TarnUpdated Oct 27, 2026

Terms of Service

These terms are the agreement between you and Evan Richards, a sole proprietor in Washington State who runs Tarn (“we”), for the Tarn iOS app, tarnit.app, and the pages behind the links in request texts (together, “Tarn”). By creating an account or using the app, you agree to them. If you only open a link someone sent you, the sections on recipient pages, paying, acceptable use, and the disclaimers through disputes apply to that use. Read these terms with the Privacy Policy, which says what Tarn holds and why.

1. Who may use Tarn

You must be 17 or older to create an account, and you confirm that you are when you sign in. Tarn works in US dollars. Running a split needs an account with a phone number; opening a page someone sent you needs nothing.

2. What Tarn does

Tarn reads a receipt, lets the person who paid assign its lines to the people who shared it, computes each person’s share, and prepares a text for each of them with the amount and a link to a page showing their lines. Payment happens on Venmo, Cash App, PayPal or in cash, outside Tarn. Tarn never moves money, holds money, or processes payments.

Splitting a bill and sending requests are free and unlimited. If we ever offer paid features, we will describe them clearly when we do.

3. The TestFlight beta

While Tarn is distributed through TestFlight, this section also applies:

  • Tarn is pre-release software.It may change, break, or lose data without notice, and builds expire on Apple’s schedule.
  • Beta data may be reset. Accounts, splits and requests made during the beta may be reset or deleted before the App Store release. Do not rely on Tarn as your only record of who owes what.
  • Apple’s TestFlight terms also apply to your use of the beta. The crash logs and feedback you choose to send through TestFlight reach us through Apple.
  • We may end the beta, or your access to it, at any time.

4. Your account

You sign in with your phone number and a one-time code. You are responsible for keeping control of that number and for everything done under your account. Use your own name, or a name the people you split with know you by. One phone number holds one account. Tell us at support@tarnit.app if you think someone else is using your account.

5. Running a split

If you are the splitter, you are the person asking for money, and Tarn works for you:

  • You confirm the numbers. Tarn reads the receipt as best it can and checks it against the total you type; the total you type always wins. Review the lines and fix what is wrong before you finalize. Corrections are yours and are kept as a record.
  • Tarn’s math is fixed and checkable.Each person pays for the lines assigned to them. Anything nobody claimed is shared by the people on the split by the weight you gave each of them (a full share, a half share, or items only), leaving out anyone you marked as not having had a line or as having left before it. Tax, tip, fees and discounts are spread in proportion to each person’s subtotal. Check the result against the receipt yourself.
  • Add only people who shared the bill, under names they would recognize. Adding a person by phone number stores a keyed hash of that number, as the Privacy Policy describes, and never the number.
  • You send the texts.Requests leave from your phone and your number, through your Messages app, at your carrier’s rates. Tarn sends nothing. Send a request only to a person who shared the bill with you and would expect to hear from you.
  • Each link is a view of one person’s page.Whoever holds a link can open its page. Send each person only their own link. A group link opens a page of names from which anyone holding it can open each person’s page; send it only to a thread where everyone shared the bill.
  • Requests are yours, not ours. A request states what you say someone owes you. Tarn does not verify it, collect it, or take sides in a disagreement about it.
  • You mark payments. Tarn never sees whether anyone paid. You record a request as paid, or as settled in cash, yourself.
  • Sending or settling locks the split. You can reopen and change a finalized split until the first request is sent, marked paid, or settled in cash. After that, the amounts stand; a correction is a new split.
  • Nothing happens on its own. A split stays open until you finalize or discard it. Nothing finalizes, sends or discards itself.

6. Pages behind the links

If you received a link in a text:

  • The page shows your share of one bill: your lines, your total and how it was computed, the whole receipt without who had what, and how to pay the splitter. It is read-only and does not change when the splitter marks you paid. Nothing you do on it changes the split, and you need no account. If you arrived through a group link, a page of names comes first; tap yours.
  • The link is yours.Anyone holding it can open your page. Do not forward it, and do not try to guess, probe or collect other people’s links.
  • The report link opens your mail app so you can tell us about a split that should not exist or a person who is misusing Tarn. We read every report.
  • The invitation on the page leads to TestFlight, and later to the App Store. Following it is optional and never changes your page.

7. Paying

  • Tarn is not a payment service. It is not a bank, a money transmitter, a payment processor or an escrow agent. Pay links open Venmo, Cash App or PayPal, and what happens there is between you, the other person and that service, under its terms.
  • Usernames are typed by the splitter and checked for format only. Tarn does not confirm that a username belongs to the splitter. Before you pay, check that the name you see on the payment app is the person you expect. Money sent to the wrong account is between you and that service.
  • If a splitter has no payment username, the page tells you to ask them how to pay.
  • Payment disputes are between the people at the table. Tarn records what the splitter marks and nothing more.

8. Acceptable use

You agree not to:

  • Use Tarn for anything unlawful, or to collect debts you are not owed.
  • Harass, threaten or pressure anyone, through a request or otherwise.
  • Add people’s phone numbers to splits they were not part of.
  • Impersonate anyone, or use a name that misleads the people you split with.
  • Try to find out whether a phone number belongs to a Tarn user.
  • Guess, probe, scrape or collect links or pages that were not sent to you.
  • Interfere with Tarn, its servers, or anyone else’s use of it.

9. Your content and the shared record

You own what you enter into Tarn: receipts, names, labels, corrections and claims (“your content”). You give us permission to store, process and show it as needed to run Tarn for you and for the people on your splits, and for nothing else.

A split is a shared record. What you enter about it is shown to the people on it: each person sees their own lines, their share, your name and your pay links. Claims, corrections and request history are kept permanently so that everyone’s numbers keep adding up; they cannot be deleted, only added to. A receipt may carry details about others, such as a merchant or a card’s last four digits; enter only receipts for bills you paid.

10. Blocking, reports and enforcement

If you have an account and are on a finalized split, you can block its splitter. Their splits then stop connecting to your account and disappear from your app, and nothing tells them. Anyone can report a page through its report link. We may lock or close an account that breaks these terms, and we may refuse service to anyone. None of this changes what people owe each other.

11. Deleting your account

You can delete your account from the app once every split you started is finalized or discarded. Your name, phone number, payment usernames and blocks are deleted, and your account with our sign-in provider is deleted. The splits you started stay in our records with your name removed and your claims kept as a nameless guest so the math holds, and the pages behind the links you sent stop working. On splits other people started, the name the splitter gave you and the key made from your number stay with their split; only the connection to your account is removed. Deleting your account does not settle anything: money owed when you delete stays owed between you and the other people, outside Tarn.

12. Intellectual property

Tarn, its name and its software are ours and protected by law. These terms give you no rights in them beyond using Tarn as described here.

13. Disclaimers

TARN IS PROVIDED “AS IS” AND “AS AVAILABLE,” WITHOUT WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE AND NON-INFRINGEMENT. A RECEIPT MAY BE MISREAD, AND A SHARE OR REQUEST MAY BE WRONG; THE SPLITTER CONFIRMS THE NUMBERS AND EVERYONE CHECKS THEIR OWN. WE DO NOT WARRANT THAT TARN WILL BE UNINTERRUPTED OR ERROR-FREE, AND WE ARE NOT RESPONSIBLE FOR WHETHER ANY PAYMENT IS MADE, MADE TO THE RIGHT PERSON, OR MADE FOR THE RIGHT AMOUNT.

14. Limitation of liability

TO THE FULLEST EXTENT THE LAW ALLOWS, WE ARE NOT LIABLE FOR ANY INDIRECT, INCIDENTAL, SPECIAL, CONSEQUENTIAL OR PUNITIVE DAMAGES, OR FOR ANY LOSS OF MONEY, GOODWILL OR DATA, ARISING FROM YOUR USE OF TARN, INCLUDING ANY DISAGREEMENT BETWEEN PEOPLE ABOUT A BILL OR A PAYMENT. OUR TOTAL LIABILITY FOR ANY CLAIM RELATING TO TARN OR THESE TERMS WILL NOT EXCEED THE GREATER OF THE AMOUNT YOU PAID US IN THE 12 MONTHS BEFORE THE CLAIM AROSE AND FIFTY US DOLLARS ($50). Some jurisdictions do not allow some of these limits, so some may not apply to you.

15. Indemnification

You will defend and hold us harmless from claims, losses and expenses (including reasonable attorneys’ fees) that arise from your content, your requests, or your breach of these terms.

16. Disputes

If you have a problem with Tarn, email support@tarnit.app first; we will try to resolve it with you within 30 days. If we cannot, you and we agree to resolve any dispute arising out of or relating to these terms or Tarn through binding, individual arbitration administered by the American Arbitration Association under its Consumer Arbitration Rules, rather than in court, except that either of us may bring an individual claim in small claims court.

YOU AND WE EACH WAIVE THE RIGHT TO A JURY TRIAL AND THE RIGHT TO TAKE PART IN A CLASS ACTION. Arbitration is conducted on an individual basis, and claims may not be brought as a plaintiff or class member in any class or representative proceeding.

17. Governing law

These terms are governed by the laws of the State of Washington, without regard to its conflict-of-law rules.

18. Changes

When these terms change, we update the date at the top and, for a change that matters, say so in the app or on this site. Using Tarn after a change takes effect means you accept it.

19. Contact

Evan Richards, Washington, United States. Questions about these terms: support@tarnit.app.