control.
8Your content and your data
8.1. The text is yours. We claim no rights to your recordings or to the text produced from them. You give us permission to process them only to provide the Service: to transcribe, store your history, show it to you and count usage.
8.2. You confirm that you have the right to send us each recording, including the consent of other people speaking in it where the law of your country requires it.
8.3. Recordings and transcripts are stored on our servers for as long as your account exists, so you can come back to them. You can ask us to delete everything at any time by writing to support@potok.now.
8.4. We may use recordings and transcripts to improve our own speech recognition models only with your consent, which you can withdraw at any time by email. We do not sell your data and do not publish your recordings. We share data only with the providers needed to run the Service (hosting, payments, text processing), and only to the extent they need it.
8.5. Details are in our Privacy policy. Questions about your data: support@potok.now.
9Acceptable use and suspension
9.1. You may not use the Service to create or spread illegal content, to break into our servers or other people’s data, to overload the Service, or to resell access without a written agreement with us.
9.2. We may limit, suspend or end your access if you break these Terms or the law, or if there is a threat to the security of the Service or other people. Where possible, we will tell you first. If access is suspended for a breach, we refund the unused part of the paid period, except in cases of abuse.
10Liability
10.1. To the extent the law allows, we are not liable for lost profits, indirect losses, or the consequences of recognition errors. Our total liability to you is limited to the amount you paid us in the 12 months before the claim.
10.2. Nothing in these Terms limits liability that cannot be limited by law, or the rights you have as a consumer under the mandatory law of your country.
10.3. Neither side is liable for failures caused by force majeure: actions of authorities, blockades, natural disasters and similar events beyond reasonable control.
11Changes to these Terms
11.1. We may update these Terms by publishing a new version on this page with its date. Changes do not apply to a period you have already paid for. For card subscriptions, changes apply from the next renewal, and we tell you at least 7 days in advance in the bot or by email.
11.2. If you do not accept the new version, cancel auto-renewal; your access lasts until the end of the paid period.
12Governing law and disputes
12.1. These Terms are governed by the law of the Russian Federation, without depriving you of the mandatory consumer protections of the country where you live.
12.2. Please write to us first: most problems are solved by email. Disputes that cannot be settled this way go to the court at our location, unless the law of your country gives you the right to go to court where you live.