1. Who we are
The Starly website and the Starly Android app are operated by NEXGKET CONSUMERTECH PRIVATE LIMITED (“we”, “us”, “our”), a company incorporated in India under CIN U47912HR2024PTC123515, with its registered office at 2nd Floor, ALTF MPD Tower MR1, Sector 43, Golf Course Road, DLF City Phase 5, Gurugram, Haryana 122002, India. You can reach us at hello@bestarly.com.
Starly is our product, not our corporate name. In these terms “Starly” means the website and the app together, and it is us, NEXGKET CONSUMERTECH PRIVATE LIMITED, who are responsible for them and who you are contracting with.
The app is published on Google Play by NEXGKET CONSUMERTECH PRIVATE LIMITED under the package name app.starly.android.
2. What these terms cover
These terms apply to two things, and to the single Starly account that spans both:
- The website: where you create your account, join the waitlist and see your own dashboard.
- The Starly Android app: a calling application that lets you set a custom hello tune for individual contacts, so the person calling you hears something you chose for them.
By creating an account, or by installing or using the app, you agree to these terms. If you do not agree to them, do not create an account and do not use the app.
3. The app is pre-release
The Starly app is currently distributed through Google Play in closed testing and is made available to invited testers only. It is pre-release software, and you should treat it as such:
- It may contain defects, may behave unpredictably, and may fail to play a tune or handle a call correctly.
- Features may change or be removed between builds, and test data, including tunes you have recorded, may be reset or lost when we publish a new version.
- We may withdraw a build, end the testing programme, or remove your access to it at any time and without notice.
- Do not rely on the app for calls that matter to you. It sits alongside your phone’s own dialler and is not a replacement for it, and it is not an emergency calling service. Never rely on Starly to reach emergency services.
Nothing on the website or in the store listing is a guarantee of a launch date, of continued availability, of feature availability in your region or on your device, or of any level of earnings.
4. Eligibility and age
- You must be at least 13 years old to create a Starly account or use the app.
- If you are under 18, you may use Starly only with the involvement and consent of your parent or legal guardian. Indian law treats everyone below 18 as a child, and your parent or guardian must read and agree to these terms on your behalf. Where they have not, we may suspend or remove the account.
- If you are a parent or guardian and you believe your child holds a Starly account you did not agree to, write to hello@bestarly.com and we will act on it. How we handle children’s data is set out in our privacy policy.
- You must give us a mobile number that belongs to you and that you are entitled to use, and you must not create an account on anyone else’s behalf without their permission.
5. Your account
Your mobile number is your account, on the website and in the app alike. We verify it with a one-time code sent by SMS, and you sign in the same way afterwards, and there is no password to remember or lose. You may also give us an email address; we do not verify it, and it is not how you sign in - it is only used to reach you and for the occasional email. One account per mobile number, and one per email address if you give one.
You agree that the name, city, number and address you give us are accurate and are yours to use. You are responsible for what is done through your account and for keeping access to the number it is registered on. Whoever can receive an SMS on that number can request a sign-in code on it. If you lose access to it, tell us at hello@bestarly.com.
You can ask us to close your account at any time by writing to hello@bestarly.com. We may suspend or close an account that breaks these terms.
6. What the app asks for on your phone
The app requests a small number of Android permissions, each for a specific job. Android asks you before granting any of them, and you can withdraw any of them later in your phone’s settings, though some features will stop working if you do. What each one is for, and what happens to the data, is set out in our privacy policy.
- Contacts: so you can choose which of your contacts gets which hello tune. The matching happens on your device. We do not upload, copy or store your contacts on our servers.
- Phone and call state: so the app knows a call is coming in or going out, and can play the right tune at the right moment.
- Microphone: only when you choose to record your own hello tune. The app does not record calls, and does not listen in the background.
You are responsible for the phone bills, call charges and data charges your operator levies. Starly does not carry your calls and does not set those charges.
7. Tunes you record
You can set a hello tune either by choosing one from the Starly catalogue or by recording your own. Recordings you make are your content, and they stay yours.
7.1 The permission you give us
So that we can actually run the service, you give us a non-exclusive, royalty-free, worldwide licence to store, host, reproduce, transcode and play back your recordings, but only for the purpose of operating Starly and playing your tune to the people you have chosen. That licence is limited to running the service, it is not transferable except to a provider hosting the audio for us, and it ends when you delete the recording or your account, save for copies in routine backups which age out. We will not use your recordings to advertise Starly, and we will not license them to anyone else.
7.2 What you promise about them
- The recording is yours, or you have the rights you need to use it in this way.
- You will not record commercial music, film dialogue or any other material you do not have the rights to. The Starly catalogue exists so that you do not have to.
- If your recording contains another person’s voice, you have their permission.
- It is not unlawful, obscene, defamatory, hateful, deceptive, or harmful to a child, and does not impersonate anyone.
7.3 Reporting content, and what we do about it
If a tune infringes your rights or breaks the rules above, write to our Grievance Officer at hello@bestarly.com with enough detail for us to identify it. We will acknowledge your complaint within 24 hours and resolve it within 15 days, as required of us under the Information Technology (Intermediary Guidelines and Digital Media Ethics Code) Rules, 2021.
We may remove or disable access to a recording that we reasonably believe breaks these terms or the law, and we may suspend or close the account of someone who does so repeatedly. We are not obliged to monitor content, and we do not pre-screen recordings.
8. Acceptable use
You agree not to:
- use bots, scripts, emulators, number-generation services or paid click farms to create accounts or referrals;
- submit the details of people who have not agreed to join, or set a tune for someone in order to harass them;
- spam, bulk message, or misrepresent Starly, including claiming guaranteed earnings, promising rewards we have not announced, or presenting anything about Starly as an investment scheme;
- resell, auction or trade waitlist positions, invite codes, ranks or accounts;
- reverse engineer, decompile or tamper with the app, or interfere with our systems, rate limits or security measures;
- use Starly for automated calling, telemarketing, or anything that breaches India’s telecom regulations on unsolicited commercial communication.
9. The waitlist and referrals
Creating an account reserves you a place in the queue for early access. It is not a purchase, a subscription, or a contract obliging us to provide the app to you.
Every member gets a unique invite link. When someone creates their Starly account for the first time using your link, and verifies their number with details not already registered, that counts as one referral. Referrals move you up the queue and improve your rank in your city. That is what they buy: earlier access. Nothing is payable to you for creating an account, for joining the waitlist, or for referring anybody to it.
- Self-referrals do not count, and neither do accounts you control or accounts created only to inflate a count.
- Your referral count and your rank are indicative, and may be recalculated if we find invalid entries.
- We may disqualify a member, reset a referral count, or remove someone from the waitlist if we reasonably believe these terms have been broken.
- The waitlist and the referral programme are promotional. We may change how they work, or withdraw them, at any time before launch.
10. The earning programme
We describe an optional future programme in which a member may choose to play approved brand content in their hello tune slot and be paid based on plays, with a share flowing back to members who referred them. You should read every description of it on this site as a statement of what we currently intend to build, and nothing more.
- The programme does not exist yet. It is not running, no member is enrolled in it, and no amount is currently payable to anyone.
- It will be strictly opt-in, and taking part will require you to accept a separate agreement setting out rates, measurement, payout terms, eligibility, and the identity checks and tax withholding Indian law requires of us.
- We may change its rates, structure or eligibility, or decide not to launch it at all. Rates and payout terms mentioned anywhere on this site are illustrative and are not an offer.
- Nothing about it is an investment, a deposit, a security, or a scheme for the circulation of money, and you must not describe it as one to anybody.
11. Our intellectual property
The Starly name, logo, app, site design, copy, catalogue and all other material we provide belong to us or our licensors. We give you a personal, revocable, non-transferable licence to use the app on a device you control, for your own non-commercial use. You may share your invite link freely; you may not copy, adapt, republish or redistribute anything else without our written permission.
Track names and artwork shown on the website are illustrative examples of how hello tunes appear in the app. Music in the Starly catalogue is governed by our arrangements with the relevant rights holders, and is licensed to you only for use as a hello tune within Starly.
12. Availability, and changes to the service
We provide the website and the app on an “as is” and “as available” basis. We may modify, suspend or discontinue any part of either at any time. We do not warrant that they will be uninterrupted, timely, secure or error-free, and, beyond the warranties that Indian law gives you and that cannot be excluded, we give no warranties of any kind.
13. Limitation of liability
To the maximum extent permitted by law, we are not liable for any indirect, incidental, special or consequential loss, or for any loss of profit, opportunity, data, recordings or goodwill, arising out of your use of the website, the app, the waitlist or the referral programme, including a call you missed, a tune that failed to play, or a recording lost between pre-release builds.
Our total aggregate liability in connection with Starly is limited to the greater of the amount you have paid us (which is presently nothing, as Starly is free) and INR 1,000.
Nothing in these terms excludes or limits liability that cannot lawfully be excluded or limited, including liability for death or personal injury caused by our negligence, for fraud, or under the Consumer Protection Act, 2019. Your statutory rights as a consumer are unaffected.
14. Suspension, and ending your participation
You can stop using Starly at any time, uninstall the app, and ask us to delete your account by writing to hello@bestarly.com. Closing your account removes your recordings and ends any referral credit associated with it, for you and for whoever referred you.
We may suspend or close your account, with notice where it is reasonable to give it, if you break these terms, if we are required to by law, or if we discontinue the service. Clauses 7.1 (only as to backups ageing out), 11, 13, 15 and 16 survive.
15. Complaints and our Grievance Officer
If something about Starly is wrong, whether content that should not be there, a decision we have made about your account, or how we have handled your data, tell our Grievance Officer. We will acknowledge within 24 hours and resolve within 15 days.
Rohan Arora
Grievance Officer, NEXGKET CONSUMERTECH PRIVATE LIMITED
2nd Floor, ALTF MPD Tower MR1, Sector 43, Golf Course Road, DLF City Phase 5, Gurugram, Haryana 122002, India
hello@bestarly.com
16. Governing law
These terms are governed by the laws of India. Any dispute arising out of or in connection with them is subject to the exclusive jurisdiction of the courts at Gurugram, Haryana, India. Nothing here prevents you from bringing a complaint before a consumer forum with jurisdiction where you live.
17. Changes to these terms
We may update these terms as the product develops. The version published on this page is the one that applies. If we make a material change we will update the effective date above, and where the change materially affects your rights we will tell you by email before it takes effect. Continuing to use Starly after that means you accept the change.
18. Contact
Questions about these terms: hello@bestarly.com. Questions about your data: hello@bestarly.com.